You could call
\nBack To My Roots<\/i>, the latest album from soul legend Bobby
\nWomack, an album of unfulfilled dreams. Womack, who was originally
\na gospel singer – and who tried to reconcile the worlds of secular
\nmusic with his spirituality, dreamed of handing his father the
\nfinished product that would become this album. (Womack’s father, as
\nas he tells in the intro to “Rug,” was disappointed that Womack
\nchose a career outside of gospel music.) Unfortunately, Womack’s
\nfather died while this album was being made.<\/p>\n
If this was not enough heartbreak for Womack, J.W. Alexander, a
\nformer business partner of the late Sam Cooke who Womack brought
\ninto this project, died not long after the album’s completion. But
\ninstead of this being a melancholic look at life through worship of
\nsong,
\nBack To My Roots<\/i> is a celebration of life and beliefs that
\nmixes enough soul with the old style gospel music that Womack was
\nbrought up with.<\/p>\n
Now, a bit of a warning here: I’m probably the last person on
\nstaff who should be reviewing gospel music. I’ve never been a big
\nfan of religious music; while I have my own beliefs in God, I don’t
\nlike music that hits you over the head with a spiritual message.
\n(No offense to Mike Ehret, our resident contemporary Christian
\nmusic expert.) But, sometimes I like to take chances and expand my
\nhorizons by listening to discs that I normally wouldn’t give a
\nchance to. So, into the player this one went.<\/p>\n
What will strike you about
\nBack To My Roots<\/i> at first is that Womack knows how to
\nbalance the spiritual side of his music with the secular; there are
\na few songs on this disc that don’t necesarrily talk about
\nreligion, but have enough of an uplifting theme to get their
\nmessage across subtly. These songs also seem to have the strongest
\nroots in Womack’s soul music past; “Motherless Child” and a cover
\nof Simon & Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water”
\ncharacterize these moments the best. Womack and crew do an
\nadmirable job on the latter, but I admit I’ll always prefer the
\noriginal version.<\/p>\n
If you’ve not been exposed to gospel music a lot,
\nBack To My Roots<\/i> might take some time to get used to – and
\nthrough. You don’t need to be frightened off by songs with titles
\nlike “Nearer My God To Thee,” “What A Friend We Have In Jesus” and
\n“Jesus Be A Fence”. The truth be told, Womack’s reaching back to
\nthe “old school” of gospel reveals a form of the genre that was
\nconsiderably less preachy than a lot of modern-day religious music.
\n(Having listened to a few discs of this ilk over the past three
\nyears, I speak from first-hand knowledge.) These songs highlight
\nboth the devotion to and the support found in God – all presented
\nin a way that even someone who was from a different religious
\nbackground could find pleasure in, even if they didn’t necessarily
\nagree with the beliefs.<\/p>\n
And while some portions of the disc drag a bit (I thought “Oh
\nHappy Day,” while closest to a gospel feel, dragged on a bit too
\nlong),
\nBack To My Roots<\/i> is a listener-friendly introduction to
\ngospel music that isn’t too preachy, and isn’t too stuck in modern
\nmusic. It gets a little tiring at the end; by the time I reached
\n“It Is Well” and “Open Our Eyes,” I was ready for a break. But
\nWomack does, in the end, succeed in tying his soul roots with the
\nmusic of his youth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27793,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6205],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-39176","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-bobby-womack","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39176\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39176"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=39176"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=39176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}