Good Morning POU! Welcome to another week of Black History mess!
The Cooke-Womack Saga
Bobby Womack was a habitual line stepper. After Sam Cooke discovered him, Bobby paid him back by sleeping with his wife. Then Bobby Womack married Barbara Cooke three months after Sam was brutally murdered in East LA.
And Sam’s wife wasn’t the only thing Bobby took. Bobby was riding around in Sam’s car and wearing his clothes.
Sam’s family told Bobby that if he showed his face in Chicago again, they were going to have a misunderstanding. Bobby Womack not only came back to Chicago, he attended Sam Cooke’s niece’s wedding. Sam’s brother Charles beat Bobby to within an inch of his life right there at the church.
Bobby’s own mother warned him, in his words he said “My mother had said, ‘I don’t think you should marry that woman, you don’t know anything about that woman. That’s Mrs. Cooke, that’s Sam’s wife.’
THEN, as if that wasn’t enough, Bobby began a sexual relationship with Sam and Barbara’s daughter, Linda.
When Barbara found her daughter and Womack in bed, she shot him, with the bullet grazing his temple. She was not charged, and they divorced in 1970. Years later, Linda ended up marrying Womack’s brother, Cecil.
They ended up becoming a recording duo titled “Womack & Womack.”
In 2014, Womack died at the age of 70. Before his death, he admitted that he had not spoken to Barbara, Linda, or his brother Cecil in years. “No one speaks to no one,” he said.
Sources:
Barbara Campbell Cooke, 85, Widow of the Slain Sam Cooke, Is Dead
Bobby Womack