The Valentinos

Friendly Womack Sr. dreamed of fathering five gospel-singing sons before Friendly Jr., Bobby, Harry, Curtis, and Cecil were conceived. When they arrived, the hard-working laborer/preacher groomed them to praise the Lord and audiences watched the Womack Brothers perform at churches with Bobby standing on a crate because he was so small. They lived in the East 85th & Quincy area, one of the roughest neighborhoods in Cleveland in the late '50s and early '60s; a dubious honor that housing projects claimed in the '70s and '80s. If not for a strict father, they could have succumbed ...