Soulobit: Cecil Womack

Cecil Womack has died.

He married Sam Cooke's daughter, Linda - although he proposed to her first when she was just twelve. He explained this to The Independent back in 1994:

By the time her father died in 1964 I felt very close to her. I decided to get my nerve together and propose to her. Either way I wanted to know how she felt about me. One evening, just before I was about to go on tour, I told her, 'I know this may sound strange to you, but I really want to marry you.' She said we were both too young. She wasn't shocked by my confession, but just thought the timing was wrong. She had plans to go to college. Sometimes I wish we had got together then.

Perhaps even more uncomfortably, he told the paper he'd thought about her "romantically" from the time she was eight; although he also describes his feelings for her as "like brother and sister".

It's clearly something of complicated relationship. Especially as he was her step-uncle as well.

Perhaps it's better to focus on the music together - and working together was something Cecil had to fight for:

When we married we started working together all the time. I think that upset some people. A lot of the guys I worked with were very anti-women. They knew I was all for promoting women who could do the job well. I've had good relationships with women and kind of looked after them.

Perhaps the best-known fruits of their collaboration is Teardrops. And that's had a healthy second life, being picked up by the XX:

Cecil Womack died on February 1st. He was 65.