Cecil Womack - Telegraph Cooke was shot dead in late 1964, and without his support The Valentinos disbanded soon afterwards. Bobby Womack - who had been working as Cooke's guitarist - married his widow, Barbara, and developed a very successful career as songwriter, session guitarist and, eventually, solo artist. In 1966 Cecil married the Motown singer Mary Wells, for whom he wrote and produced several songs; they went on to have three children together. In 1976 Cecil and Mary Wells divorced, and the next year he married Linda Cooke. Together the couple penned hits for The O'Jays, Patti LaBelle, George Benson and Teddy Pendergrass, for whom they wrote one of his biggest hits, Love TKO. In 1983, as Womack & Womack, they secured a recording contract with Elektra. The duo's 1983 debut album, Love Wars, won wide critical acclaim, while the title track was a hit in both America and Britain . In 1987 Womack & Womack moved to Island Records, and their 1988 album Conscience turned out to be the most successful of their career, with the single Teardrops reaching No 3 in the UK charts and proving a huge hit worldwide. Womack & Womack's songs combined musical intelligence with fine harmony vocals and supple instrumentation. Yet the couple never managed to capitalise fully on Teardrops" success, and their 1991 album Family Spirit failed to chart. Not long afterwards, following a visit to Nigeria, Cecil and Linda claimed to have discovered ancestral ties to the Zekkariyas tribe, and they adopted the names Zeriiya (Linda) and Zekuumba (Cecil) Zekkariyas; in 1993 - under the name House of Zekkariyas aka Womack & Womack - they released an album called Transformation to the House of Zekkariyas, which featured their final UK Top 50 hit, Secret Star. They settled with their four children in Africa, seemingly content with a lifestyle far removed from the conventional music industry. In 2007 they released the album Circular Motion, and although they occasionally performed in Europe, for the most part they avoided the public eye. Covers of their songs by artists such as Eric Clapton, Bonnie Raitt, Boz Scaggs, Michael McDonald, The Beautiful South and Joss Stone brought them lucrative royalties. Cecil Womack is survived by Linda and by his children. Cecil Womack, born September 25 1947, died February 1 2013