You Might As Well Pay For The One Extra Track And Avoid It Ain't Easy.

The Good: Generally good, funky sound
The Bad: This is "It's Harder Now" with one less track!
The Basics: An extraordinarily disappointing cashgrab involving the final material Wilson Pickett produced, It Ain't Easy is It's Harder Now, but with one less track!


Every now and then, I find myself feeling seriously cheated by an album. As February draws to a close and I look to finish up the last works by Wilson Pickett that I've been able to get in, I find myself once again dismayed. The reason for today's disappointment is simple: while listening to It Ain't Easy from the Essential Recordings collection from Rounder Records, I began to feel that the album was suspiciously familiar. A quick check of the track lists confirmed that It Ain't Easy contains eleven of the twelve songs from It's Harder Now (click here for that review!). I suppose, in order to cash in on Pickett's final album again, Rounder Records decided to re-release the tracks in a different order and without the truly lousy "What's Under That Dress?"

But, even though I'm not a fan of the crass, I can't see a reason to buy this album when It's Harder Now has all this and one more song. Even as Pickett entered his final years, he seemed to have something to say, but It Ain't Easy takes that message and slices one song out, reorders it and expects the listener to get something different from the result.

I did not.

Instead, It Ain't Easy is saddled with the same problems as the original recording had. First, it is instrumentally overproduced. The songs on this album are more funk than soul or R&B. Instrumentally, this means the album is more keyboard-driven than dominated by an actual brass section for backing the singer.

Second, Pickett's voice breaks frequently on the album. He might have enthusiasm and even a smooth sound on "Better Him Than Me," but after a lifetime of emotively screaming many of his songs, he appears to have less range and certainly less force. This is captured effectively on "It's Harder Now" (the single), but on the other songs, it just sounds unfortunate.

Finally, lyrically, the album suffers for fans of Wilson Pickett's songs because this album transformed him from a smooth, sensual singer to a man just trying to compete in an increasingly graphic marketplace. "All About Sex" is pretty much just that; there's no desire, no passion, it's just a song about another score. Similarly, "Taxi Love" is a musical exploration of exhibitionism and it's remarkably classless. This is the closest to auditory smut Pickett ever came and it's an unfortunate swan song for his career.

Fortunately, one need not bother with adding this to their collection. If you want Wilson Pickett's final album, pick up It's Harder Now, get the full experience that he helped create and put an order to. This seems to be a cashgrab whereby Rounder hopes one won't notice they are getting less and nothing new.

For other works by Wilson Pickett, please check out my reviews of:
The Exciting Wilson Pickett
The Wicked Pickett
I'm In Love
In Philadelphia
In The Midnight Hour And Other Hits
The Essentials
The Very Best Of Wilson Pickett

0/10

For other album and singles reviews, please visit my index page!

© 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.



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Another Blasé Collection Of Wilson Pickett's Hits: The Essentials Underwhelms.

The Good: Some truly great songs.
The Bad: Short. All of these songs and more are available on another compilation.
The Basics: A disappointing compilation, The Essentials has only tracks which appear on The Very Best Of Wilson Pickett.


Of all of the musical artists I have studied for review, I cannot think of one whose works are more often compiled than Wilson Pickett. Compilation after compilation keeps coming in for me with very little variation in the track lists. In the case of The Essentials by Wilson Pickett, the compilation is a flop for one simple, easy reason: The Very Best Of Wilson Pickett has every single track from this compilation on it (and more!). The result is that anyone looking to get a good sense of the scope of Wilson Pickett’s music would do better to pick that compilation up.

With only a dozen songs occupying half an hour on compact disc, The Essentials is the most predictable collection of Wilson Pickett singles arranged in chronological order. As a result, Pickett’s songs go from his first hit (“In The Midnight Hour” ) to “867-5789 (Soulsville, U.S.A.) and eventually to his covers of "Mustang Sally" and "Hey Jude." Pickett was a vocalist who wrote a handful of his songs, but did not play any instruments on his albums, nor did he produce them.

What Pickett did very well was sing. The Essentials showcases his smooth voice on "Don't Let The Green Grass Fool You" and his rougher style on "Fire And Water." As Pickett evolved musically from a smooth r&b artist to a funk vocalist, he accented his emotive lines with screams and shouts, which are illustrated on The Essentials.

