Walker's Wheelhouse

Blog of writer and comedian Sarah Walker. This is her Wheelhouse.

Bobby Womack: Not A Cool Friend.

I had no idea about this. Just jaw-droppingly (new term) crazy. This is from the first two paragraphs of Pitchfork’s review of Bobby Womack’s new album:

“As a singer grows older,” starts a charming cut of sampled dialog on Bobby Womack’s first album of original material in 18 years, “his conception grows a little deeper because he lives life and he understands what he’s trying to say a little more.” The voice belongs to Womack’s mentor and friend, Sam Cooke, who spoke those words of wisdom in 1963, when he was 32 years old. Cooke was murdered a year later when, acting in self-defense, a Santa Barbara hotel manager sent a bullet through both of his lungs and his heart. A few days after his idol’s funeral, Womack began a scandalous relationship with Cooke’s widow, and the two married just a few months later. Bobby was soon seen wearing Sam’s clothes. 

As all of his classic-soul peers passed on over the last 50 years, often due to bizarre or dramatic circumstances, Womack endured. It’s not that he’s led a cautious lifestyle; after Cooke’s widow found Bobby sleeping with Sam’s daughter, she shot at him, and barely missed; 

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