by Bobby Womack
The only hit I had in 1975 was ‘Check It Out’, with ‘Daylight’ coming a year later. BW Goes C&W was my last album for UA. They sold my contract to Columbia. On paper, I guess it made sense. I’d faked a blind act and then got myself rigged out in a cowboy outfit singing C&W songs. UA figured I’d gone, and thought another label could handle that. They could also earn a chunk of change before word got out that I’d turned into a fruitcake. They said, ‘We don’t even know you no more, Bobby. You’re singing country and western. Motherfucker, you’ve gone.’
Columbia picked up my contract in 1976, and they wanted hits. They’d seen UA get some, so that’s what they wanted. However, my view was I wasn’t a guy that you could put in a bracket. Record companies wanted me to stick to the formula, the hit factory. They were only worried about the bottom line and hits. They didn’t want any problems, someone doing something different. Did I want to open up a church and become a minister? Maybe, if God called me. The record labels couldn’t handle that.
The execs would narrow their eyes and tell me, ‘Bobby, I hope God don’t call because we really want you to cut some commercial stuff.’
The execs would get themselves in a spin about lyrics. They didn’t like me using ‘ass’. They thought I should substitute that with ‘tush’, told me ‘tush’ sounded better, more polite. I said, ‘Fuck it, tush don’t sound right. Whereas ass is beautiful with a melody and that’s what I know my audience understands. They say ass. They don’t say tush.’
I took myself off to Muscle Shoals again to work up At Home In Muscle Shoals. Columbia gave me the whip hand to produce two other albums: Home Is Where The Heart Is in 1976 and Pieces the following year.
But Columbia did not have the snap. I had the snap. When a company grows with you, like Minit, Liberty and UA had, they knew me. Columbia didn’t know me, they’d just heard the records. They might have wanted to get to know me, but most times staff would change. Then there were reshuffles of the roster and political machinations.
I’m not even sure I got their trust. The company just wanted another ‘Woman’s Gotta Have It’. I started giving them songs like that, but I wasn’t happy. Telling me to go out there and sing a song just like the last one, that’s not where I was at. Not surprisingly, nothing really exceptional came of my time there.
Then I went to MCA/Arista. Came out with the Roads Of Life album in 1978, my final album of the 1970s. Not a big commercial success, but I may have been burned out.
CHAPTER 14
HANG ON IN THERE
I was married to Barbara about six years, right up to 1970. After that, I had a bunch of girlfriends, then, in 1976, I met the woman I’m still married to, although not with: Regina Banks. She lives in New York and we have a beautiful daughter, Ginaree.
One day I woke up, I had a great house and life was good. I was still living a fast life. I was working, I was partying, I had my friends, my lady friends, but my maid Pecola, who was like a mother to me, thought I was missing something.
On top of cleaning house, she also dispensed advice. She said, ‘Mr Womack, you know I haven’t told you anything wrong, but these people you know come up here, drink all your liquor and eat all your food. This place looks like a pigsty. And your car, the Rolls-Royce Corniche, I’m surprised you still know you got it, the dust is so thick on it.’
She had a point and she probably hadn’t yet spied Sly sleeping in the corner of the living room – on his head.
‘Mr Womack,’ she continued, ‘you’re a nice-looking man, if you just try. You need to get yourself a wife. You’d be surprised how your life will change if you got someone around you who really loves you.’
She had a plan too. ‘I want you to get up, have a shave, comb your hair, get yourself a nice hot bath, scrape the dust off that Rolls and put the top down and go out and find yourself a nice woman.’
I was probably coming out from a bender so what Pecola said hit me. A wife? Yeah, that’s exactly what I needed right then. That would sort me out.
So I went shopping. Washed the car – my little white two-seater Merc, not the Rolls – and off I went for a spin. I drove down Sunset Boulevard, just cruising, sat in that little sports car with my big old medallion on and a cowboy hat. I looked good, I thought. I also thought, ‘Fuck this shit, I don’t need a motherfucking wife, I need a drink.’