Most commonly, Pickett is backed by the trumpets and saxophones which make his sound very soulful and funky. Wilson Pickett was one of the first mainstream black r&b performers to make it big and for those who have not heard his works, his instrumental accompaniment is similar to that of James Brown. Bass and drums keep time, Pickett sings and the brass accents at key moments to create frenetic musical works which are largely dancable.

Thematically, The Essentials characterizes Wilson Pickett as a passionate man who se dominant reason to sing is to express desire. As he got older, he mixed desire with a sense of loss pertaining to love with lines like "You´ve got what it takes / To make a poor man heart break . . .Woman you turn me on / As quick as a flash, your love is gone" ("Fire And Water”).

But none of that matters, in truth. The Essentials is so bare bones that fans of Wilson Pickett will be left wanting more and those looking to learn about Wilson Pickett will be doing themselves a disservice. All twelve songs on this album are on The Very Best Of Wilson Pickett; go with that!

For other works by Wilson Pickett, please check out my reviews of:
The Exciting Wilson Pickett
The Wicked Pickett
I'm In Love
In Philadelphia
In The Midnight Hour And Other Hits
The Very Best Of Wilson Pickett
It's Harder Now

2/10

For other music and album reviews, please visit my index page for neat listings by clicking here!

© 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.




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Wilson Pickett Helps Pioneer Funk With The Wicked Pickett!

The Good: Some wonderful lyrics, Very fresh sound (even today), Intriguing vocals
The Bad: Dreadfully short
The Basics: Fun and funky, The Wicked Pickett has Wilson Pickett's music evolving into some awesome early funk!


Sometimes, when a musical artist or performer has a body of work that is frequently anthologized or has a limited number of hit singles, the real joy in immersing oneself in their works can be in finding the hidden gems of their career. In the case of Wilson Pickett, whose three decade career seems to be frequently boiled down to seven singles which appear on virtually every compilation and maybe a half-dozen other songs which are mixed in that are recognizable, the hidden gem album might well be The Wicked Pickett.

The Wicked Pickett is an album which Pickett did not contribute any of his own songs to and was released in 1966, but sounds refreshingly cool today. However, because the c.d. transfer is a true replication of the original album, it is an underwhelming use of the capacity of the digital medium. So, while I enjoy and enthusiastically recommend The Wicked Pickett, it falls into a more average use of the medium and might be better as a digital download than taking up space on a shelf in c.d. form (I wish most Oldies albums would double up when they were released on compact disc!). That said, the recognizable hit from The Wicked Pickett is Pickett's rendition of "Mustang Sally," but it is not the best song on the album.

With only twelve songs occupying a minimal-feeling 30:44, The Wicked Pickett has Wilson Pickett's R&B style evolving more to a proto-funk sound. Yes, Pickett does only about half of the album as smooth ballads like "Mustang Sally," "Time Is On My Side" and "You Left The Water Running" and he devotes the rest of the album to songs where he is competing with his instrumental accompaniment in a soul-funk way. Songs like "Everybody Needs Somebody To Love," "Ooh Poo Pah Doo," and "Knock On Wood" are all up-tempo jams which have Pickett rocking and rolling as much as he is bringing listeners to their feet with a dancable sound.

The Wicked Pickett is hardly the creative work of Wilson Pickett. On this album, he does not write any of the songs he is performing and he does not play any of the musical instruments. However, true-to-form, he provides all of the lead vocals. He was also not involved in the production of the album, which is not surprising. So, whether or not Pickett wanted to create a more soulful and funky album, that is what The Wicked Pickett became.

Instrumentally, The Wicked Pickett shifts Pickett's sound from strong brass and bass to strong brass and electric guitars. Songs like "Time Is On My Side" (yes, the same song popularized by The Rolling Stones) have a brash, funky quality to them with Pickett screaming out the lyrics and the trumpets blaring to accent his raw vocal emotionalism. The bass is not absent, but it comes up infrequently on songs like "She Ain't Gonna Do Right," where it creates a bassline which is arguably intended to help keep time with the drums more than create or accent the melody being played by the brass section. In true funk form, the trumpets and saxophones dominate the instrumental accompaniment on the album.

