Soul Man Revived: Bobby Womack’s The Bravest Man in the Universe

Soul Man Revived:  Bobby Womack’s The Bravest Man in the Universe by Mark Anthony Neal | Ebony.com
“As a singer grows older, his conception goes a little bit deeper, because he lives life and he understands what he is trying to say a little more”—Smokey Robinson
The above quote from William “Smokey” Robinson, a fifty-plus year veteran of the music industry, could have been directed at any number of his still contemporaries, such as Al Green or Ronald Isley.  Green’s psychic and spiritual conversion over a pot of grits (and a suicide) and Isley’s recent tax conviction are well known to the public.  Bobby Womack’s story is less well- known, thus it is fitting that Robinson’s quote is heard on Womack’s new recording The Bravest Man in the Universe—his first studio recording in twelve years.
For the uninitiated, Bobby Womack was born in Cleveland, OH  in 1944, and first came to prominence as a teen recording with his brothers as The Valentino’s.  The group caught the attention of Soul legend Sam Cooke, who managed and mentored the group, and encouraged Womack to allow The Rolling Stones to record his song, “It’s All Over Now,” which became the group’s first number one record in the UK.  
Cooke and Womack developed a particularly close friendship, which is perhaps why Womack, thought it was logical to marry Cooke’s widow, Barbara Campbell, only months after the singer’s murder in December of 1964. The couple only waited that long, because Womack was still too young to get married without a parent’s permission. Womack publicly hints at the relationship on his 1985 track “I Wish He Didn’t Trust Me So Much,” which is about a man who falls in love with his best friend’s wife.
Womack and Campbell shared a tumultuous relationship for five years, including an affair with Campbell’s daughter Linda (his step-daughter), that Womack documents in his memoir Midnight Mover: The True Story of the Greatest Soul Singer in the World. The relationship ended when Campbell shot Womack. Womack’s only son with Campbell, committed suicide in the mid-1980s, an infant son he had with his second wife died a crib death, and a third son is incarcerated for second-degree murder.  Add to the mix, his struggles with drug addition, and his recent bout with a benign tumor in his colon and pneumonia, and Bobby Womack’s life seems like a reality show in the making.
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