Bobby Womack Midnight Mover

by Bobby Womack

Gabor was a real sweetheart of a guy, a Hungarian who’d been around since the 1960s playing jazz. Had his own little sextets and quintets, but he was fucked on heroin. Lot of talent, but mad on smack.

  I had taken a big advance from Blue Thumb so they called a lot, trying to catch me. They wanted to know when I had some songs for Gabor. Tomorrow, I told them. They would try me the next day and I told them the same thing. ‘Nearly ready, I got five songs; give me a couple more days.’ I had nothing.

  Then Gabor would ask. I told him what I had told LiPuma, said I’d be ready for the studio the next week.

  Finally, I got a call. There were to be no more excuses. They wanted me in the studio right away. I said, ‘Fine, I was just about to call you. I got all the material.’ I didn’t have one song.

  We got in the studio. I was playing rhythm guitar and started playing melodies. Gabor asked me what it was. I told him. Gave him some title. ‘Just A Little Communication’ was ‘Bobby’s Tune #1’.

  So I would do another, duh duh duh da da. They asked what was that? Told them ‘Bobby’s Tune’. So ‘If You Don’t Want My Love’ was ‘Bobby’s Tune #2’, ‘Fingers’ was ‘Gabor’s Womack’, ‘Amazon’ was ‘Bobby’s Tune #3’, ‘Azure Blue’ was ‘Bobby’s Tune #4’ and ‘Breezin” was ‘Sister Sonorita’. Gave him four songs in total and a lot of melodies.

  I took all these guys on a trip. Told the bassist what to play and the guy on keyboards. I just made it up. Afterwards, they apologised and said, ‘We thought you were just bullshitting.’

  ‘Breezin” was the thing that caught the eye real fast. Everyone thought it would be a classic. I laughed. I had just made it up.

  Five years later, George Benson called me. He wanted to cover ‘Breezin”. He wanted me to play rhythm on his version. He thought I was the only one who could play that rhythm pattern. I said I’d have to think about it. I thought, ‘Jazz artists, they don’t sell a lot of records.’

  I figured they could get someone else to do it. I made all kinds of excuses. Benson kept calling. I told him I would go down to help out, but wouldn’t show. I sat at the house doing absolutely nothing.

  I must have got tired of saying no. One time he called, I said yes. That time I showed. I laid down the track and George Benson played the lead. Next thing he’s got a hit song. I had to pay $350 to get a copy of the platinum album. I guess they were mad at having to chase me around.

  CHAPTER 13

  THERE’S A RIOT GOIN’ ON

  Jim Ford, my writing partner, had a good idea. He came over to my place and told me that I needed to ‘get something going – away from everything else that was going on’. He meant all the friction I had in my life.

  I didn’t know it, but the friction was just about to be turned up – to way past full blast. Jim wanted to hook me up with Sly Stone.

  Sly had got his shit together in ’67 when he created the Family Stone. There was Sly’s brother Freddie, his sister Rose, Larry Graham on bass, Greg Errico on drums and a couple on horns – Cynthia Robinson and Jerry Martini.

  They’d been cooking some dope-fuelled shit for a while and that was why Jim thought Sly might be good for me. He knew I needed a little comfort. It was the beginning of a weird period. I was still young, but really didn’t know who I was. I had just fallen from a crazy marriage, and I was about to get into some more crazy shit.

  I thought I was close to burning out as a man. The plan was to be around another musician my age. Someone I could work with and be inspired by. Get back into the music. Plus, Sly was a Pisces, same as me.

  So I stumbled in there with Sly. For a while, I could forget the whole fucking world, forget who I was, where I was and what I was. I didn’t know how long it would last or that it would be one of the greatest experiences of my life. In the end, it lasted too long.

  Sly was crazy. Jim knew it, that’s why he warned me. ‘Look, Bobby,’ he said. ‘I want you to meet Sly, but you got to promise me one thing: you’ll never go over his place without me.’

  Me and Sly met for the first time at an Italian place. We got cosy in a couple of booths right at the back of the joint. Sly in one, me in the other. He turned around and asked, ‘You Bobby Womack?’

  ‘Yeah, man. And you’re Sly.’