Vocally, Wilson Pickett oscillates between being smooth and almost classically jazz-sounding in his vocals ("You Left The Water Running") and just noisy. "Knock On Wood" is almost inaudible at times when Pickett screeches through the lines with inarticulate passion. Yes, he makes it musical, but after songs like the repetitive "Sunny," some of the more noisy elements drag and make the listener cringe. Academically, the songs are intriguing for the level of passion Pickett puts in them and when he goes for clear, he makes songs which are passionate and coherent, as he does on the groovy "Everybody Needs Somebody To Love."

More than his prior albums, Pickett seems preoccupied with the loss of love or the inability to find what he wants in a woman on The Wicked Pickett. His bona fide breakup masterpiece might well be "You Left The Water Running." When Picket sings "You left the water running / When you left me behind / You left the water running / Running from these eyes of mine / You turned off the light of love / When you left with that other guy" ("You Left The Water Running"), he takes the simple words and infuses such passion and loss into them that the song resonates with anyone who has ever lost love.

Rather interestingly, it is on The Wicked Pickett that he also casts himself as a victim in the game of love. On "Up Tight Good Woman," he actually has lines like "She don't need to have a pretty face / Just two arms to keep me safe . . . A good little woman to stand by my side / I want a good woman" which have a simple, plaintive quality which Pickett makes into an auditory personal ad. The irony here is that on an album called The Wicked Pickett, Wilson Pickett is often at his most vulnerable and even his lament "Three Time Loser" where he sings about failures in love sounds remarkably true-to-life.

But what makes The Wicked Pickett very easy to recommend is that Pickett takes lyrics which are about regrettable occurrences in love and breakups and he makes them sound musical and interesting. This album, despite some of the noisy vocals, is very easy to listen to and rock out with because every track has a great beat and funky sound. The disparity between the lyrics and the sound is interesting and I take it to be the triumph of trying again over the crushing defeat of the loss of love.

The best song is the simple and melodical "You Left The Water Running," the low point is the incoherent "Ooh Poo Pah Doo."

For other works by Wilson Pickett, please check out my reviews of:
The Exciting Wilson Pickett
I'm In Love
In Philadelphia
In The Midnight Hour And Other Hits
The Very Best Of Wilson Pickett
It's Harder Now

7/10

For other music reviews, please be sure to visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.



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In The Midnight Hour And Other Hits Is A Wilson Pickett Compilation Not Worth Buying!

The Good: Some truly great songs
The Bad: Short, Has only two songs not on a superior compilation.
The Basics: In the Midnight Hour And Other Hits offers fewer tracks than The Very Best Of Wilson Pickett and the two tracks this has are not worth missing the extras on the other.


Wilson Pickett, I am quickly discovering, is a musical artist whose works are more commonly found in compilations than in original albums. As a result, one of the best things I can think of to do as a reviewer who is listening to remarkably similar playlists over and over again – as I am right now – is help consumer differentiate between the ones they should pick up and can pass by.

In The Midnight Hour And Other Hits is a Wilson Pickett compilation that fans can avoid. The album The Very Best Of Wilson Pickett offers all but two of the songs on this compilation – “Stagger Lee” and “Don’t Fight It.” Those two songs are not a reasonable trade listeners get for the other eight songs found on the superior anthology. Like all worthwhile Pickett compilations, this one features “In The Midnight Hour” and “Land Of 1000 Dances.”

With only ten songs occupying twenty-eight minutes, this is an anemic Wilson Pickett compilation which displays his talents as a singer more than anything else. With Pickett’s versions of “Hey Jude” and “Mustang Sally,” the album is very much a collection of some of his best-known musical presentations. But what this collection lacks is spark; it’s all predictable and has none of his later works which illustrate growth or change.

For those who have not heard the works of Wilson Pickett, he is a 1960s – 70s (primarily) r&b singer whose energetic and sometimes screamed vocals are accompanied by brass instruments, bass and usually pounding percussion. Songs like “In The Midnight Hour” and “Funky Broadway” are soulful dance jams which put Pickett on the musical map for his enthusiasm and vocally energetic style. Pickett is like James Brown in his sound in many ways.

Most of Pickett’s songs are about desire and here is where In The Midnight Hour And Other Hits falls down. The song selection is predictable and banal, exactly what one would expect from a Pickett compilation. Even “Don’t Fight It,” which is on this compilation and very few others, underwhelms with its lines like “You'd better get on up & get the groove / You know what, baby? I like the way you move / You do the thing like you ought to be, all right / So don't fight it . . .” In other words, including this song on the compilation says nothing that other songs, like “Land Of 1000 Dances” did not already say.

