Bobby Womack (March 4, 1944 – June 27, 2014) – What's Your World (1975)
This funked up and ferocious cover of a Leon Ware song featured Ware on keyboards and possibly an uncredited Sly Stone, who also may have co-produced it.
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Legendary singer/songwriter and musician Bobby Womack was Sam Cooke’s guitarist and had a long solo career of his own. He wrote and performed the original version of the Rolling Stones classic “It’s All Over Now,” and played with Aretha, Ray Charles, Janis Joplin, and Sly and the Family Stone, including on their iconic 1971 album There's a Riot Goin' On.
Robert Dwayne Womack was born in Cleveland, Ohio, the third of five brothers. His younger brother Cecil would later become part of the duo Womack & Womack with Cecil’s wife Linda.
The boys’ mother was a church organist, and their father was a minister and musician who sang gospel and told the boys not to touch his guitar while he was at work. He and his brothers nonetheless played it regularly. Their father eventually bought them all guitars when he realized how well they had learned the instrument, and Bobby played his upside down to accommodate being left-handed.
Instead of sketching the highlights of his illustrious career, here’s a highly recommended interview with Womack that was published in Wax Poetics in 2011, “Bobby Womack Sewn Up.”
In 1975 Womack released his seventh solo studio album, I Don't Know What The World Is Coming To. It included a superb version of his classic song “It’s All Over Now,” featuring Bill Withers on co-lead vocals, and two songs he co-wrote with his brother Cecil. One of them was “(If You Want My Love) Put Something Down On It,” which had its melody lifted by Rod Stewart for his disco hit “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy.” He also co-wrote the mostly instrumental funk anthem “Git It” with Leon Ware, featuring astounding lead guitar work by future P-Funk member Glenn Goins.
Another of the album’s highlights was the phenomenal soul/funk jam “What’s Your World,” a cover of Ware’s original that he wrote for his self-titled 1972 debut LP.
Womack, Leon Ware, and Marvin Gaye in Los Angeles, 1975
It was also memorably covered by Gloria Ann Taylor in 1973. But Womack’s version was funked up and ferocious.
Legend has it that Womack’s close friend Sly Stone was involved in the production of I Don't Know What The World Is Coming To, although uncredited, and played keyboards on several tracks including “What’s Your World.”
Sly and the Family Stone had broken up following a disastrous show they had self-booked at Radio City Music Hall in January, 1975. After years of Sly walking out during performances and the band not showing up for concerts, fans seemed to have lost interest, since almost ninety percent of tickets remained unsold. They had to borrow money to get back to California.
Besides the self-evident fact that very funky keyboards are featured on the track, those who claim Sly helped produce “What’s Your World” and played on it point to additional elements. A drum machine starts the song, and the violin solo near its end is almost identical to the sounds laid down by violin player Sid Page on Small Talk, released the previous year in 1974 and the last of the band’s albums to feature the rest of the Family Stone.
Others believe this legend is unfounded. The two keyboardists officially credited on “What’s Your World” were Leon Ware himself and Truman Thomas, who played keyboards on every track on I Don't Know What The World Is Coming To. Some thought this might have been an alias for Sly, but there really is a Truman Thomas, a Texas-born keyboardist and songwriter who had also appeared on Womack’s previous album Lookin' For A Love Again (1974), and that same year was credited as playing “keyboards (assistance)” on Small Talk.
Truman Thomas
It’s undeniable, however, that what sounds like Sly’s vocals can be heard on the track around the 4:00 mark.
“What’s Your World” also featured Glenn Goins on fuzz guitar, who that same year became P-Funk’s lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist; Bill Lordan on drums, who also played with Sly; Sneaky Pete Kleinow of the Flying Burrito Bros on steel guitar; Paul Stallworth on bass; Jonathan Blair on violin; and Tammi Terrell’s cousin Sundray Tucker on the track’s answer vocals.
#soul #funk #LeonWare #GlennGoins #SlyStone #BobbyWomack