Bobby Womack

Bobby Womack美国著名音乐家、歌手兼词曲作者，60年代早期活跃在唱片界的艺术家，他最初在家族乐队The Valentinos中担任主唱，Sam Cooke乐队吉他手，他一生职业生涯横跨40年，且他的音乐风格横跨R&B、灵魂乐、摇滚、Doo-Wop、福音歌、乡村音乐、放克等。
 
Bobby Womack，生于1944年3月4日，美国著名音乐家、歌手兼词曲作者，60年代早期活跃在唱片界的艺术家，他最初在家族乐队The Valentinos中担任主唱，Sam Cooke乐队吉他手，他一生职业生涯横跨40年，且他的音乐风格横跨R&B、灵魂乐、摇滚、Doo-Wop、福音歌、乡村音乐、放克等等。作为歌曲作者，他的多首作品占据《滚石》杂志英国榜单榜首，比如&It's All Over Now& and New Birth's &I Can Understand It&等等。作为歌手，他的热门歌曲有&Lookin' For a Love&,&That's The Way I Feel About Cha&,&Woman's Gotta Have It&,&Harry Hippie&和80年代的&If You Think You're Lonely Now&。
 
北京时间2012年10月23日消息，据国外媒体报道，2012年英国Q杂志音乐奖当地时间周一揭晓，在最重要的“年度最佳专辑奖”的竞争中，美国老牌灵魂乐歌手鲍比-沃玛克（Bobby Womack）击败了保罗-维勒（Paul Weller）和The Maccabees等音乐人而获奖。
 
沃玛克的获奖专辑《The Bravest Man in the Universe》是他自1994年的《Resurrection》之后第一张原创个人专辑，污点乐队（Blur）的核心人物达蒙-阿尔巴恩（Damon Albarn）也参与了这张唱片的制作。2010年，鲍比-沃马克是被达蒙-阿尔巴恩鼓励重新回归乐坛的，当时，他参与了达蒙个人乐队街头霸王（Gorillaz）的唱片《Plastic Beach》的制作。在2012年早些时候，沃玛克确诊患上了结肠癌。2014年6月27日，沃玛克去世。
 
A veteran who paid his dues for over a decade before getting his shot at solo stardom, Bobby Womack persevered through tragedy and addiction to emerge as one of soul musics great survivors. Able to shine in the spotlight as a singer or behind the scenes as an instrumentalist and songwriter, Womack never got his due from pop audiences, but during the late 60s and much of the 70s, he was a consistent hitmaker on the R&B charts, with a high standard of quality control. His records were quintessential soul, with a bag of tricks learned from the likes of Sam Cooke, Wilson Pickett, and Sly Stone, all of whom Womack worked closely with at one time or another. Yet often, they also bore the stamp of Womacks own idiosyncratic personality, whether through a lengthy spoken philosophical monologue or a radical reinterpretation of a pop standard. An underrated guitarist, Womack helped pioneer a lean, minimalist approach similar to that of Curtis Mayfield, and was an early influence on the young Jimi Hendrix. Additionally, his songs have been recorded by numerous artists in the realms of both R&B and rock, and the best of them rank as all-time classics.
 
Bobby Dwayne Womack was born in Cleveland on March 4, 1944. His upbringing was strict and religious, but his father Friendly also encouraged his sons to pursue music as he had (he sang and played guitar in a gospel group). In the early 50s, while still a child, Bobby joined his siblings Cecil, Curtis, Harry, and Friendly Jr. to form the gospel quintet the Womack Brothers. They were chosen to open a local show for the Soul Stirrers in 1953, where Bobby befriended lead singer Sam Cooke; following this break, they toured the country as an opening act for numerous gospel groups. When Cooke formed his own SAR label, he recruited the Womack Brothers with an eye towards transforming them into a crossover R&B act. Learning that his sons were moving into secular music, Friendly Womack threw them out of the house, and Cooke wired them the money to buy a car and drive out to his Los Angeles offices. The Womack Brothers made several recordings for SAR over 1960 and 1961, including a few gospel sides, but Cooke soon convinced them to record R&B and renamed them the Valentinos. In 1962, they scored a Top Ten hit on the R&B charts with Lookin for a Love, and Cooke sent them on the road behind James Brown to serve a boot-camp-style musical apprenticeship. Bobby eventually joined Cookes backing band as guitarist. The Valentinos 1964 single Its All Over Now, written by Bobby, was quickly covered by the Rolling Stones with Cookes blessing; when it became the Stones first U.K. number one, Womack suddenly found himself a rich man.
 
Cookes tragic death in December 1964 left Womack greatly shaken and the Valentinos career in limbo. Just three months later, Womack married Cookes widow, Barbara Campbell, which earned him tremendous ill will in the R&B community; many viewed him as a shady opportunist looking to cash in on Cookes legacy, especially since Campbell was significantly older than Womack. According to Womack, he was initially motivated to look after Campbell in an unstable time, not to tarnish the memory of a beloved mentor. Regardless, Womack found himself unable to get his solo career rolling in the wake of the scandal; singles for Chess (I Found a True Love) and Him (Nothing You Can Do) were avoided like the plague despite their quality. The Valentinos cut a couple of singles for Chess in 1966, What About Me and Sweeter Than the Day Before, which also failed to make much of a splash. To make ends meet, Womack became a backing guitarist, first landing a job with Ray Charles; he went on to make a valuable connection in producer Chips Moman, and appeared often at Momans American Studio in Memphis, as well as nearby Muscle Shoals, AL. In the process, Womack appeared on classic recordings by the likes of Joe Tex, King Curtis, and Aretha Franklin (Lady Soul), among others. He recorded singles for Keymen and Atlantic without success, but became one of Wilson Picketts favorite songwriters, contributing the R&B Top Ten hits Im in Love and Im a Midnight Mover (plus 15 other tunes) to the singers repertoire.
 