In other words, with so many other compilations out there, you can get more for your money than by buying In The Midnight Hour And Other Hits. And while more might not always be better, there are better compilations that have more than this one.

For other works by Wilson Pickett, please check out my reviews of:
The Exciting Wilson Pickett
I'm In Love
In Philadelphia
The Very Best Of Wilson Pickett
It's Harder Now

3.5/10

For other music reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.



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I Return To Wilson Picket With The Exciting Wilson Pickett, Which Is An Average Album!

The Good: Some exceptional songs, Good sound, Decent vocals
The Bad: Short, All of the best songs are the known ones.
The Basics: A fun, soulful album, The Exciting Wilson Pickett is short, but illustrates a high level of quality for 1960s r&b.


After a brief hiatus - not evident as I simply move my music reviews - I was excited to find my library had a new stack of Wilson Pickett c.d.s in for me and I could continue my exploration of his music. That continued study began with The Exciting Wilson Pickett, which was Pickett’s sophomore album and one which has appeared on compact disc without any tracks other than what were on the original 1966 release. The thing is, The Exciting Wilson Pickett sounds more like a compilation album and at least “In The Midnight Hour” was duplicated from his first album (which was titled In The Midnight Hour).

That said, despite its short duration, The Exciting Wilson Pickett lives up to its name and is a fun album worth the attention of anyone looking to learn about the music of Wilson Pickett. This is one of the definitive rhythm and blues albums of the 1960s and it is the one which cemented Wilson Pickett’s celebrity in the mainstream of American pop culture. In addition to “In The Midnight Hour,” the album features “Land Of 1000 Dances” and the less-known songs are still pretty decent.

With only a dozen songs occupying half an hour, The Exciting Wilson Pickett is a fair balance between Pickett’s abilities as a performer and his quality as an artist. Pickett is the credited co-writer of five of the songs and he provides the lead vocals on each and every song. While Pickett does not play any musical instruments, his voice is exceptionally expressive. Pickett was not involved in the production of the album, which is not at all surprising given the time period this was made in. How much of this is Pickett’s musical vision and how much was what the studio wanted is questionable.

The result, however , is less questionable. “Mercy, Mercy” actually sounds like a song by The Rolling Stones and I watched a video where Sting credits “In The Midnight Hour” as being the song he lost his virginity to, so Wilson Pickett is undeniably an influence on other musical artists and it’s exciting to listen to on The Exciting Wilson Pickett.

The sound of The Exciting Wilson Pickett is universally upbeat r&b tracks which are danceable and soulful. This comes from most of the primary instrumentation being in the brass section that backs Pickett. Pickett sings, backed up by trumpets, saxophones and heavy drums. The trumpets and saxes are used as accent pieces which highlight key lines or phrases Pickett sings, though on songs like “You’re So Fine,” they actually create the funky melody that is more musical than Pickett’s screaming vocals. What is also interesting for listeners to hear is how the bass is used in many of Pickett’s songs as a percussion instrument. The bass barely makes chord progressions in songs like “In The Midnight Hour” but it keeps time and its throbbing presence is what is arguably what makes the song so intense.

For those who are not a fan of r&b, which is basically pop music where the electric guitars are replaced with brass instruments, the vocals of Wilson Pickett are not likely to be much of an incentive to change the listener’s mind. While he is able to sing lines fast and charismatically on songs like “Land Of 1000 Dances” and soulfully on songs like "867-5789,” most of the songs have him shouting or screaming through lines to accent his emotions. “Ninety-Nine And A Half (Won’t Do)” and “You’re So Fine” have him roughly articulating his lines at the limits of either his vocal range or his ling capacity. Either way, he comes out sounding raspy and somewhat tired. On “She’s So Good To Me,” Pickett even surrenders his usual baritone vocals to let the female backing vocals overwhelm his primary vocals. Even so, the way Pickett stretches and adds – for lack of a better term – noise to his vocals makes songs like “Ninety-Nine And A Half (Won’t Do)” take on a more primal quality and it is hard to complain about Pickett “showing” instead of just “telling.”

