"Wilson Pickett" (born March 18, 1941, in Prattville, Alabama) was an American soul singer who began his career with The Falcons in the early 1960s. He signed as a solo artist with Atlantic Records and recorded "In the Midnight Hour" (1965), one of the earliest distinctively soul songs, and perhaps his best-remembered hit.
The genesis of "In the Midnight Hour" was a recording session on May 12, 1965 in which producer Jerry Wexler approached studio musicians Steve Cropper and Al Jackson and said, "Why don't you pick up on this thing here?" He performed a dance step. Cropper later explained in an interview that Wexler told them that "this was the way the kids were dancing; they were putting the accent on two. Basically, we'd been one-beat-accenters with an afterbeat; it was like 'boom dah,' but here this was a thing that went 'um-chaw,' just the reverse as far as the accent goes." The song that resulted from this encounter established Pickett as a star and also gave Stax Records, for which Pickett recorded, a bona fide hit.
"Mustang Sally" and "Funky Broadway" followed, though Pickett's biggest pop hit was "Land of the 1000 Dances". By the early 1970s, Pickett had released several more hits, including a cover of The Beatles' "Hey Jude" and a cover of "Sugar Sugar" by The Archies. His last hit song was "Fire and Water" in 1972.
