Soul survivor: How Bobby Womack overcame heart failure, drug addiction and even apparent Alzheimer’s

Bobby Womack, son of a preacher man, started out singing with his brothers as a gospel five-piece. An impressed Sam Cooke took them under his wing. When Womack was 16, the so-called King of Soul signed them to his label. They moved from gospel to pop, incurring the wrath of their father – he kicked out the brothers, and they relocated to LA, under the care of Cooke.

The Womack Brothers changed their name to the Valentinos, and early on in their relationship, Cooke proved his managerial mettle. He advised the young Bobby of the financial benefits of allowing another act to release a song he’d co-written with his sister-in-law, even though Womack – a product of an America that was still very much racially segregated – considered this no more than “white guys coming in from another country singing our record”.

The record was “It’s All Over Now”, the white guys were the Rolling Stones, the year was 1964. It gave the British band their first Number One, and it was the start of a great friendship. Over the course of our interview, Womack mentions Mick Jagger: “You can’t compare him with Sam. But in a way you can – cos he has the same feelings and a much bigger audience.” He mentions Keith Richards: “He said his mother turned him on to gospel music. I said, ‘Boy, you were lucky.’ Because back then it wasn’t about the music, it was about white and black. And it was terrible.” And he mentions Brian Jones: “I never met Brian, but he was crazy. Who wants to be famous that bad?”

But to many of his peers, Womack didn’t do right by his mentor. After Cooke was shot dead in 1964, Womack, then aged 20, married his widow Barbara. He describes the period as, “the toughest time of my life. But my whole idea was, I never knew her, I only knew her as Mrs Cooke, but I thought, boy if something happened to me like that, I wish somebody would step in my position and take care of my family like that. But for my business and my heart it was the worst thing that I ever – ever – came in contact with. I lived with it most of my life.”

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