The roll-call of Gorillaz collaborators over the last decade includes Danger Mouse, Ibrahim Ferrer, De La Soul, Kano, Lou Reed, Mark E Smith, Snoop Dogg, the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble, Mos Def, Shaun Ryder and Paul Simonon and Mick Jones. But arguably the most rewarding relationship has been between the band and the great Bobby Womack.
In an interview to celebrate Gorillaz's 10th anniversary, the 67-year old soul singer reveals how an offer to work with the band helped him return to the studio. "I'd never heard of them. I'd just come off a heavy drugs scene and I'd been out 20 years," Womack says. "I stopped wanting to be a part of music when the Monkees retired."
"One day I just said to myself," he continues, "if I'm still here, I got to be here for a purpose – and the purporse started with tying up with Gorillaz. We did this song Stylo in New York and immediately all the fear went out the way."
It was Womack's daughter who helped persuade him to work with the group when she found him, much to her surprise, listening to their album.
"I says, 'Is that a sin?' She says, 'Nah Dad, that's the hottest group in the country!' I said, 'I'm just listening to them becuase they want me to record with them.' She went nuts. 'Are you serious? Dad this is your comeback?'"
Starting in the early 60s, Womack worked as Sam Cooke's backing guitarist, wrote and originally recorded the Rolling Stones' first No 1 hit, It's All Over Now, and played on famous sessions with Aretha Franklin and Sly and the Family Stone. His own hits included Across 110th Street (subsequently used in the Quentin Tarantino film Jackie Brown) and the 80s albums The Poet and The Poet II. But his recording career ground to a halt at the end of the 80s, until he received the call from Gorillaz that led to him guesting on two tracks on 2010's Plastic Beach and an appearance with the group at Glastonbury.
In the same interview, Womack reveals he feared he wouldn't be asked to tour with the band after he fell ill from diabetes. He also describes Gorillaz's working methods, saying: "They're in to turning on the artists so the artists can turn on the people."
Bobby Womack is now recording a new studio album, working with Damon Albarn and producer Richard Russell, who previously produced the late Gil Scott-Heron's I'm New Here.
In a series of further interviews to mark Gorillaz's 10 years in the business, Jonathan Ross describes when Damon Albarn, Jamie Hewlett and members of the group including Tinie Tempah bundled him to the ground in a mock-fight when they appeared on his TV talk show in May 2010. "I expect the cartoon versions to be filled with a youthful joie de vivre and a lack of respect for authority figures," Ross says, "but I don't expect the real men who actually are playing the music and drawing the squiggly pictures to be as disrespectful. I thought they'd be a little bit calmer. But it seems to be the opposite is true. The cartoon ones are the ones you can relax around. The real ones are nuts."
Gorillaz have released four albums – their eponymous debut in 2001, Demon Days in 2005 and Plastic Beach and The Fall in 2010 – and sold more 13m records. In May 2010, they also staged a takeover of guardian.co.uk/music.
