"The Wicked Pickett" - Wilson Pickett.

First things first. This album is just about entirely covers. Even the big hit on the album ("Mustang Sally") is a cover. That would seem to indicate that it is a weak album and/or is full of filler. Nothing could be further from the truth.

For starters, the album was recorded entirely in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, at the soon to be famous Fame Studios. Aretha Franklin recorded her first #1 R&B hit there around the same time ("I Never Loved A Man (The Way I Love You") and soon everyone from Paul Simon to Cher was recording in Muscle Shoals. Secondly, this means that the band backing Pickett was one of the strongest backup bands of the 20th century, including little known figures who deserve more credit, such as Spooner Oldham on keyboards, Jimmy Johnson on guitar and Roger Hawkins on drums. This was a mostly White band playing a Wilson Pickett album, and you wouldn't have suspected as much by listening to it!

The covers are well chosen and often improve on the original. The original version of "Mustang Sally" was by the author, Sir Mack Rice, and had been a minor R&B hit before Pickett put his distinctive stamp on it. He sped it up a bit and the band provided a funky backdrop which resulted in one of his most famous performances and is a song that everyone assumes started with him. Other highlights are his hit cover of Solomon Burke's "Everybody Needs Somebody To Love" (sped up in the process) and the Deep Soul classic "She Ain't Gonna Do Right" (written by one of my favorite songwriting duos, Dan Penn & Spooner Oldham). The two other songs co-written by Dan Penn on the album are classics of Deep Soul, the devotional "Up Tight Good Woman" and the heartbreaker "You Left The Water Running".

If you're as much of a Soul fan and a Wilson Pickett fan as I am, this album will not be enough. If that is the case, and you have a bit of spare box set money lying around, you need a copy of "Funky Midnight Mover - The Atlantic Recordings (1962-1978)," a 6-CD set which includes everything he recorded for Atlantic Records, including this album, as well as numerous rarities. It is much, much more consistently strong than I would have thought; only the Discofied second half of disc 5 drags (disc 6 contains the rarities).