BOBBY WOMACK: ACROSS 110TH STREET

Bobby Womack's musical career has been an almost unprecedented rollercoaster ride.   Starting off on the streets of segregated America, Womack launched himself into what became an epic adventure. In the 1950s as a youngster he was travelling the gospel highway with the Womack Brothers. By the 1960s, he was being mentored by Sam Cooke who schooled him in the ways of R&B, while James Brown also drilled him into shape. Soon, the Rolling Stones and Wilson Pickett were queuing up to record his songs.   In the early 1970s, not long after Janis Joplin covered one of his compositions, Bobby was with her just hours before she died. He played rhythm guitar on Sly & the Family Stone's Family Affair before becoming a major soul star in his own right with hits like Across 110th Street, Woman's Gotta Have It and Harry Hippie.   In the second half of the 1970s, his disastrous country and western album, as well as disco mania, savaged his career. But Bobby rose again in the 1980s with his