Honest, insightful, and unflinching, this is the authentic voice of the Midnight Mover, a hard-working and prolific legend in the music business who stood shoulder to shoulder with Ray Charles, James Brown, and Marvin Gaye as a true giant of soul, R&B, and blues music Bobby Womack was a true legend, a phenomenally gifted musician with 40 albums and 30 million record sales to his name. The success of his songs helped him to escape the ghetto and become a star, but battles with the record industry and hard drugs almost wiped him out. From his poor childhood growing up in Cleveland and his early forays into music with his four brothers in the 1950s, Womack tells how he found success with his family gospel group The Valentinos. He describes his act being whipped into shape by James Brown, life on the "chitlin’ circuit" with Jimi Hendrix, being on the road with the likes of Sam Cooke and Wilson Pickett, and recording in the studio with Eric Clapton and Elvis Presley. But success came at a price. His personal life was never far from heartache and pain. Womack lost his friend and mentor Sam Cooke when the soul star was gunned down in a motel. He incurred the wrath of many when, at the age of just 21, he married Cooke’s widow Barbara. His escape from the criticism was to turn to drugs and his friend Sly Stone, leading him to spend years as one of biggest party animals in Los Angeles. The years of riotous abuse took its toll on Womack and those closest to him, including Janis Joplin, who spent her last night drinking with the singer. His marriage to Barbara broke up, his brother Harry was brutally murdered, and he lost two sons. But Womack’s talent, searing guitar, and soulful voice always shone through. Womack is cited as an influence by myriad musicians, and remains the epitome of cool. Bobby Womack (1944–2014) and his four brothers had a childhood band which became The Valentinos in the early 1960s, one of the most successful gospel groups of all time. As a solo act Womack went on to sell 30 million records, penned the classics "Midnight Mover" and "Across 110th Street" and worked with such all-time greats as Elvis Presley, James Brown, Jimi Hendrix, Ray Charles, The Rolling Stones, Sam Cooke, and Sly Stone. Robert Ashton is the author of three books, The First Rock’n’Roll Bodyguard , Heroin , and Waking Up . He has also written for numerous magazines and newspapers including Elle , the Independent , the Guardian , GQ , and the Sunday Times . Bobby Womack My Story 1944–2014 By Bobby Womack, Robert Ashton John Blake Publishing Ltd Copyright © 2014 Bobby Womack All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-78219-984-7 Contents Title Page, Acknowledgements, Bobby Womack (1944–2014): Tributes, Prologue: Jealous Love, 1: The Facts Of Life, 2: A Change Is Gonna Come, 3: California Dreamin', 4: Across 110th Street, 5: All Along The Watchtower, 6: Somebody Special, 7: It's All Over Now, 8: Woman's Gotta Have It, 9: Crying Time, 10: Fly Me To The Moon, 11: More Than I Can Stand, 12: Fire And Rain, 13: There's A Riot Goin' On, 14: Hang On In There, 15: The Poet, 16: Harlem Shuffle, 17: Where Do We Go From Here, Chronology, Discography, Discography 2010–2014, Plates, Copyright, CHAPTER 1 THE FACTS OF LIFE I was born in a ghetto. This particular ghetto was in Cleveland, Ohio. The neighbourhood was so ghetto that we didn't bother the rats and they didn't bother us. They walked past and hollered, 'How you doin', man?' Everybody had to survive. You could hear babies crying all the damn time and I was constantly scalping myself trying to scratch out those damn flies. My mom and pop had come up from the south. My mother, Naomi Reed, was from Bluefield, West Virginia. My old man came from Charleston. His name was Friendly. My father had seven brothers and eight sisters. On my mother's side there were eight brothers and seven sisters. It was a big family. My father and his brothers all sang, called themselves the Womack Brothers. It was real gospel stuff. He and his brothers would go to the little church and meet up with my mom and her sisters down there. Well, you know, someone has got to fall in love with all those pretty girls around. Friendly quit school early, in fact all his brothers did, and around 12 or 13 they all went to work down the coalmines. But they kept up the singing and pretty soon him and Mom were courting. They got married when my mom turned 13 and he was 19. My father predicted that he would have five sons and they were going to sing and he was going to call them the Womack Brothers, just like the group he had with his brothers. And you know? He was right. Every year my mom had a baby boy until she got to five and she used to cry, 'You can have a girl now.' But it didn't happen. The first son they had they called Friendly Junior. We called him Jim because that was how Junior sounded when you said it fast: Junior, Jun, Jim. His other nickname was Stony Broo