Bobby Womack 1944-2014

By and large, I love the same Bobby Womack songs as everybody else: “Across 110th Street”, of course, and “I Can Understand It”, “That’s the Way I Feel About Cha”, “Woman’s Gotta Have It”, “I’m in Love”, “(You’re Welcome) Stop on By”, “If You Think You’re Lonely Now”, “Secrets”, “Surprise, Surprise” and so on. But there’s also a kind of secret favourite: a song called “Cousin Henry”, from an album titled Resurrection.

It’s one of those soul songs written in the aftermath of the Vietnam war. Like Curtis Mayfield’s epic “Back to the World”, it opens and closes with the ambient sound of the battlefield, as if the listener is being dragged into a recurring nightmare. It tells the story of a veteran who, on his return home, finds no honour or solace: an individual life twisted and destroyed by history. Womack’s sandpaper baritone is at its most affecting, echoed by Stevie Wonder’s typically melodic harmonica solo. An uncredited banjo frails away in the background, rooting the story in the memory of a different and more innocent world, contrasting with the martial chorus of “Hup-two-three-four” punctuating the verses.

Maybe you know it. If you don’t, it’s here. When I think of Bobby Womack, it’s what runs through my head.

* The portrait of Bobby Womack is from the insert to Resurrection, which was released in 1994 on the Continuum label. The photographer is not credited.