Womack & Womack

Background

Cecil Womack was born in 1947 in Cleveland, Ohio, and performed with his older brothers Bobby, Harry, Friendly, and Curtis as a gospel group. After meeting Sam Cooke, they changed their name to the Valentinos and in 1961 began to sing and record secular music. The Valentinos had a hit with "Lookin' for a Love", selling two million copies, and scored another crossover hit with "It's All Over Now", which reached No. 1 in the UK when covered by The Rolling Stones in 1964.

The fall-out from Cooke's death and Bobby Womack's subsequent marriage to Cooke's widow halted their progress. In the 1960s, Cecil worked primarily as a songwriter and producer. He first met Linda, Sam Cooke's daughter, when he was thirteen and she was eight. He married singer Mary Wells in 1967 and wrote material for her, including the hit "The Doctor".

They had three children and divorced in 1977. Linda Cooke also worked as a songwriter, co-writing Bobby Womack's "Woman's Gotta Have It." Cecil and Linda married shortly after his divorce and had four more children together.

Performers

In 1983, Cecil and Linda began performing and recording together as Womack & Womack, releasing the album Love Wars produced by Stewart Levine on Elektra Records. The first single "T.K.O." reached the Billboard R&B chart; "Love Wars" reached No. 14 on the UK singles chart in early 1984; and "Baby I'm Scared of You" charted in both the US and UK. Their next album, Radio M.U.S.C. Man (1986), included songs Sam Cooke had started and which the pair completed, along with a cover of the Beatles' "Here Comes the Sun".

It produced one hit, "Strange & Funny", their last US chart entry. They headlined at the Royal Albert Hall in 1987. Their success revived in 1988 with the single "Teardrops", from the album Conscience, which reached No. 3 in the UK and No. 1 in the Netherlands, Australia, and New Zealand. Two other album tracks charted in England.

The album went gold in ten countries and platinum in three. A VHS, Womack & Womack: Live in Concert, was released in 1989 and re-released on DVD in 2009.

Songwriters

Linda Womack started writing songs at age eleven in 1964 with "I Need A Woman." She later co-wrote "I'm In Love" for Wilson Pickett and "A Woman's Gotta Have It" for Bobby Womack in 1972. Cecil Womack had already written many songs, sometimes with his then-wife Mary Wells. Once Linda and Cecil became a couple, they worked as a songwriting team for Philadelphia International Records, creating tracks for Teddy Pendergrass, the Dramatics, the O'Jays, and Patti LaBelle.

Cecil co-wrote "Love TKO," a big hit for Pendergrass that many other artists later covered. As a duo, they wrote songs that George Benson, Randy Crawford, Eric Clapton, and Bobby Womack recorded. Bonnie Raitt turned their "Good Man Monologue" into "Good Man, Good Woman," and Chaka Khan covered "It's My Party." The Beautiful South covered the title track from their album "Love Wars," while "Teardrops" has been performed by k.d. lang, Elton John, Joss Stone, and The XX. The Womacks also wrote and produced for Ruby Turner, contributing songs to her albums Paradise and The Other Side.