Wilson Picket’s rugged, blustering performing style not only earned him the nickname “The Wicked Pickett” but turned him into one of the top soul singers of all time, and a major presence on the international music scene during his peak in the ‘60s.
Irish fans not familiar with his recorded work will at least remember him as the invisible, shadowy figure in The Commitments, whom the band were determined to meet at all costs.
It’s not widely known if Pickett ever saw the film he “starred” in. But Andrew Strong, star of that film, met him when the movie hit the US market and even performed with Pickett while there.
As Strong fondly recalls: “Up to the time of The Commitments, I really didn’t know too much about him. But as promos for the film we did gigs in Los Angeles and New York and he joined us on stage for ‘In The Midnight Hour’ and ‘Mustang Sally’, two of his hits that featured in the film. It was really only then that I began to appreciate what an important place he had in soul music.”
Born in the rural American south in Prattville, near Montgomery, Alabama, the young Wilson had been quickly drawn to music, forming The Violinaires, a gospel act popular in local churches.
In 1959, by which time the family had moved to industrial Detroit, he was a member of The Falcons, and composed their r’n’b hit ‘I Found A Love’, handling its lead vocal too.
His move to a solo career was inspired by The Falcons producer and he enjoyed solo r’n’b hits with two more of his own songs, ‘If You Need Me’ and ‘It’s Too Late’, establishing himself as a singer with a harder approach than soul balladeers like Be E King and Nat King Cole.
Atlantic Records snapped him up in 1964 and after a couple of misses, Atlantic boss Gerry Wexler linked him with Booker T and The MGs for a recording session in Memphis.
His success with his Steve Cropper co-write ‘In The Midnight Hour’, now a staple of soul compilations, made him a national name. The title was inspired by Cropper hearing Pickett repeatedly use the phrase “wait for the midnight hour, baby”.
It heralded a string of pop chart hits, with ‘634-5789’, ‘Land Of 1,000 Dances’, ‘Funky Broadway’, ‘Mustang Sally’, ‘I’m A Midnight Mover’ and, in 1970, his heartfelt tribute to his heroes ‘Cole, Cooke and Redding’.
The exaggerated provocation of his stage act earned him the title “the wicked Pickett”. But he also attempted, with mixed success, to crack the crossover market, turning his voice to the Jimi Hendrix hit ‘Hey Joe’, The Beatles’ ‘Hey Jude’ (also notable for Duane Allman’s blistering guitar solo) and ‘Sugar Sugar’, originally by cartoon popstars The Archies.
Pickett then joined forces with the legendary production team of Gamble and Huff and scored more hits with ‘Engine Number 9’, ‘Don’t Let The Green Grass Fool You’, ‘Don’t Knock My Love’, ‘Call My Name, I’ll Be There’ and ‘Fire and Water’.
But after joining RCA and then EMI the hits dried up somewhat as they tried to market him as a ballad singer, and he even had a chequered spell with Motown.
Fortunately, Pickett had established a sufficiently enduring reputation to enable him to continue to tour indefinitely. At least 14 of his albums made the Billboard USA charts over the years, and his songs and recordings were used to fine effect on countless soundtracks, including The Commitments and American Soul Man.
He himself plays a significant role in the film Soul To Soul, based around a 1971 tour of Ghana with other soul stirrers.
Andrew Strong remembers meeting a pleasant guy, who, he says, “had a nice aura about him”.
Strong continues, “He seemed to relate to me best, perhaps as I was the singer in the band, but it was great to meet such a legend. Later I did ‘In The Midnight Hour’ and ‘Mustang Sally’ with my own band, and both tracks are on my Greatest Hits album due out here in a month or two. But I’ve often had to correct people who thought I’d written ‘Mustang Sally’ myself.”
Pickett leaves a rich catalogue of dynamic soul tracks, many self-penned, that have made him more than worthy to be mentioned in the same breath as Otis Redding, Marvin Gaye, Aretha Franklin, James Brown, Ray Charles and other soul legends.