But, before I hit a bar, I spotted Regina. She was walking down the street with a white girlfriend. She was pretty, very pretty. So I slowed down and crawled along the kerb. I followed them. I smiled. I waved. I warmed up my charm offensive. ‘Good evening, ladies,’ I opened with. ‘How you doing?’
I followed them all the way to where they were going, which was a gas station because Regina’s girlfriend, Cathy, worked at the carwash there and was picking up a cheque.
I laid the charm on both girls, but especially spreading it thick with Regina. ‘Why don’t you all come round and we can have a drink and hang out,’ I suggested.
Before I could open the car door, Regina’s friend had leaped over it and jumped on my lap. Regina just stood there. I tried to figure a manoeuvre to get Regina in the car and on the seat next to me.
‘Excuse me,’ I said to the girl on my lap. ‘Do you mind fetching me a carton of cigarettes?’When she got out, I told Regina to hop in and scoot over.
The three of us went on a little drive. They were best friends, I found out. We called around to a friend of mine’s to pick up a little something, went back to my place and then I took them home. Like a gentleman.
The next time I saw Pecola, I was excited. I told her Regina might be the one. Naturally, she was surprised her project to find me a wife hadn’t lasted longer than a day. She told me straight, ‘Yeah, OK. But take it easy, you can’t just go to the grocery store and get yourself a wife you only met a few hours ago.’
Something like the next day, I was out driving again, on Hollywood Boulevard, in the Rolls the time. I spotted a girl dressed in what looked like a nurse’s uniform – white, white stocking, white shoes. I thought, ‘Damn, that’s exactly what I need, a nurse.’ It was Regina again.
What a coincidence.
So I pulled over and called out, ‘Hey, babe, how you doin’? Remember me?’
She didn’t look as pleased as me. ‘Oh, it’s you again.’
I said, ‘Yeah, I knew it was you. Where you heading?’
She was going to work. She wasn’t a nurse, she was a waitress at the Holiday Inn.
‘Look, you seem like a nice person, but I’m already seeing someone,’ she told me.
That didn’t discourage me. ‘You could still see me too. I’m a nice guy.’
I pestered Regina all the way to the Holiday Inn, parked up and followed her in. She saw me again when she came out to serve customers. I was making a fuss wanting to be seated in her section. She had no option but to serve me.
‘Oh God, it’s you again,’ she hissed. ‘Why don’t you get lost?’
‘I’m already lost, I’m trying to get found.’ I thought that sounded right. I kept at her, trying to make conversation and she was stuck because she couldn’t be seen to ignore a paying customer. ‘Oh, and you know what? I’ll have a portion of French fries, crispy on the outside… what time do you get off?’
‘What difference does it make? Nothing is going to happen here.’
I waited all day for her, on a mission now, until her shift finished. Slept a piece in the Rolls outside, lay down in the back seat with my feet up. When I woke it was with a start ’cos I thought I might have missed Regina. But then I spotted her, the working day over, walking out of the restaurant, past my car. She probably thought I’d given it up.
I’m pretty sneaky when I want to be so I let her get down the street and followed her all the way home, which was on Franklin, the street Janis OD’d on. I watched as Regina turned into an apartment block and disappeared up a flight of stairs. I started knocking on doors, trying to find her apartment. People would answer the door and find me standing
there.
‘Man, I don’t believe this. Aren’t you Bobby Womack?’
‘Yeah, you can help me. Do you know a girl around here with brown skin, she dresses in white like a nurse?’
‘You talking about Regina, she’s up on the third floor, number 301.’
‘Thanks, man.’
‘Sure thing, Bobby.’
Up at 301 I could hear voices inside the apartment talking. ‘He had on his big old medallion again, black hat this time and, oh, he had another car, Rolls-Royce, I think…’
I listened some more.
‘That’s right, I told him I was with someone; he said he wanted a nurse in his life. I think I got rid of him…’
I knocked on the door. This guy came to the door, a bottle of beer in his hand.The boyfriend, I guessed. I got the same reaction from him as I had at the apartments downstairs. ‘Say, aren’t you Bobby Womack?’
