Wilson Pickett: The Atlantic Years

The volcanic sound of Wicked Pickett erupted out of Memphis in 1965, turning the R&B world upside-down. On his breakthrough hit, "In the Midnight Hour," the gospel-schooled soul sender was a fevered, pulpit-pounding preacher testifying to the glory of some late-night love, over the stompin' beat of Stax studio's hotshot house band. The following year, Pickett moved his mojo to Muscle Shoals, Alabama, churning out another batch of future soul standards: "Mustang Sally" made the most of his raw sexuality with its thinly veiled "baby, you can drive my car" message, while his definitive, explosive take on Chris Kenner's classic "Land of 1000 Dances" wailed, shouted, and quick-stepped its way to the top of both the Pop and R&B charts. Find soul salvation in Next Steps.

A towering inferno of yearnin', burnin' soul, Wilson Pickett was hell-bent on starting a fire down below among his fans. In his hands, even the innocence of the Archies' bubblegum-pop hit "Sugar Sugar" was transformed into something sweaty and almost obscene. When Bobby Womack produced him in Memphis, Pickett burned hotter than ever, turning out both rough, tough stuff like "She's Lookin' Good" and such pained pleas for salvation as the light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel vision "Hello Sunshine." How flammable was the Wicked Pickett? He could even spark a firestorm out of British blues-rock, running away with a funked-up take on heavy-riff merchants Free's "Fire and Water." Things get slower (but certainly not softer) in Deep Cuts.

Some singers gently caress a ballad; saber-toothed soul tiger Wilson Pickett throttled it into submission. When he stepped away from his Southern home base to juice up Philly soul with producers Gamble & Huff, he sliced through the sweeping strings of "Days Go By" like a slasher with a sweet tooth. You can practically hear the testosterone pumping out of the speakers when the gravel-throated Romeo tells his sweetheart how things stand on "That's a Man's Way." And when he adds a tender tone to that razor-throated growl on "I've Come a Long Way," you can hear the sadness of his hard-knock life and the friction of his notorious hair-trigger temper finding redemption, Memphis-style, amid bluesy guitar licks and churchy organ swells.

Larger than life and twice as tough, Wilson Pickett was the Genghis Khan of soul, a warrior king whose mighty powers felled everything in his path. The years he spent pumping out towering tracks for Atlantic Records (1965-1972) was a golden moment in R&B, the likes of which we'll likely — no, definitely — never see again. But here's your opportunity to experience the cream of the Southern belter's crop from that priceless period. From the syncopated strut of "Funky Broadway" and the groove-grinding gut punch of "I'm a Midnight Mover" to Pickett's Muscle Shoals-powered reinvention of the Fab Four classic "Hey Jude," feast your ears on the meaty sonic muscle of these titanic tracks from a colossus of American music.