I mostly come to ask and listen to soul music now, and before I have heard Wilson Pickett among famous oldies on the radio. His Land of 1000 Dances drives me crazy not only by Pickett who shout and shout rather than sing from first to last, but also by backing men at Fame studio just like a locomotive which runs wildly on the rail of rhythm. I borrowed his best or "Atlantic Rhythm & Blues 1947-1974" as I always mention, and next I found In the Midnight Hour ringing in my ears. This is his best work which makes me feel comfortable with the looseness delivered by Booker T & the MG's and Memphis horns at Stax. Wilson Pickett's charm is the shout which makes your ears smart but never misses the tone. His voice is just like an instrument which have passed through the years and has had some habits and have been kept in perfect condition. That was why he was appreciated especially by many white musicians, like "He is marvelous, indeed". James Brown, one of shouters of his age, led the JB's and made his own funk music. Otis Redding or Sam & Dave were the owners of Stax sound. As compared with them, I guess he should have wandered restlessly through various sounds in Detroit, New York, Memphis, Muscle Shoals, Miami or Philadelphia. Aretha Franklin, the same label mate and hitmaker of Atlantic, also had visited various studios, but she always had her home in gospel. In my personal viewpoint, it seems to me that gospel was the place where he was born but he never returned again.
Born in the rural area of Alabama, Pickett got aware of singing while he did cotton picking jobs with his family. When he was in teens and moved to Detroit, it is said that he joined a gospel group called the Violinaires and trained his own throat during the tour starring the Soul Stirrers or the Swan Silvertones all around the country. For earning the living of his own and his family, he converted gospel to secular doo-wap and became a member of the Falcons in Detroit.The Falcons had memebers such as a Stax's house singer and song-writer Eddie Floyd, or Mack Rice who wrote the Staple Singers' Respect Yourself and sang the original Mustang Sally, and had a hit You're So Fine from a label LuPine in 1959, which is fine as the title says for the bright reading of the lead vocal Joe Stubbs (the brother of the Four Tops' Levi Stubbs)(which can be heard on "Golden Age of American Rock'n'Roll vol.6" and so on). In '62 they cut I Found a Love on which Pickett took the lead. Though the backing chorus slightly keeps the old doo-wap style, Pickett's delivery bursts terribly and it can be said that this tune reveals what is the first cry of newborn soul. After this hit he became solo and cut some tunes at small labels with his reserved shouts. His If You Need Me from Double-L is not so bad a ballad for his convincing talking, however, Solomon Burke of Atlantic gets the better of him for its hotter rendition featuring church-preaching. "A Man and a Half", which compiles his tunes until '71, also contains ones from small labels and early sides of Atlantic where he joined in connection with If You Need Me before his next breakthrough since I Found a Love.
Jerry Wexler of Atlantic hit upon a good idea that Pickett should be tied with Stax in Memphis which had a contract under the distribution of Atlantic. While there are inside stories which you can read from other sources, Pickett's shout, which once got tamer in the mold of the north, glows wonderfully with the southern sounds. I'm really knocked out by the simple and loose groove of Booker T & the MG's and the Mar-kays on In the Midnight Hour, Don't Fight it, 634-5789(Soulville, U.S.A.) or Ninety-Nine and a Half (Won't Do) . In my personal opinion, his tunes of this era are the best. As Stax got to have lighter relation with Atlantic for the intention of selling sides of its household artists, Atlantic took Pickett to various studios in the south. At Fame studio in Muscle Shoals there came dance tracks like Land of 1000 Dances, Mustang Sally or Funky Broadway. American studio of Memphis brought ballads such as I'm in Love or Jealous Love composed by Bobby Womack, who is quite a competent guitarist and also a great soulful singer. At Fame or Criteria studio in Miami you don't forget his rendition of big hits of the day like Hey Jude featuring Duane Allman's guitar no less loud than Pickett, Hey Joe, You Keep Me Hangin' on or Sugar Sugar. Pickett of the '60s had a series of hits.
Coming into the '70s, you can also hear Pickett's delivery riding on sophisticated and complicated sounds, such as Get Me Back on Time, Engine Number 9 or Don't Let the Green Grass Fool You of Sigma Sound in Philadelphia and Don't Knock My Love or Fire and Water of Muscle Shoals Sound. However, as the soul music went for disco processed through civil sophistication, shouting Pickett gradually got to be thought as remains of the past. It may be impolite that I take his RCA year compilation "Take Your Pleasure Where You Find It" as the adaptation of his Atlantic era, but I think it's not so bad in its own right. Under my impression that he had some kinds of troubles heard from behind the scene, while soul is generally the music of centripetal force as you imagine its embrace or unity, and it seems to me that Wilson Pickett shouted by the centrifugal force which allowed him to blow away his own bitter past. Although he was a poor song-writer, unconsciously he might bear the shout of a lonely poet in the city, too far from his hometown church where there was a father to listen to his confession.(2007/04/15)