‘Yeah, and I’m here to see Regina.’
‘You know Regina?’
‘Have done for years. We’ve been loving each other for a long time. I just thought she should maybe tell you this is happening between us because I can’t do people like that.’
He tripped out on that. ‘What the fuck are you talking about?’ He shouted back into the living room. ‘Hey, Regina, get out here, your boyfriend Bobby Womack is here.’
Now it was Regina’s turn to be surprised. ‘Oh my God, how did you find me?’
I asked her, ‘Is this your boyfriend?’
She nodded. ‘Yes.’
‘Gina, baby, I can’t hold it back, you better tell this man that we’ve known each other for months.’
I got myself inside the apartment. On top of Regina, there was Regina’s sister and another girl. They were cracking up, but Regina didn’t see the funny side, not right away. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘Regina, c’mon, don’t play games.’
She exploded, told me to tell her fella that she didn’t know me. There was a long silence as they waited for me to say something. I let them wait. Then I dropped on them.
‘Baby, if that’s your answer, then it is over.’
The boyfriend had had enough. He was mad. ‘OK, I’m leaving,’ he said. ‘Give me my TV and get me a cab, it’s over between us. I’m going back to Baltimore.’ He packed his clothes. ‘I can’t believe you made up that story about him following you. How did he get here?’
Regina made a futile attempt to persuade him to stay. ‘I don’t know how he got here,’ she said. ‘He’s lying, he’s crazy, he don’t even know me.’
But the boyfriend was out of there. When he was gone, she turned on me, let me have both barrels. ‘I can’t believe you’ve come into my house and ruined things like that.’ She was real broke up. ‘I can barely pay my rent…’
I had it all worked out. ‘Yeah, sure, baby, but you can give this all up,’ I told her, indicating the apartment. ‘You know, I got a beautiful house up in the hills, it’s all yours. Let’s just drive up there.’
‘I don’t want to.’
‘Well, I tell you what. I’m not leaving you. You are going to be my wife.’
Pecola couldn’t have anticipated her plan was already in swing. And Regina couldn’t believe my front. She ranted, ‘My boyfriend has just left. What do you think I’m going to do?’
‘Anyone who leaves that quick needs to leave,’ I reasoned. ‘He didn’t even stand up and fight for you.’
‘But you’re a liar.’
‘Yeah, maybe, but I would lie for someone like you.’
So it went back and forth like that for a while. Finally, Regina decided to call her mom. Got her on the phone and told her the story of the night. The mom asked if I was still around. Her daughter told her, ‘Yeah, he’s practically breathing down the phone.’ The mother wanted to talk. Regina handed me the phone. ‘She wants to speak to you.’
The mom got straight into it. Over the line, I was sprung a whole chunk of questions; stuff like: ‘What do you want with my daughter?’ I told her I wanted to marry her. ‘How old are you?’ I was 33 at the time.
‘Well, do you know how old my daughter is? She just turned 18.’That was a legal age, I figured. ‘Huh?’
‘Look, I just want to marry her. I don’t want to kidnap her.’
Then the mom started to soften up a bit. ‘I just love your music.’
‘OK.’
‘What star sign are you?’
I knew I had her hooked then. ‘I’m Pisces, lady.’
Would you believe it? She said, ‘I’m Pisces too. You sound like you’re kind of a crazy person, but I can tell you got a good heart. Put my daughter back on the line please.’
‘OK, goodbye.’
So then the mom told Regina what Pisces is all about – spontaneity. Doing things on a whim, on the hoof, though not necessarily like finding a wife in a day. Mother and daughter argued a while and I made myself comfortable with one of the boyfriend’s beers, earwigging the conversation and watching Regina’s sister and girlfriend roll their eyes every time they didn’t like where it was heading.
‘It’s too much too soon,’ Regina told her mom. ‘It’s too sudden for me.’
God bless her mom. She must have told her that hooking up with me beat working at the Holiday Inn for tips.
‘But I don’t want to marry this guy for his money.’