  I was still trying to fill Sam’s shoes, to act the businessman like him. So I was kitted out in a suit and loafers and sporting a briefcase. Sly didn’t dig it. He told me, ‘Hey, you’re Bobby Womack. You’re too funky to have a briefcase. Take that goddamn suit off and give me that fucking briefcase. You ain’t got nothing in there anyway.’ It was true, nothing but my sandwiches and a blueberry muffin for lunch.

  I found out early on that Sly was two people. First, there was Sylvester Stewart, who was pretty cool, generous, creative, a genius musician. Then there was Sly Stone. He was the destructive character. Sly was the kind of guy who liked to start fights just to see people go crazy and get tripped out. I was the guy who liked to put the fire out, make everybody cool.

  We were alike in that we were so whacked out together, both like fish out water trying to survive. I thought Sly could help me get off being down on myself and help me just get on with life.

  We also had pretty similar backgrounds, me and Sly. He was out of San Francisco, sang a lot of gospel songs ’cos like me he was from the sanctified and holiness school. Holy Lordy churches where they shout and cry and dance and then they’re happy.

  Sly was always in church. His old man was a preacher, his old lady an evangelist. Church, church, church.

  But Sly was the little black sheep of the family who broke loose and, when he started to do something else, it wasn’t nothing like church. He became a DJ in Oakland. The story went that he had a piano in the studio and when he gave a record a spin he would play along on the keyboard. Sly would improvise a new opening, middle or end. He’d tell his audience, ‘Man, this could have been a hit record if only the guy hadn’t let it go flat right there.’ Then he’d add his little tune to liven things up. People would call in to ask him to do his versions.

  Despite Jim Ford’s warning, I practically moved into Sly’s house in Bel Air ’cos I knew it was a place I could hang. As soon as I got over there, Sly said, ‘Hey, you’re a bad nigger, you’re a bad motherfucker, here have some coke.’ He was going to be my hope-to-die partner.

  It was a ride going on in that house; used to be where The Mamas and The Papas bunked. He had two big peacocks out there at the front, sort of like the first line of security, but the guards in that place were controlling devils and I knew you needed Jesus on your side to be with Sly Stone.

  Everything was locked up and no one left until it was time to leave – and that was when Sly decided. There were a lot of drugs around and sometimes it seemed like everyone in LA was staying up there in Sly’s house. He’d stay up six, seven days with the drugs, and with that kind of punishment you are going to hallucinate. We did that a lot of times. I stayed up maybe three or four days; I was the kind of guy who always said, ‘I got to go to bed.’

  We became very close very quickly because we had our music together. The music was unreal and we made a ton of it together. I worked on Sly’s 1971 album There’s A Riot Goin’ On, playing guitar.

  Sly liked the way I played, told me to play what I felt, which was a good vibe and that was the most fun you can ever have with music. I played wah-wah all over that album and Sly just ran tapes the whole time, capturing the sound. When you’re singing and you’re out there like that, you knew it would happen. It would come out sometime; I just had to trust it and let it happen

  Sly’s home studio was a good place for me to hang my head while the music was on. Everybody in the house was high on weed and coke and we would stay up night after night and play. Play, play some more and then play it again. One time Sly finally did get some sleep – on top of his piano. That’s where I found him around five one morning. When I woke him gently, he looked up and started singing, ‘One child grows up to be somebody that just loves to learn a
nd another child grows up to be somebody you’d just love to burn…’ It was from ‘Family Affair’.

  Sly taught me a lot about freedom, in music and life. I was also pretty impressed with Sly. I thought his music was superb, the best, man. He never wrote love songs and thought I was a dreamer because I did. He told me, ‘You always write the wrong songs, crying like a baby, always crying. No bitch is going to make me cry.’ Maybe our background wasn’t so similar. ‘You from a different church, brother,’ he said. ‘You just want to believe there is a Santa Claus.’

  Maybe, but I told him that his songs were just about getting high. ‘That’s all you write.’

  ‘Yeah, because that’s what I do,’ he reasoned. ‘That’s real. Real people who get high and come out bad.’

