Bobby Womack

Bobby Womack's 1984 song "American Dream" gets a powerful new video (watch)

Late soul legend Bobby Womack‘s 1984 song “American Dream,” which uses part of Martin Luther King Jr‘s 1961 speech of the same name, feels as relevant now as it did 36 years ago. As this year’s Fourth of July comes during a widespread period of unrest for America, Womack’s racial equality anthem has been given a powerful new lyric video:

A new lyric video for “American Dream,” a Bobby Womack track that debuted on his 1984 album The Poet II, has been released by ABKCO Records just in advance of the July 4 holiday. “American Dream” is part of ABKCO’s ongoing series of E Single Video posts.

The song’s introduction includes a passage from Martin Luther King’s speech titled “American Dream” that he delivered on June 6, 1961 at Pennsylvania’s Lincoln University, the nation’s first degree granting HBCU. That speech is acknowledged as the precursor of Dr. King’s “I Have A Dream” speech that he would deliver at the March on Washington two years later. When the song was composed by Womack and collaborator Jim Ford, it occurred to Womack that part of Dr. King’s speech would make a fitting intro. At that time, he reached out to MLK’s widow, Coretta Scott King, who agreed to license it.

The video includes numerous evocative black and white photographs of Womack that were made by noted LA-based, South African-born, lensman Norman Seeff.

Watch the timely new video below…

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