Facts of Life

Even though it was recorded with a very compact unit of trusty Muscle Shoals session players, this album has more variety than any of Womack’s previous efforts. His version of “All Along the Watchtower” is spiky and venomous, while “I’m Through Trying to Prove My Love to You” is as spare and dreamy as a gospel hymn at midnight. Womack was always searching for new ways to reinterpret classic blues music, and “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out” epitomizes this unique talent. Though delivered in the guise of a soul song, the performance is as much blues as anything B.B. King was making around the same time. Even as Womack taps into ancient traditions, he's never been more comfortable playing the modern soul man, as he does against the slippery strings of “Facts of Life/He’ll Be There When the Sun Goes Down.” He breathes new life into Burt Bacharach’s “The Look of Love” and Carole King’s “Natural Woman” (done here as “Natural Man”), but his best cover is “That’s Heaven to Me.”