Wilson Pickett – The Exciting Wilson Pickett

Two studios within one album

The Exciting Wilson Pickett brings together two of the defining locations of 1960s soul. Six recordings come from Stax in Memphis in 1965, and six from FAME in Muscle Shoals in 1966. Released in 1966, the album combines those sessions in a sequence that does not simply follow recording dates. Pickett provides the continuity: his gospel background and distinctive vocal personality connect material made with different players in different rooms. The twelve songs capture a concentrated period in his Atlantic career, with several major singles placed within a broader programme.

“In The Midnight Hour”, “634-5789”, “Ninety-Nine And A Half (Won’t Do)” and “Land Of 1000 Dances” are the familiar landmarks. Hearing them as part of this album also draws attention to the recordings around them. The collection offers a way to follow Pickett’s transition from Memphis to Muscle Shoals through the musicians, writers and songs involved. It belongs to a period when individual singles carried considerable weight, yet those singles could also become the foundations of an album with its own shape and concentration.

The musicians behind the voice

Pickett and Steve Cropper wrote “In The Midnight Hour” in Memphis, with the song’s history leading through the Lorraine Motel to the Stax studio. Cropper later recalled Jerry Wexler demonstrating a dance step during the recording, helping to communicate the rhythmic idea. It is a revealing detail about the closeness of songwriting, accompaniment and dancing. Cropper played guitar, Donald “Duck” Dunn bass and Al Jackson Jr. drums. The pianist on that particular recording was Joe Hall, an important distinction from the familiar but inaccurate assumption that every such session featured the complete Booker T. & the M.G.’s line-up.

Isaac Hayes is documented on piano or keyboards on other Memphis selections. Horn players including Wayne Jackson, Andrew Love and Floyd Newman connect several parts of the programme. The FAME sessions brought in guitarists Chips Moman and Jimmy Johnson, keyboard player Spooner Oldham and drummer Roger Hawkins, among others. The personnel therefore needs to be understood track by track. Rather than assigning one backing band to all twelve songs, the credits show the changing groups of musicians surrounding a singer whose identity remains unmistakable throughout the collection.

Repertoire travelling between performers

“Land Of 1000 Dances” began with Chris Kenner and had already received another notable interpretation from Cannibal & the Headhunters before Pickett recorded it. Its journey connects New Orleans songwriting with the wider circulation of rhythm and blues material. Kenner also wrote “Something You Got”. “Barefootin’” comes from Robert Parker, and “Mercy, Mercy” from Don Covay’s repertoire. These were songs with active lives among contemporary performers, and Pickett’s recordings belong to that process of reinterpretation rather than to a retrospective survey assembled much later.

“You’re So Fine” introduces a personal connection. It had been a hit for the Falcons before Pickett joined the group. Eddie Floyd, another musician associated with the Falcons, subsequently co-wrote “634-5789” with Cropper and contributed to “Ninety-Nine And A Half”. Bobby Womack wrote the closing “She’s So Good To Me”. Following these names reveals how the album is held together by relationships as well as by its lead singer. Writers, former bandmates and studio players recur across the record, each contributing to the material that Pickett makes his own.

The Atlantic 75 double LP

This edition is AAPA 025-45 in the Analogue Productions Atlantic 75 Series, presented on two 180-gram records at 45 RPM. Matthew Lutthans at Cohearent Audio handled the mastering, with the publisher identifying the original master tape as the source. The twelve-song programme is divided evenly across four sides, three tracks per side. “Land Of 1000 Dances” begins side A, while “In The Midnight Hour” begins side C. The album sequence is retained through that new physical arrangement.

The records are housed in a Stoughton Printing tip-on gatefold jacket with two pockets. Quality Record Pressings is named on the product page; later unnumbered pressings within the series can also come from RTI, so a specific numbered pressing is not promised for an individual copy. This release contains the original twelve selections. The presentation spreads the programme over four sides while preserving the connection between the Memphis recordings of 1965 and the Muscle Shoals sessions that followed, allowing the songs and their documented participants to tell that story together.

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Also on SACD: The Exciting Wilson Pickett

Customer questions: Atlantic 75: which titles are worth buying? · Buying Analogue Productions records in Europe

Series: Atlantic 75 Series – all 75 albums, time journey and the people behind Atlantic

Musicians

Participants and documented credit status. Track references correspond to the tracklist.

Several Stax and FAME sessions. Disputed bass and additional horn credits are not listed as confirmed.