Rear-view mirror: Bobby Womack, reluctant star

Each week on Rear-view Mirror, Rich Terfry and the Radio 2 Drive team look back at a great R&B/soul song from the good ol’ days. Bobby Womack has been on our minds lately, both because of his new album set for a June 11th release, and because of a recent health scare. With Womack in the news, we thought we'd take a look at the rise of the R&B/soul star.

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So many talented musicians never find a break and are doomed to obscurity. Bobby Womack had the opposite problem. He couldn’t get away from the musical spotlight, even when he tried.

Womack’s father was a man named Friendly, and he was a gospel singer. Taking after his old man, Womack and his brothers formed a gospel quintet named, appropriately enough, the Womack Brothers. One night, as fate would have it, the group was spotted and heard by legendary soul singer Sam Cooke, who was blown away, and offered them a contract on his label SAR Records on the spot.

Cooke encouraged them to try their hand at secular music and the outfit’s name was changed to the Valentinos. They had a few hits, including one young Womack wrote called “It’s All Over Now.” Shortly afterward, a new young band from the U.K. scored their first hit with a cover of that song, and that band was the Rolling Stones.

Cooke passed away in December of 1964 and, having taken the Valentinos under his wing, the band’s career dwindled. They soon broke up and when Womack struggled to make headway in the business on his own, he retreated into the shadows and sought work as a session musician and songwriter.

He did quite well, to say the least. He wrote songs for Wilson Pickett and Janis Joplin and played on classic recordings by Sly and the Family Stone and Aretha Franklin. After applying his golden touch to several hit songs, Womack was pulled from the shadows and into the spotlight again in the early ’70s, close to 10 years after the death of his mentor, Cooke, and the demise of the Valentinos.

After signing a new record deal and scoring a few hits under his own name, Hollywood came calling. Womack was tapped to create the soundtrack to the critically acclaimed 1973 film Across 110th Street. The title track became one of his signature hits.

These days, Womack still has a hard time escaping the spotlight. His music has been used in recent blockbuster films, TV commercials and video games. In December 2010, he became a member of Daman Albarn’s supergroup the Gorillaz, and joined them on their world tour.

Here’s some signature Womack, the classic “Across 110th Street.”