365 Days of Song Recommendations: Oct 26

Bobby Womack — Across 110th Street

It’s a groove thing.

How many songs have that backing instrumental that’s so groovy — so goddamn funky — that when you hear that track, it becomes the soundtrack for the rest of your day?

Now I’m not just talking about earworms. Those are cheats, chemical highs produced in test-tubes and perfected by computer algorithms. Their DNA has been altered to join with our own and leech our brains of intelligence and feed on our creative juices.

Nah. I’m writing to you today to talk about the organic, 100% pure, uncut, unadulterated all-natural high that comes from listening to Bobby Womack’s “Across 110th Street.”

Obligatory backstory — because you need to learn something every day. Abraham Lincoln had a famous quote about that.

Born and raised in Cleveland, Bobby Womack was the middle of five brothers, born after Friendly, Jr. and Curtis, but before Harry and Cecil. They were so poor they fished pig snouts out of the supermarket’s garbage cans. The kids were not to touch Friendly, Sr.’s guitar because they couldn’t afford to fix it. One night Bobby broke a string and replaced it with his shoelace. When Friendly, Sr. noted the missing shoelace on Bobby’s shoe, in lieu of a “whipping” he taught him to play the guitar.

A few takeaways here — it’s probably a sign of my insufferable middle-class whiteness, but I’m not sure how to reconstitute pig snouts. Google to the rescue.

Also, I hope that Friendly, Jr. had a Friendly the third, so he could be called très Friendly. Unfortunately, Wikipedia doesn’t have a page for Friendly Womack, Jr. even though he played in both Womack family bands — The Womack Brothers and The Valentinos, so I can’t easily verify the existence, or lack thereof, of another Friendly Womack.

In those gospel-inspired family bands, Curtis sang lead and Bobby occasionally joined him, juxtaposing his gruff baritone with Curtis’ smooth tenor. Bobby often imitated preachers, which lent the young Womack his nickname — Preacher. Sam Cooke, then the lead singer for the Soul Stirrers, brought the Womacks along on tour and helped procure their first record deal from SAR Records in 1961. Cooke renamed them The Valentinos and moved them out to Los Angeles.

The melody for their first hit, “Lookin’ For a Love” came from a gospel hymn, but the musicality, with new frontman Bobby on lead vocals, suggested a danceable doo-wop James Brown.

After the death of Sam Cooke, The Valentinos disbanded and SAR Records closed shop. Bobby became a studio musician and toured with Ray Charles, wrote songs for Wilson Pickett and Janis Joplin, and played guitar for Aretha and Sly and the Family Stone. He scored a minor hit with a 1968 cover of the Mamas & the Papas’ “California Dreamin’” and later signed with United Artists where he released his first R&B Billboard charter “That’s The Way I Feel About ‘Cha.”

Then, in 1972, Bobby Womack recorded the soundtrack for the blaxploitation film noir Across 110th Street. Womack wrote the lyrics and the great jazz trombonist J.J. Johnson composed the music, filled with gritty funk and aural cues echoing the movie’s darker themes. The movie’s good, but it’s not Bobby Womack’s “Across 110th Street” hooky chorus good.

Across 110th Street
Pimps trying to catch a woman that’s weak
Across 110th Street
Pushers won’t let the junkie go free
Across 110th Street
Woman trying to catch a trick on the street, ooh baby
Across 110th Street
You can find it all in the street

But then again few things are.

If you’re feeling kind to yourself, throw this soundtrack on in the background and let it spin. Embrace the mood modification brought to you by 1970’s funk and soul music.

“Across 110th Street” is the 300th song on the #365Songs playlist!