Robert Dwayne Womack (/ˈwoʊmæk/; March 4, 1944 – June 27, 2014) was an American singer, musician and songwriter. Starting in the early 1950s as the lead singer of his family musical group the Valentinos and as Sam Cooke‘s backing guitarist, Womack’s career spanned more than 60 years and multiple styles, including R&B, jazz, soul, rock and roll, doo-wop, and gospel.

Womack was a prolific songwriter who wrote and originally recorded, (with his brothers, the Valentinos), the Rolling Stones‘ first UK number one hit (“It’s All Over Now“) and New Birth‘s “I Can Understand It“. As a singer, he is most notable for the hits “Lookin’ for a Love“, “That’s the Way I Feel About Cha“, “Woman’s Gotta Have It“, “Harry Hippie“, “Across 110th Street“, and his 1980s hits “If You Think You’re Lonely Now” and “I Wish He Didn’t Trust Me So Much“.

In 2009, Womack was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Womack was born in Cleveland‘s Fairfax neighborhood, near East 85th Street and Quincy Avenue, to Naomi Womack and Friendly Womack, the third of five sons. Friendly Jr. and Curtis were Bobby’s older brothers, and Harry and Cecil were his younger brothers. They all grew up in the Cleveland slums, so poor that the family would fish pig snouts out of the local supermarket’s trash. He had to share a bed with his brothers. His mother told him he could “sing his way out of the ghetto.” Recalling his childhood, Bobby said, “we came up very poor. My kids have had a much better life than I’d ever thought of livin,'” and, “the neighborhood was so ghetto that we didn’t bother the rats and they didn’t bother us.