Bobby Womack

The thing is, Womack uses the background singers as though they re an instrumental and he is singing over them, around them, in the holes they leave: instead of singing directly to the beat (rap was still in its nascent state), he is singing on the room left by back up singers.

He married Sam Cooke’s widow, who was 8 years his senior, just three months after Cooke was killed; the marriage broke up after Womack’s wife shot him after finding him in bed with her daughter. She winged him; the marriage was DOA. So Womack seemed indestructible. He was too tough, too talented, too damn crazy to do something as mundane as expire. But die he did.

I was talking to Tomas Doncker yesterday and telling him how healthy Womack looked last December at City Winery. Then I reread my review of the best show of 2013 and realized he looked like hell. All I remembered was the good stuff and with Womack there was plenty. Here is my review