Womack had been slated to record a solo album for Minit, but had given Pickett most of his best material, which actually wound up getting his name back in the public eye in a positive light. In 1968, he scored the first charting single of his solo career with What Is This? and soon hit with a string of inventively reimagined pop covers — Fly Me to the Moon, California Dreamin, and I Left My Heart in San Francisco, the former two of which reached the R&B Top 20. A songwriting partnership with engineer Darryl Carter resulted in the R&B hits Its Gonna Rain, How I Miss You Baby, and More Than I Can Stand over 1969-1970. A series of label absorptions bumped Womack up to United Artists in 1971, which proved to be the home of his greatest solo success; in the meantime, he contributed the ballad Trust Me to Janis Joplins masterpiece Pearl, and the J. Geils Band revived Lookin for a Love for their first hit. He also teamed up with jazz guitarist Gabor Szabo on the LP High Contrast, which debuted Womacks composition Breezin (which, of course, became a smash for George Benson six years later). Most importantly, however, Womack played guitar on Sly & the Family Stones Theres a Riot Goin On, a masterpiece of darkly psychedelic funk that would have an impact on Womacks own sound and sense of style.
 
Womack issued his first UA album, Communication, in 1971, which kicked off a string of excellent releases that ran through the first half of the decade. In addition to several of Womacks trademark pop covers, the album also contained the original ballad Thats the Way I Feel About Cha, which climbed all the way to number two on the R&B chart and became his long-awaited breakout hit. The 1972 follow-up Understanding spawned Womacks first chart-topper, Womans Gotta Have It, co-written with Darryl Carter and stepdaughter Linda (Womack divorced Barbara Campbell in 1970). The follow-up Harry Hippie, a gently ironic tribute to Womacks brother, also hit the R&B Top Ten. Later that year, Womack scored the blaxploitation flick Across 110th Street; the title cut was later revived in the 1998 Quentin Tarantino film Jackie Brown. 1973s The Facts of Life had an R&B number two hit in a rearrangement of the perennial Nobody Knows You When Youre Down and Out, and the following years Lookin for a Love Again found Womack revisiting his Valentinos hit; the re-recorded Lookin for a Love became his second number one R&B single and his only Top Ten hit on the pop charts. Follow-up single Youre Welcome, Stop On By made the R&B Top Five.
 
Womack was by this time a seasoned veteran of the rock & roll lifestyle, having befriended the likes of the Rolling Stones, the late Janis Joplin, and Sly Stone. After his brother Harry was murdered by a jealous girlfriend in 1974 (in Bobbys own apartment), the drug usage began to take a more serious turn. Womack scored further R&B Top Ten hits with 1975s Check It Out and 1976s Daylight, the latter of which seemed to indicate a longing for escape from the non-stop partying that often masked serious depression. Despite Womacks new marriage to Regina Banks, the song was a sign that things were coming to a head. Womack pushed UA into letting him do a full album of country music, something hed always loved but which the label regarded as commercially inadvisable (especially under the title Womack reportedly wanted to use: Step Aside, Charley Pride, Give Another Nigger a Try). They eventually relented, and when BW Goes C&W met with predictably minimal response, UA palmed the increasingly difficult Womack off on Columbia. A pair of albums there failed to recapture his commercial momentum or reinvent him for the disco age, and he moved to Arista for 1979s Roads of Life, which appeared not long after the sudden death of his infant son.
 
At a low point in his life, Womack took a bit of time off from music to gather himself. He appeared as a guest vocalist on Jazz Crusader Wilton Felders 1980 solo album Inherit the Wind, singing the hit title track, and subsequently signed with black entrepreneur Otis Smiths independent Beverly Glen label. His label debut, 1981s The Poet, was a critically acclaimed left-field hit, rejuvenating his career and producing a number three R&B hit with If You Think Youre Lonely Now. Unfortunately, money disputes soured the relationship between Womack and Smith rather quickly. The Poet II was delayed until 1984, and featured several duets with Patti LaBelle, including another number three R&B hit, Love Has Finally Come at Last. Beverly Glen released a final LP culled from Womacks previous sessions, Someday Well All Be Free, in 1985, by which time the singer had already broken free and signed with MCA. Another hit with Wilton Felder, (No Matter How High I Get) Ill Still Be Looking Up to You, appeared that year, and his label debut So Many Rivers produced a Top Five R&B hit in I Wish He Didnt Trust Me So Much. 1986s Womagic reunited Womack with Chips Moman, and he also backed the Rolling Stones on their remake of Harlem Shuffle. By the following year hed christened himself The Last Soul Man, which proved to be his final recording for MCA.
 
In the years since, Womack has made high-profile returns to the music business only sporadically. 1994s Resurrection was recorded for Ron Woods Slide label and featured an array of guest stars including Wood, Keith Richards, Rod Stewart, and Stevie Wonder. In 1999, he fulfilled a long-standing promise to his father (who passed away in 1981) by delivering his first-ever gospel album, Back to My Roots.