The cost was being overshadowed by the Stax and Atlantic stablemates who had smoother crossover appeal. Pickett never achieved the mainstream success of Otis Redding or Aretha Franklin, but his catalog of singles is as strong as any of his contemporaries. He recorded at Stax in Memphis and at Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals, working with some of the greatest rhythm sections in American music. His sound was built on a foundation of gospel fervor and the tightest horn arrangements in soul music.

In the Midnight Hour is the one. Co-written with Eddie Floyd, the song is built around a guitar riff that every garage band learned in the first week of practice and still plays today. Pickett's vocal is not a performance in the traditional sense -- it is a physical event that leaves nothing on the stage. Land of 1000 Dances became a party standard that has never left the American songbook.

Mustang Sally is still played at every wedding that matters. Wilson Pickett was not the most polished singer of his era, but he was one of the most essential, and the fire he brought into the studio cannot be replicated.