On The Exciting Wilson Pickett, Pickett becomes strangely self-referential for an artist releasing only his second album. He sings about dancing and just loosening up to the music on “Land Of 1000 Dances.” That song might be one of the funkiest songs of all time even though it does little other than list dance types like “Playing, it is a habit / With long tall Sally / Twistin' with Lucy / Doin' the Watusi / Roll over on your back / I like it like that / Do that Jerk-uh / Watch me work y'all” (“Land Of 1000 Dances”). Even so, the song and album sound great and there is something reassuring about just hearing a fun song about dancing and partying (“I’m Drifting” has similar elements).

Pickett also, smartly, creates some songs with universal themes. “It’s All Over” is a true lament to love lost, just as “Something You’ve Got” is a smooth, soulful expression of desire and the way love blinds people to reality. Still, Pickett makes it sound cool when he just belts out “My my, who-a, / I love you so” (“Something You’ve Got”). And while I am tempted to call some of the songs repetitive, they are so short that they seldom develop to the point of being repetitive.

Short, in fact, is the worst I can say about The Exciting Wilson Pickett; it doesn’t use the medium well, but what is present on this album clearly laid the bedrock of r&b and pop music for decades to come. Fun and nonthreatening for those looking to listen to something soulful . . .but have been heretofore hesitant to!

The best song is “In The Midnight Hour,” the low point is the unmemorable “Barefootin’.”

For other works by Wilson Pickett, please check out my reviews of:
I'm In Love
In Philadelphia
The Very Best Of Wilson Pickett
It's Harder Now

5/10

For other music reviews, please be sure to visit my index page!

© 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.




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Surprisingly Lackluster, I'm In Love Has Wilson Pickett Screaming, But Not Producing Hits.

The Good: Moments of fun instrumental accompaniment, Moments of vocally interesting presentation
The Bad: Nothing pops, Short, Very generic R&B sound, Not terribly creative or interesting.
The Basics: Despite the amusing inclusion of an engineer talking to Wilson Pickett on the recording of “Let It Come Naturally,” I’m In Love is a dud by Pickett.


When it comes to older albums, I tend to go more leniently on the supposed greats because they were pioneering the field, as opposed to simply following in the footsteps of others. But as I make my way through the works of Wilson Pickett, it is hard to not acknowledge that even he had some early duds. By the time his album I’m In Love came out, he was a superstar in the rhythm and blues genre and he had several albums on the market. As a result, Pickett and his producers knew exactly what had come before in his career and it is a bad sign that by this album he was already sounding familiar and repetitive.

Indeed, when I picked up I’m In Love, I was actually excited because I had only heard a single song on I’m In Love. As well, the compact disc version of I’m In Love at least made an attempt at increasing the value of the transfer by adding additional tracks to the original album. As a result, listeners get thirteen songs, as opposed to the original ten. Of course, two of those songs are just alternate takes of songs that appear earlier on the album. Still, it is hard to complain that Atlantic didn’t make an effort when remastering the album. Rather interestingly, the stereo masters for I’m In Love could not be located, so the c.d. is pressed in mono format. This, too, is not as much of a problem as the fact that the album is dull and indistinct track to track.

With thirteen songs occupying only thirty-eight minutes on compact disc, I’m In Love is still a dreadfully short use of the c.d. medium. Still, this album features some of Wilson Pickett’s own work, even if he is only credited with co-writing a single track. He also provides the lead vocals on each and every song. Pickett was not involved in the production of the album, nor did he play any of the musical instruments which accompany his vocals on I’m In Love. Still, by this point in his career, it seems like he had some influence over his own musical sound.

Vocally, this is very much a Wilson Pickett album. Pickett shouts, screeches sings soulfully through the album. On songs like “I’ve Come a Long Way,” he does little more than holler, as he does at points on “Jealous Love.” But on “That Kind Of Love” and “Hello Sunshine,” he is actually melodic, losing the roughness to his vocals which characterize many of his tracks. This album does not feature the most clear vocals from Pickett either and he slurs through some of the lyrics on “Jealous Love.” Moreover, there is nothing truly funky, universal or even auditorily compelling or interesting in his vocal performances on I’m In Love. The result is an album that drags and replays poorly over multiple listens.