  We played a lot together and recorded a lot too. The song ‘When The Weekend Comes’ was something that came out when we worked. I was always looking for the weekend. People party then because they got to work Monday through Friday, but come Friday they can get to hang out, spend their money, get drunk, whatever their release. We were fortunate because we got to party every night.

  Sly and me, we also toured together, although that was always a mess because there would be about 30 people all dressed in costume, some of them trying to pitch for the job I was doing. Sly would spot a guy dressed like Snow White and he’d want him in the band. Didn’t matter the guy couldn’t play guitar, Sly loved the attire. I’m playing in the band and there’s a guy behind me dressed like a cartoon character.

  Someone needed to rein that shit in, but it wasn’t going to be Sly. There was always some kind of problem. Sly acted strange in hotels. He would always have an enormous entourage: his goons, then everyone else, including the guy in the Show White outfit.

  He would get in his room and then take everyone’s keys, tell his security that no one could eat until he did. You weren’t even supposed to make a phone call. It was like being in the army.

  In New York once I was playing bass – Sly’s bass player had left; his band was always leaving. Sly was out of funds to pay the hotel bill, which was stacked pretty high, around ten grand, because there was something like 20 rooms to take care of.

  Sly was stranded; I was stranded. We were all stranded, hadn’t eaten for something like three days, and the hotel was on our ass. I offered to call Pickett, see if old Wicked would bail us all out. Wilson Pickett was no fan of Sly’s; he’d told me to leave him alone before my career got ruined.

  But this was a jam. ‘Pickett, I’ll pay you back when I get back home,’ I promised. ‘Sly just needs $10,000.’

  So Pickett called by with the cash and handed it to Sly. Sly – I don’t know why he wanted to create a problem because Pickett already didn’t like him – snatched the money out of his hand and snapped, ‘You fucker, you should have been here with that 15 minutes ago.’

  But Sly could come through good and did. I was in trouble myself with a gig. It was at the Greek Theater in LA. The O’Jays opened up, but before that my band – and it was a big one, a 12-piece – demanded a pay rise. I guess they figured they would stick that right on me before the gig so I would be forced to cough up the extra. I told them I would sing a cappella before that happened, fired them and then sat up all night trying to put together another bunch of musicians.

  I got a drummer, but didn’t know he was tripped out on acid. I was in trouble. To make it worse, I fell going on stage. I was wearing a long cape and it caught in my heels. It was going to be a thin show, me and no musicians.

  Then I looked back and Sly’s band filed on, one by one. Sly had found out about my band problem and sent over his guys, who had my shit down. Sly told them to get up on stage with me and do their thing. And they did, they walked out and bailed me and the show out.

  Another time Sly and me were riding in a limo together. The driver was an Arab. Black suit, black peaked cap, the whole chauffeur thing down. He kept stealing glances at us through the rear view. What he saw through that mirror: someone with very long hair or a wig, big shades, boots halfway up his leg, fur hat, probably two hats. The driver couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman. And a guy with him – me – snorting something up his nostril.

  I felt a little sick because I’d also been taking some pills and had washed them down with some booze. Sly tapped on the glass separating us and the driver, and ordered him to pull over before I puked all over the leather seats and oriental rug-style carpeting, but the chauffeur refused, and told us I would have to hold it in until we reached the next gas station. I couldn’t wait that long. I started throwing up and the chauffeur had a fit.

  Didn’t bother Sly. When the guy finally got around to pulling over, Sly got out and chased the man across the highway, a ten-lane freeway. Picture that, Sly chased the guy with all that shit on it. Both of them could have ended up getting killed. Sly got back in the car, this time in the driver’s seat. He took off, leaving the chauffeur stood by the side of the road.

  Sometimes when I stayed with Sly out on the road, he would have a private jet laid on, but the plane never got off the ground. We’d sit there getting high and he would tell the pilot that we weren’t ready to go.

  Pilot: ‘But, Mr Stone, you have spent $8000 since you’ve been sitting here all this time.’

  Sly: ‘We’re just about to go. What kind of food you got on this jet?’

  Pilot: ‘We got nuts.’

  Sly: ‘That’s no good. We got to go to a restaurant.’

  That was another $8000 burned by a plane standing on a runway for four or five hours.

