Wilson Pickett screamed In the Midnight Hour and the walls sweated. The Wicked Pickett -- a voice that could strip paint at fifty yards, a stage presence that demanded attention, and a catalog of hits recorded at Stax and Muscle Shoals that defined Southern soul at its most urgent and explosive.

He grew up in Prattville, Alabama, singing gospel with the Violinaires, and brought that church-trained ferocity to secular music when he crossed over. In the Midnight Hour -- co-written with Steve Cropper at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis -- became his signature and one of the defining songs of 1960s soul. Mustang Sally. Land of 1000 Dances. Funky Broadway.

He recorded at Stax, then at Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals, then at Sigma Sound in Philadelphia. Each move brought a new sound, but the voice -- that raw, screaming, impossibly powerful instrument -- never changed. He had demons. He fought them. He kept singing. The Wicked Pickett outlasted his own chaos. The scream still echoes.

Wilson Pickett screamed In the Midnight Hour at the Lorraine Motel and made the walls sweat. The Wicked Pickett. Mustang Sally. Land of 1000 Dances. Southern soul at its most explosive.