Artist	Song
Wilson Pickett	Land of 1000 Dances
Wilson Pickett	Mustang Sally
Wilson Pickett	Stagger Lee
Wilson Pickett	Funky Broadway
Wilson Pickett	In The Midnight Hour
Wilson Pickett	Hey Jude
Wilson Pickett	Soul Survivor
Wilson Pickett	Engine Number 9
Wilson Pickett	634-5789 (Soulsville,USA)
Wilson Pickett	Sugar, Sugar
Wilson Pickett	Don't Let The Green Grass Fool You
Wilson Pickett	Everybody Needs Somebody To Love

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Born on March 18th, 1941, in Prattville, Alabama, Wilson Pickett moved with his family to Detroit when he was 14. His vocal training started early, in Baptist church choirs and on the streets. After four years in a local gospel-harmony group, the Violinaires, Pickett ventured into secular music, joining the soul group, "The Falcons" in 1959. The group, who featured future soul stars, Eddie Floyd and Sir Mack Rice, had already found success with a million selling single called "You're So Fine". Wilson gave the Falcons another hit, when he wrote and sang a song called "I Found Love", which made it to number six on Billboard's soul charts in 1962.
As a result of his success with The Falcons, record producer Robert Bateman suggested that Pickett try a solo career. After one failed single for Correctone Records, Wilson moved to Lloyd Price's "Double L" records, where he recorded two gritty R&B numbers, "If You Need Me" and "It's Too Late". "If You Need Me" was quickly covered by established soul artist, Solomon Burke, who had an R&B chart hit with it.
Jerry Wexler, an executive and producer for Atlantic Records, took Pickett to Memphis, where he was matched with Booker T. and the MG's. When session guitarist Steve Cropper was told that a little known singer named Wilson Pickett was coming in to the studio to record, he went to the nearest record shop and began searching through the record bins, looking for something Pickett had done. "I found two or three things...some spiritual things that he had sung lead on," Cropper says. Cropper noticed that at the end of each song Wilson would launch into an improvised rap about 'the midnight hour:' "In every song in the fade-out, he'd go into this ritual, `I'm going to wait till the midnight hour, oh in the midnight hour,' and he'd start preaching this `midnight hour' thing, and I said `That's it!' When Wilson and Cropper got together, the phrase `In the Midnight Hour' was the first one that came up. It took just one hour to write the soul/rock classic that would established Wilson Pickett as a star. "In The Midnight Hour" reached the top of the R&B chart and hit #21 on the pop chart in 1965.
Pickett's partnership with Steve Cropper and Atlantic Records produced a long series of hits that included, "Don't Fight It" (1965), "634-5789",(#13 in 1966) "Land Of 1,000 Dances",(#6 in 1966) "Mustang Sally" (#23 in 1966) and "Funky Broadway" (#8 in 1967). "Land Of 1,000 Dances" is a rare example of a hit song that never mentions the title in the song's lyrics.
Pickett didn't confine himself to Atlantic's Stax division for long. Soon he was also cutting tracks at Muscle Shoals, where he recorded several early songs by Bobby Womack, as well as using Duane Allman as a session guitarist on a hit cover of the Beatles' "Hey Jude." He also cut some tunes in Philadelphia with Gamble-Huff productions in the early '70s and even did a version of the Archies' "Sugar, Sugar."
As the "peace and love" era crept in, soul music faded from popularity, but Pickett didn't change with the times. Hits on the pop charts became harder to come by, although he did reach the top forty with "Engine Number 9", (1970) "Don't Let The Green Grass Fool You" (1971), and "Don't Knock My Love", a #1 R&B tune in 1971, which proved to be his last Top 20 hit for Atlantic.
Wilson signed with RCA in 1972, but his previous success was hard to regain. He returned to Muscle Shoals for a song called "Funky Situation" in 1978, issued on his own 'Wicked' label.
Over the years, Pickett continued to be very active on the tour circuit and worked alongside Joe Tex, Don Covay, Ben E. King and Solomon Burke who called themselves "The Soul Clan". He was also the invisible figure and role model in the award-winning soul music film "The Commitments" in 1991, the same year he was inducted into The Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame.
On January 19th, 2006, Wilson Pickett suffered a fatal heart attack at 64.

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