Wilson Pickett (Born 18/03/1941, Died 19/10/2006)

Although Pickett was one of the key soul stars of the 1960s, responsible for a few of the decade's finest uptempo grooves, his career was, like the curate's egg, good only in parts. Although those who liked their soul on the raw and gritty side held him in high esteem, he was clearly a less versatile singer and performer than the likes of Solomon Burke, Aretha Franklin and even Otis Redding. His early hits however, written and recorded with the great session musicians in Memphis and Muscle Shoals, did as much as anything to help establish an identity for southern soul. Later in his career, he suffered from a lack of consistency, commercially and artistically, recording with a number of different writers and producers, losing his sense of direction along the way.

He moved to and grew up in Detroit, singing in a number of the city's gospel and R&B groups before joining the Falcons, already established performers who had scored a million seller with 'You're So Fine'. He then penned and sang lead on their biggest hit, 'I Found A Love' (1962), before almost immediately beginning his solo career. Initially, he featured on Lloyd Price's Double L label, releasing the two excellent singles, 'It's Too Late' and 'If You Need Me'. The latter was picked up by Solomon Burke on Atlantic. Burke's was the bigger record, always said to be a source of irritation for Pickett, although it didn't stop them later featuring together as part of the Soul Clan. Nor did it stop Pickett moving to the same label in 1964.

Almost immediately after signing him to Atlantic, Wexler shipped Wilson down to record at Stax in Memphis, where he paired up with Steve Cropper to write and produce what for many is the best material of his whole career. 'In The Midnight Hour', 'Don't Fight It', 634-5789', 'Land Of A 1000 Dances' (written by Chris Kenner), 'Mustang Sally' and 'Funky Broadway' all came out of the partnership with Cropper and the subsequent recordings he made with Rick Hall in the Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals.
He subsequently went back to Memphis to record, this time in Chip Moman's American studios, where he recorded an excellent version of Bobby Womack's 'I'm A Midnight Mover', 'She's Lookin' Good' and 'Stag-O-Lee', all sizeable hits in the US pop charts. Another trip to Fame delivered a very fine cover of the Beatles 'Hey Jude' with Duane Allman on guitar, which got to #16 in the UK charts.
In 1970 Pickett's recording studio pilgrimage took him to Philadelphia where he teamed up with Gamble & Huff and scored two pop and R&B successes with 'Engine Number 9' and ' Don't Let The Green Grass Fool You'. His final hits for Atlantic (despite the studio hops, all these releases came out on Atlantic), 'Don't Knock My Love' and a version of Free's 'Fire And Water' were recorded at the Criteria Studios in Florida with Brad Shapiro. You'll find everything you probably need on the Rhino single CD compilation "The Very Best of Wilson Pickett". If you do want more, there is a 38 track 2CD retrospective called "A Man and a Half: the Best of Wilson Pickett", also on Rhino, and still available at the time of writing. "The Definitive Wilson Pickett", out on Wmtv, is another 2CD alternative, but is unlikely to stay in print for long!

Wilson then switched to RCA but, like so many artists before him, he never replicated the success he achieved whilst with the Atlantic label. He released a number of fairly ordinary albums on RCA, although there is the occasional nugget to be found amongst the more mundane. There is a compilation ("Take Your Pleasure Where You Find It: the Best of the RCA Years") of the RCA material for those who want to venture beyond the Atlantic material.
Even when Pickett's subsequent recording career failed to reach the heights of his Atlantic releases, he was always a popular live act, and then achieved a certain further notoriety as the centrepiece and heart of the film The Commitments, even though he didn't actually make an appearance in the movie.

As another commentator once remarked, a man who could genuinely inject soul into the Archies' 'Sugar Sugar' could never be ignored! Every soul fan should own the genuinely great Pickett Atlantic sides, but very few will need to investigate his catalogue further.
He died in January 2006 aged 64 after suffering a heart attack at home in Virginia.