Aged 64, Wilson Pickett died from a heart attack today.
Strange as there is a thread ongoing that mentioned “The Commitments”
and “Mustang Sally” was the defining song of that film!
Just saw it on MSNBC…hats off to good ol’ Wilson
Definitely a large figure in my musically formative youth. RIP. As I had older brothers and sisters, pre-Beatles era, I grew up on a fair amount of soul music (that’s what we called it then). Wilson Pickett, Otis Redding, Curtis Mayfield, Smokey Robinson and others. Songs we all sang along with…
This is sad news indeed.
The first Wilson Pickett album, which contained some songs from his Falcons days, was the first time I’d heard an African American singing full throttle. Nothing I’d heard before could prepare me for that sound, not even Little Richard. To be sure, I was very familiar with blues, jazz and Ray Charles and Sam Cooke—these were integral parts of the sound-track to my youth—but Pickett was in a different league for intensity. Before the '60s you could only hear that sound in church, and certainly not in any Australian church.
Although he made more polished albums than the first, nothing matched the first for intensity. I usually prefer my soul music with subtle melisma and a slow burn—Howard Tate, Solomon Burke, Garnett Mimms, Curtis Mayfield—but there is something thrilling about a raw shouter that still does it for me. Pickett was amongst the best of them.
RIP. a sad day for American music, though he will be remembered in cover tunes forever. played a few of those myself in my day, nowhere near to the originals, of course.
he was Godot in “The Commitments”, i thought, a fine bit of Beckett interwoven into the script, though he actually showed (unseen, in the limo) after the band had broken up.
Rest in peace Wilson, we’ll miss you. 