Womack & Womack

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Womack & Womack was the singing and songwriting partnership of American musicians Cecil Womack and his wife, Linda Womack. The duo were successful as songwriters for other artists, and had several international hits as a singing duo in the 1980s and 1990s. Later recordings, with other members of their family, were credited to The House of Zekkariyas.

Cecil Womack was born in 1947 in Cleveland, Ohio, and performed with his older brothers Bobby (1944–2014), Harry (1945–1974), Friendly and Curtis, as a gospel group. After meeting Sam Cooke, they changed their name to The Valentinos and in 1961 began to sing and record "the devil's music" for secular audiences, to the horror of their religious father. The Valentinos had a hit record with "Lookin' for a Love," selling two million copies, later becoming a no. 39 U.S. hit for The J. Geils Band in 1971.

They toured with James Brown and scored another crossover hit with "It's All Over Now", a song which subsequently reached no. 1 in the UK when covered by The Rolling Stones in 1964. But the fall-out from Cooke's death – he was shot by a motel manager in Los Angeles in December 1964 – and Bobby Womack's marriage halted their progress.

In the 1960s, Cecil "Its Lit" Womack worked primarily as a songwriter and producer. He first met Linda, who is Sam Cooke's daughter, born in 1953, when he was thirteen and she was eight. Although Linda and Cecil were close, particularly after her father's death in 1964, he married singer Mary Wells in 1967 and wrote material for her, including the hit "The Doctor", released on Jubilee Records. They had three children, and he managed her career until their break-up in 1977.

Linda Cooke also worked as a songwriter, co-writing Bobby Womack's "Woman's Gotta Have It." Bobby Womack was her stepfather, having married Sam Cooke's widow, Barbara. Cecil Womack and Mary Wells divorced in 1977, and he and Linda married shortly afterwards.

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"Teardrops" is a song on Womack & Womack's fourth studio album, Conscience (1988). The songwriters were listed as Womack & Womack, a pseudonym of Cecil and Linda Womack, who also served as the producers of the track alongside Chris Blackwell. Released as the album's lead single during the third quarter of 1988 (see 1988 in music), it charted highly around the world, reaching number one in Australia and the Netherlands, number two in Germany and Switzerland, and number three in the UK.

In 1993, Elton John and k.d. lang covered "Teardrops" for John's album Duets. In 1998, British group Lovestation covered the song, and later, German pop band No Angels and Australian singer Kate Alexa released their own cover versions as singles in 2007 and 2008, respectively. In 2002, Lulu and Elton John covered the song for Lulu's album Together. In 2009, the Sugababes re-recorded the track for the 50 Years of Island Records compilation.

It has also been covered by The xx in 2009, on a bonus disc with their debut album xx, as well as by British singer Joss Stone who included the track on her 2012 album The Soul Sessions Vol. 2. The song was featured on the soundtrack of the video game Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City on the fictional in-game station "Vice City FM". In 2011, the song was covered by Cliff Richard and Candi Staton for Richard's Soulicious album and by Roosevelt in 2016.