Of course, the other girls were loving the whole performance. They kept on at me to sing a song. ‘Not right now, I’m trying to win this woman.’
After a while, Regina put her mom back on the phone. That went like this:
Mom: ‘OK, Bobby, you really like my daughter, go buy her a wedding ring.’
Me: ‘I can’t just get one like that, she deserves a special stone.’
Mom: ‘Uh-uh, well you get that wedding ring and then I’ll see if you mean business.’
Me: ‘I’m going away on tour for a couple of weeks, but I’ll go to my jeweller and tell him I want a perfect pure diamond stone, blue, no yellow.’
Mom: ‘OK, tell him to fix me one, too.’
I put the phone down and turned to my future wife, who said, ‘See you when you get done with touring.’
‘Get ready to get married,’ I told Regina.
When I got back from the tour, I went to the jeweller and collected the stone. It came to something like $32,000: I had to sell a car to ante up the cash.
Regina and her mom had had plenty more chats by then and the gist was that if I got the ring then Regina would know I was serious. Her mom probably told her that if she didn’t like me at least she could always get a divorce.
Regina asked me why we had to get married. I believed I could get her to love me later.
‘OK,’ she said. ‘I’ll get married to you but I’ll never tell you I love you.’ That’s what I liked about her, she was honest. Said straight out it was crazy because she hardly knew me.
‘That’s all right. You’ll get used to loving me in time. Get your things,’ I instructed.
Regina moved into my house. Got the place decorated; brought in an interior designer who did a whole job getting rid of all my bachelor stuff – ‘don’t like this, don’t like that’ – and turned it into a couple’s pad. She also told me to put a stop to all the women calling up still expecting the single Bobby Womack.
Then we had a sign made up: ‘Please do not come by if you have not called and made an appointment. Thank you, Mr & Mrs Womack.’
Of course, we weren’t married yet, but I soon fixed that. I called Rev James Cleveland who had a little Baptist church and had cut a few gospel numbers himself. I told Cleveland I was getting hitched. Told him I wanted to do it asap. ‘I’m serious, I need your church Saturday. I’m getting married.’
‘I don’t know. We got prayer meeting and stuff.’
‘James, we got to do it now or I might change my mind.’
We went through my address book and invited everyone. And everyone thought I had finally gone mad marrying a girl I hardly knew.
On the way to the church, we told the limo driver to pull over and drop us off somewhere in the hills so we could take in the view before the ceremony. Two hours later, we woke up, late for our own wedding.
Over the next 18 years, we had some fun times. I was sat on my bed watching TV one night. The news came on and there was an item that interested me. It was sort of about me. It said the singer Bobby Womack had been arrested – with a stolen Rolls-Royce and a trunk full of cocaine.
They had film of the guy. He had his hands handcuffed behind him, funky threads and a pair of shades just like me, but he’d got one important detail down wrong. He was thin on top. Actually, he was totally bald.
I called my wife in. ‘Hey, baby, come here. I’ve been arrested.’
Then the phone started ringing.
‘I heard they got Bobby.’
‘Oh, is it true?’
‘They caught him?’
‘He would never carry all that dope.’
My wife said, ‘That’s right, he’s right here next to me in bed.’
So we called the TV station and I told them the guy that had been arrested was an impostor, a doppelganger. ‘I am the real Bobby Womack,’ I insisted.
Apparently, the guy had a fake driving licence with my picture and name in it. I went down to see him at the cop shop and asked him, ‘Who are you, man?’
‘I’m Bobby Womack.’
‘No, man, wait a minute, I’m Bobby Womack.’
His line was: ‘I’m not saying I am the singer Bobby Womack.’
By the time 1978 came around, we had a baby son on our hands. Sly Stone named him for us. Me and Sly were waiting outside the house one night for a delivery. I asked him what name I should give my son. He totally surprised me. He suggested The Truth. ‘You should call him The Truth.’
‘The Truth?’
‘Yeah, Bobby. We tell so many lies so every time someone calls your son The Truth we got to do our part to live up to it and try and change.’
‘Man, I ain’t putting that name on him.’
