When I asked Albarn later about this seeming loss of memory, he shrugged. “That’s the way it is with Bobby. And I think it’s important to show that that’s the way it is. Not to try to gloss over the fact that he needs to read the lyrics. For me, his voice is so sublime that I feel that, whatever process we need to go through to get it out, is fine.”
Before stage time, I’d enquired as to whether Womack might consider doing a whole album with the endlessly energetic Brit musician who had rescued him from quasi-retirement. “Oh, we gonna do a whole lot!” beamed the legend behind the soundtrack to 1972 crime drama Across 110th Street (“I wrote that in three weeks”) and the classic albums The Poet and The Poet 2; the singer, songwriter and guitarist who wrote for or played with the Stones, Sly Stone, Janis Joplin, Dusty Springfield, Jimi Hendrix, Elvis Presley, Marvin Gaye and many more besides. “There’s a lot to be done. It’s like a baby being born for me. There’s nothing going into it but positiveness.”
Almost exactly three years later, I meet Bobby Womack once more. Again, I enter a room to find him sitting smiling in splendid isolation in an easy chair. Again, the sunglasses and hat. The location this time is a large hotel in Kensington, London. His brother Cecil, of Womack & Womack fame, died the previous month, but the seemingly indefatigable Bobby agreed to carry on with his promotional commitments. So it was with a previous UK interview – he conducted that one from his hospital bed.