Consumer Guide Album

Womack & Womack: Love Wars [Elektra, 1983]
Though they're more purely soul music than either, this professional couple place closer to Ashford & Simpson than to Delaney & Bonnie on an urban-to-downhome axis, which may be why their soul music avoids not only nostalgia but conservatism: Al Jackson would have turned in his union card before permitting a drum floomph so loosely contemporary. Ace singers and songwriters (as opposed to singer-songwriters), their lyrics about loss and conflict are sharper than those about love and happiness. But "Express Myself" makes a passable "Is It Still Good to Ya" and their lyrics about loss and conflict--especially "Love Wars" and "A.P.B."--clearly come from lovers who wish they weren't fighters. A-