It's All Over Now

[Come along, Min]

Bobby Womack dead

From my favourite LP of his

So Many Sides Of You

[Vicarious Thrillseeker]

It's All Over Now

Fucking hell.

[Various Artist]

It's All Over Now

Damn, he'd had such a renaissance in the last few years as well. at least partly thanks to his work with Gorillaz/Damon Albarn. According to that article he was in the process of recording a new album too.

I never knew the Womack brothers first recorded It's All Over Now, either.

[Amor de Cosmos]

It's All Over Now

Oh bugger.

Just bugger.

RIP Mr Soul Man

[Tramp The Dirt Down]

It's All Over Now

The Poet albums were two of my favourite albums of the 1980's - sad news indeed

[Sits]

It's All Over Now

That's a pisser.

[G-Man]

It's All Over Now

Womack was a fantastic all-rounder. He was, obviously, a wonderful singer and interpreter of songs (check out his take on Fly Me To The Moon), a fine songwriter and a very good session man on guitar.

It was in the latter capacity that he made a living, especially at Muscle Shoals, when he was ostracised following his marriage to Sam Cooke's widow. He played on stuff like Elvis' "Suspicious Minds", The Box Tops' "The Letter", on Dusty in Memphis and on loads of Aretha Franklin and Wilson Picket tracks.

R.I.P., The Preacher.

[Come along, Min]

It's All Over Now

G-Man. I was wondering what you thought about The Poet actually.

For an LP from 1980, it sounds quite advanced. Almost like a sign of what was to come for the rest of the decade. In terms of it's sound. That smooth, lush production.

Listening back to a lot of his older stuff, the quality is outstanding. His songwriting really was top drawer. At it's best, comparable to any his peers, during the golden age of soul too.

[johnr]

It's All Over Now

A blow. I never tire of listening to the guitar work on side 2 of Poet 1, subtle and dexterous genius; and his vocals on 'So you think you're lonely now' make me cry every time. Maybe more so now.

[G-Man]

It's All Over Now

Luke R wrote: G-Man. I was wondering what you thought about The Poet actually.

For an LP from 1980, it sounds quite advanced. Almost like a sign of what was to come for the rest of the decade. In terms of it's sound. That smooth, lush production.

To me it's a bridge between the 1970s and the 1980s, with some deep soul throwbacks ("Games".

There's some stuff that might as well have been sung by Teddy Pendergrass -- who set the template for the '80s soul balladeer, and whom I rate very highly, Theophilus P Wildebeest parodies notwithstanding. "Lay Your Love On Me" just needs strings to be a Philly song, and "If You Think You're Lonely Now" even has TP-style talking.

But the opener, "So Many Sides Of You", has a 1986 feel, something like "Happy" by Surface. "Stand Up", a song I don't like, anticipates the worst of upbeat '80s soul (rock guitar, synth).

The CD version (from 1999) has two great bonus tracks, acoustic versions of "Games" and "Secrets". The latter is a song that doesn't excite me much at all in its original form. Just with Womack and his guitar, it's a much better song than the arrangement of the LP version, with its dated sound and intrusive backing vocals, might suggest.

Whereas the acoustic version of "Games", which I like a lot, is not improved by the absence of the lush arrangement.

[Sundeporino]

It's All Over Now

RIP indeed.

I never knew about the session muso side of him. Please tell us more Gman if you can.

"its All Over Now" is still one of my Stones top ten and thats where I first heard of him. "The Poet" album was voted album of the year in the NME back in the days of it being more of a white guitar band mag. That tempted me into buying iy, Im glad I did. "The Poet II" wasnt as good but still ahd its moments.
My one gripe with him is his talking bits over the start on live footage. Its not easy to convert a non-believer when the first thing they hear/see is a cliched soul man/lover man intro.

RIP

[Vicarious Thrillseeker]

It's All Over Now

Death of the last great soul man.

Bobby Womack top 5 (as if you can choose):

If you think you're lonely now
Daylight
It's all over now
If you don't want my love
Please forgive my heart

I even like his country album.

[G-Man]

It's All Over Now

The session work became a necessity after Womack was ostracised (and seriously assaulted) for marrying Sam Cooke's widow. Suddenly nobody wanted to record his music anymore. So Womack began to write for others (such as "Midnight Mover", "I'm In Love" and many others for Wilson Pickett, "Breezin'" with Gabor Szabó, which George Benson had a hit with),and to play sessions.

I think it was through his contact with Pickett that Womack got to Muscle Shoals, where he played on loads of Aretha Franklin records.

He also played on Sly & the Family Stones' There's A Riot Going On album, alongside Ike Turner (the wah-wah guitar bits are his).

He played on Rita Coolige's "Crazy Love", some Janis Joplin tracks on Pearl, stuff like that, and continued to play and/or produce and arrange through the '70s and '80s, for acts like Johnny Nash and Loleatta Holloway.

From the '80s, I like his two great collaborations with Wilton Felder of The Crusaders a lot, "Inherit The Wind" and "No Matter His High I Get", on which he duets with Patti LaBelle.

[Sundeporino]

It's All Over Now

Why was he ostracised though? Marrying a widow doesnt seem any sort of reason at all to me. Was there possibly more to it?

[Borracho]

It's All Over Now

He might not have been ostracised if he had waited longer than three months after Cooke's death to do it.

A decade later he began shagging his step-daughter, while still married to her mother. He was a bit of a bollocks, old Bobby.

[G-Man]

It's All Over Now

Quite. The guy was not a saint.

Sam Cooke's family (and his widow Barbara's) saw Bobby marrying Barbara as a betrayal of Cooke, who had been Bobby's mentor and very close friend. And it wasn't just that he married her three months after Cooke's death, but that he started dating her within days after the killing of Cooke. Cooke's brothers beat the shit out of him for that, leaving him unconscious. One can see their point of view.

Womack always claimed that he married Barbara because he felt protective over her, rather than because he had had his designs on her already while Sam was still alive. The rest of the music community saw his marriage as an insult to the "martyred" Cooke.

And the thing with the step-daughter, Linda, was bizarre as well. Barbara found them in bed together, and she shot Bobby in the temple. The daughter went on to marry Bobby's brother Cecil, and the two had a fin career as Womack & Womack.

I think it's fair to say that Bobby Womack's life was more eventful than edifying.

[Sundeporino]

It's All Over Now

Theres my eyes opened!