  Sly’s gig philosophy was not my philosophy. I always had that professionalism drilled into me by my father and Sam that, when it’s time to work, get on and hit it.

  Sly didn’t run by that book. He sat there many times before a show and told me he couldn’t do it. ‘I can’t go, man,’ he’d tell me.

  I didn’t understand, but I asked why.

  ‘It’s hard enough for me to talk, let alone stand up and try to sing,’ he said.

  His problem was he couldn’t wait until the gig was over before doing the drugs. He didn’t mess with nothing but cocaine, but when he found out you could cook it he became a chef.

  Sly said, ‘It’s hard to wait, I just do a little bit and then I’m going out on stage.’

  He tried to turn me on to his way of thinking too, said it was expected in our line of work. He thought I was too square; he said, ‘Bobby, if The Man told you to turn up at 9pm, you would be there at 8.30pm, but let me tell you a little something about showbusiness: it don’t work like that. It’s what you don’t do that gives you mystique. Don’t be available all the time, don’t always be there.’

  Many times, he said, ‘I can’t walk out there.’ He meant the stage.

  I couldn’t understand that. ‘You came all the way out here with this whole band,’ I reasoned, ‘everybody is waiting on you and you are sitting looking out the window watching the people walk in.’

  He would watch and laugh at some of the straight dudes lined up with their dates, pointing out their unhip gear. Man, it was like he hoped they hadn’t bought tickets to come and see him. Who did he think they had come for?

  The funny thing was, Sly was actually convinced he never missed a gig, nor was even late for one. ‘Bobby,’ he told me, ‘see what happened? The people got there before I left. So they have to wait.’ It made no sense. He would still be backstage and I’d tell him, ‘Sly, they’ve been waiting for hours.’

  ‘But I ain’t missed the gig.’

  He got high and it made him paranoid, and that’s when I knew. First, it was cool, then it got to be too much. You can’t do all the drugs and go out in front of an audience. It’s a serious thing when you walk out on stage. Music is spiritual and an audience can tell if you’ve started tripping before they have.

  I thought it was a blessing for an artist to be able to entertain, to be given that gift, so I thought he should respect his art form. I didn’t want to go on stage fucked u
p; I was out there to sing. After, that’s a different matter. That was my time, on my own, at home and I could do what I wanted with it. I realised I could not put drugs in my system and then go on stage and try and reach God. It just don’t work.

  But I liked coke. So, shit, I got high after I came off stage. That was the way it worked. I had some kind of system, I didn’t get high before an interview or a gig, but when that ended the night was mine. Again, Sly didn’t subscribe to that philosophy. He said, ‘Fuck that shit.’

  Weird shit went down in that house too. Sly had a dog called Gun, a vicious pitbull terrier. Fierce fucker. There was also a little monkey knocking around the house and the monkey would tease Gun rotten. The dog could never catch it and it would drive him wild, always snapping.

  Sly would encourage the monkey to fuck with the pitbull. Gun would charge after the monkey, but the chimp was too quick and he’d jump right back up a tree or on a fence. This went on for ages

  The pitbull must have thought there was some way to end it. Sure enough, one day the monkey jumped down and went ‘heh, heh, heh’ to get Gun’s attention but, when he went to run and jump back out of the way, his foot slipped. Man, that was it. Gun was on it like lightning. First thing he did was bite a hole in the monkey’s chest, then turned the chimp over and fucked it. That dog was vicious.

  Sly would get wired sometimes and walk through the house with Gun. He’d shout for us to find a place to hide out. ‘Everybody hit the deck, the man is coming looking for you,’ he’d announce.

  I ran into a room looking for a place to hide. Nothing, just a pool table. I could hear Sly calling out and that vicious dog of his straining at his leash, but I thought that dog could pull skinny old Sly over real easy, then I’d be dead before he got back off the ground.

  I pushed the pool balls in the pockets and clambered up on that table and held my breath. I could hear my heart pounding as I pressed myself close to that green baize. The door opened and I heard Gun pant. He trotted in, tugging Sly behind on that lead. I squeezed my eyes tight shut and wished I could fit in one of the ball pockets.