Poet

Bobby Womack's "The Poet" is simply one of the greatest Soul albums ever made--in fact, I'd go so far as saying that it's his best work ever. "So Many Sides Of You", "Lay Your Lovin' On Me" and the major hit "If You Think You're Lonely Now" are masterpieces of classic Soul which will take you back to an era when music that was real (and from the heart) was the norm as opposed to the exception. An undisputed Soul classic.

Excellent and highly recommended!

I ABSOULUTELY LOVE THIS CD! RIP BOBBY

Classic Album....

not for me, purchased for a friend

i like the poet very much but it was slow to arrive and the case was greasy.had to clean it before i opened it,yuck!but the cd plays fine.

Okay so the late 70's just wasn't Bobby Womacks time,commercially anyway. And like most black artists of his time he wasn't all that interested in remaining tied to one particular period of time. So once the new decade arrived Bobby Womack signed to the smaller Razor & Tie label to record the first in what ended up a series of three 'Poet' albums (the third of which wasn't released and is fabled to exist). This is the first in that series. They aren't exactly concept albums. But they served to do in the 80's was recent years did for veteran soul artists such as the late Solomon Burke and Bettye Lavette: modernize their sound for the era without destroying the qualities that made them stand out to begin with. Retaining brother Cecil along with Eddie Bongo Brown and hard working percussionist Paulinho Da Costa this was,at least a triumphant comeback for Womack and got him back on track in the R&B community. The album starts off with two striking uptempo tunes on "So Many Sides Of You" and "Lay Your Lovin' On Me". These have this strong urban soul/RYB rhythm to them and musically are somewhere between Luther Vandross and George Benson of that period if you can picture it. "Secrets" and "Games" are classic Womack type gospel/soul ballads where he just lets go vocally in his unique way. Of course the most vital ballad here is "If You Think You're Lonley Now" with it's dynamic Chi-Lites type hook and important lyrics about romantic humility. The dreamily arranged "Just My Imagination" (not the Norman Whitfield/Tempations song) and "Where Do We Go From Here" come from that same place musically: dynamically arranged gospel drenched soul balladry. "Stand Up",with it's skeletal rhythm and synthesizers is powerful naked/boogie funk at it's best. It completely brings Womack into the 80's era production and is my personal favorite on the album. During 1981-82 there weren't a whole lot of veteran soul artists getting successful comebacks via small record labels the way Bobby Womack did with this album. It would be a rarity throughout the decade. And considering Prince's Minneapolis sound,though produced independently had to have big promotional pushes via Warner Bros. to get out there Bobby more or less did it on his own here. And succeeded to a level I'm sure even he is still somewhat surprised it. Honestly if he produced an album such as this on Columbia,he might've been an enormous success on that label. Bobby Womack isn't one of those type of artists one tries fashionable music trends on to gain popularity. He DEFINES the music on his own terms. He knows his stuff. And he knows the best ways in which it functions with the people. And this album is solid proof of the best possible way for his talents to be harnessed at this particular time.

I must admit that I was never really a big BW(Bobby Womack) fanUntil now.I mean I knew some of his songs The Ever Popular "If You Think You're Lonely Now" and "That's The Way I Feel About You" and later I was introduced to his song"You're Welcome ,Stop On By" when my friend Derick Hughes sang it at a concert.So I always had some knowledge of who he was but I wasn't really deep into him like say for instance you could ask me anything about Isaac Hayes or Luther Vandross or Donny Hathaway and I could tell you , I wasn't that deep with BW.I find myself getting upset because there is so much music out there that I love so dearly now that I never paid any attention to until my later years.Being a musician myself Singer/Songwriter/Arranger I always wanted to be influenced by the best and as I have discovered BW is one of the best.I've been introduced to BW a few times in my life but it was always for a little while then I moved on , as I mentioned the previous songs earlier and even the work he did with his brothers when they called themselves "The Valentinos" a song Entitled "Everybody Wants To Fall In Love"(Which i think BW sang lead on but im not totally sure) from the Sam Cooke SAR Records Story. This last time it took Calvin Richardson's tribute CD(Facts Of Life/The Soul Of Bobby Womack) which coincided with BW being inducted into the Rock N Roll hall of fame (2009) (Congrads BW... and The Poet I &II Being Re-Released) for me to pay attention again.This time im stuck for good.... I love every song on the album and if you have read any of my other reviews then you know that , that is not something I say often , so when I do it has to be true.BW showcases many styles of music here from the straight out R&B of"If You Think You're Lonely Now" to the jazzy guitar licks of "Games" and from the easy listening of "Just My Imagination" to the dancing, foot stompin, sockin soul of "Stand Up".His voice is in supreme order on every song, BW is without a doubt One of the Best and unfortunately underated soul singers/songwriters in the business.I used to sit and wonder how come LP's back then only had between 5 and 8 songs on them ... maybe lolThe 2 answers I came up with was#1. Artist's back then put there all into every song , they were very meticulousAbout the music they created , recorded and released. They weren't just gonna make some music string some lyrics together and call it a song, they worked hard.Every song was good , where as some of today's artist(if you can call them that) make 1 or 2 good songs and the rest are fill ins to fill the slots with enough songs so they can call it an album or a CD.#2 most album versions of songs back then were 6 or 7 minutes long and when Isaac Hayes hit the scene they stretched to 18 Min and when Barry White came it went to 20 min lol.The Poet is a brilliant album and as this review is titledBobby Womack was and im sure still is A BEAST!!!!I wish Malaco Records would offer him a contract if he doesn't already have oneWith a company... Malaco yall need to jump on that(Smile).