'In the Midnight Hour' tells 'real story' of Wilson Pickett

For Tony Fletcher, Wilson Pickett represents the archetype of the Southern soul man.

“Here he is, straight out the cotton fields, a gospel shouter, a foot stomper, with that amazing scream — I think he’s got the greatest voice of them all,” says Fletcher, author of “In the Midnight Hour: The Life & Soul of Wilson Pickett,” the first full-scale biography of the singer. Fletcher will read from and sign the book Wednesday night, Jan. 18, at the Stax Museum of American Soul Music.

“For me it wasn’t just that he was a great singer, that he had ‘it,’ that he was gifted,” says Fletcher. “It was that he was smart enough to know that maybe he was put here to use those gifts — and was determined enough to see that through. That was the real story.”

A noted music historian, Fletcher has written lauded biographies on The Who drummer Keith Moon and American indie rockers R.E.M., among others. The British-born Fletcher notes that there was always a pull toward Pickett’s music and myth in his native country.

“In the U.K., there’s a very direct connection between ‘60s rock bands like The Who and ‘60s soul music. The original mods were massively into soul music and the likes of Pickett were massive in Britain. The generation I’m a part of, the punk/new wave generation, had a mod revival in the late-‘70s as well. So we all kind of were jumping around to songs like 'Land of 1000 Dances.' I think it’s ingrained in me and my friends, how much we know and love a lot of his music.”

In 2012, having completed work on his definitive bio of ‘80s indie-pop group The Smiths, Fletcher was pondering his next book project when he seized upon Pickett’s story. “I was just listening to Pickett one day, and it struck me I don’t think there’s a book on him. And there wasn’t. One consideration as a biographer is, well, maybe it’s because he had a boring life. But once I started researching, it was clear he’d had anything but a boring life.”

In Pickett, Fletcher found a subject who was large —  not only in terms of his life adventures but also what his journey represented in the bigger context. “The superficial perceptions about Pickett are that he was amazing vocalist and that he was ‘the Wicked Pickett’ -- that he was someone who got into a lot of trouble. But I realized through this person I could also tell the story of 30 years of black American music. Because Pickett wasn’t just part of the trends — he was leading the trends. In several cases, he was setting the trends. Which made the story doubly interesting.”

Emerging from the cotton fields of Alabama, Pickett moved to Detroit as part of the Great Migration. There he established himself as a small star with vocal group The Falcons, before signing to New York label Atlantic as a solo artist. In Fletcher’s telling, Pickett’s rise through the music business was marked by his incredibly sharp instincts.

“He was someone who couldn’t read music, but in the studio and on stage had an total understanding of what something needed to sound like, and how it should be arranged. People told me he if he heard a wrong note, that he instinctively knew who played it — if it was a trumpet and which trumpet player it was,” says Fletcher, laughing. “Similarly, he was a savant with numbers. Despite a sixth grade education, he could do complicated maths in his head, which was a necessity on the road. He possessed a unique intellect — it wasn’t literary or university intelligence, but an innate intelligence.”

Although he’d had a hit with The Falcons and some minor chart success as a solo act on Atlantic, Pickett’s career was floundering by the time he arrived in Memphis to record at Stax Records in 1965. It was in the Bluff City where Pickett would reel off a string of classic sides — “In the Midnight Hour,” “634-5789,” and “Don’t Fight It”  —  that would really make his reputation.

"That Stax house band with Steve Cropper in the producer/arranger chair — it was a cross between a soul group and the makings of a rock group. And Pickett, his volume and energy, anything he did married very well to an aggressive, hard, four-to-the floor approach. Pickett teaming up with the band at Stax was one of those right things at the right time. I can say unequivocally that Wilson Pickett would not have been the star he was had he not recorded at Stax.”

The relationship with Stax was short-lived, however: The fiery Pickett was banned from the studio after a falling-out with owner Jim Stewart. Moving on, he would continue his recording odyssey, crucially making his way to a number of Southern studios — including FAME in Alabama, American in Memphis and Criteria in Miami — helping to blaze a trail. “He is the first or one of the first Atlantic artists to work at all those studios — and later on he was the first male Atlantic artist to go to Sigma Sound in Philadelphia. He was the first, and then people, Aretha Franklin and others, followed him.”

Although he continued enjoy some chart success into the 1970s, Pickett’s decline — both professional and personal — makes up much of the book’s compelling third act. “It was very hard for him to cope with the way the music world changed when soul got softer later in the '70s and turned to disco,” says Fletcher. “It was hard for people like him to maintain their relevance. They couldn’t sing in falsetto; they didn’t look very good in sequins.”

The latter part of Pickett’s life would become a darkening cycle. “The record sales decline, and then you take refuge in drink and drugs. Then you’re making worse records, and worse records don’t sell. There were 20 years of this — of false starts, record deals, trouble on tour, violence within the band and at home and time in jail.”

Despite his troubles, Pickett was afforded a late-career comeback, recording 1999’s “It’s Harder Now,” which earned a Grammy nomination. Still, since dying in 2006 at age 64, Pickett’s standing has faded somewhat — and the biography makes clear that he’s not been afforded his just due as an artist and as a critical figure in the evolution of soul. Fletcher hopes the book will help remedy that.

“He didn’t die young like Sam Cooke or Otis Redding in tragic circumstances. He didn’t live to such a ripe old age like Ray Charles or a James Brown. When he died, even the media didn’t really regard his passing in the way it probably should have, and treated him like one of the all-time greats. This person doesn’t have the place [culturally] that he deserves. But when you look at his life and music, and that legacy he left behind, he should be in that conversation.”

Meet the Author

Tony Fletcher will read from and sign copies of "In the Midnight Hour: The Life & Soul of Wilson Pickett" (Oxford University Press, 320 pages, $27.95) at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Stax Museum of American Soul Music. Admission is free.