The instrumental accompaniment on I’m In Love is also disappointingly bland. In fact, the word “mundane” kept popping into my head when I would consider this album. This is the most generic form of R&B when it comes to the instrumental accompaniment. The bass, trumpets and guitars flow in the most predictable ways possible. In fact, when it is not predictable, the percussion and brass becomes noisy and sloppy-sounding, as they do on “Stagger Lee” at various points. In fact, after a dozen listens, none of the tunes actually resonate enough to be considered memorable on this album. The reason I had not heard much from this album before listening to it is that this album doesn’t have much interesting to it.

As for the lyrics, here I’m In Love is problematic at best as well. The most memorable song, lyrically, is “Stagger Lee.” Sadly, this does not make it a wonderful song by any stretch of the imagination. While most of the songs are blandly singing about love, lust and desire, “Stagger Lee” is a musical storysong which is surprisingly violent. Pickett sings “I was standing on the corner when I heard my bulldog bark / He was barkin' at the two men who were gamblin' in the dark / It was Stagger Lee and Billy, two men who gambled late / Stagger Lee threw seven, Billy swore that he threw eight / Stagger Lee told Billy, ‘I can't let you go with that’ . . . Stagger Lee went home and he got his forty-four / Said ‘I'm goin' to the barroom just to pay that debt I owe’ / Stagger Lee went to the barroom and he stood across the barroom door / He said ‘Nobody move’ and he pulled his forty-four / Stagger Lee shot Billy, oh he shot that poor boy so bad“ (“Stagger Lee”) and it is an embodiment of much of what people fear about city life and the ghettos.

“Stagger Lee,” however, is not indicative of the rest of the album. Pickett smoothly covers the Sam Cooke song “Bring It Home To Me” and that sounds good. But songs like “She’s Lookin’ Good” with its lines like “When you wear your wigs, baby / You wear your dresses tight / You wear your foxy fur, baby / When you step out late at night, hey“ get very repetitive and hold up poorly over multiple listens. In fact, Pickett breaking up the singsong rhymes with his shouts and excited utterances only seems to accent them on songs like “She’s Lookin’ Good.”

Ultimately, I’m In Love is indistinct and none of the songs stand out. It is short, so it replays poorly and it is easy to pass it by because Pickett’s talent is not evident on much of it. It is noisy and disappointing for far too much of the album.

For other works by Wilson Pickett, please check out my reviews of:
In Philadelphia
The Very Best Of Wilson Pickett
It's Harder Now

3/10

For other album and singles reviews, please be sure to visit my index page for an organized listing by clicking here!

© 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.



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Wilson Pickett's Final New Album: It's Harder Now Comes About Twenty Years Too Late.

The Good: Good vocals, Some memorable lyrics
The Bad: Instrumentally predictable, Short, Thematically questionable
The Basics: With a very average album more toward soul and funk, Wilson Pickett closes his career with an album years behind that sounds like he is desperately trying to keep up.


So far in my immersion in the works of Wilson Pickett, I have been more surprised than impressed. Granted, before I picked up It's Harder Now, I had only listened to The Very Best Of Wilson Pickett (click here for that review!) and In Philadelphia (click here for that review!). But even so, I'm finding myself more surprised that Wilson Pickett remained commercially viable for thirty-five years to get It's Harder Now released in 1999. This album seems out of time, especially at a time when the black community was educating itself about safe sex and the HIV epidemic in music as well as in every other major medium (as well as in schools).

But It's Harder Now was Wilson Pickett's final album of new material and it seems like a throwback - thematically - to the 1970s as opposed to something truly fresh and different. Moreover, there are no songs which resonate with a timeless quality. Instead, this seems like Wilson Pickett's last attempt to cash in on his reputation as The Wicked One (one of his nicknames according to the liner notes) and he is doing it in a market that is considerably more graphic than when he last charted. As a result, his lyrics turn from love, charm and the power of desire to just in-your-face sex and infidelity. For the first time - at least on any albums of Wilson Pickett's I've heard - Pickett swears and there is a charmless quality to songs like "Taxi Love" and "All About Sex."

With only eleven songs, occupying 42:46 on c.d., It's Harder Now is a soul or rhythm & blues album featuring quite a bit of Wilson Pickett's talents. Pickett co-wrote five of the songs and he provides all of the lead vocals on the album. The songs are not performed with Pickett on any of the musical instruments and Pickett was not involved in the production of the album. Even so, one suspects this is what Wilson Pickett wanted to have the album sound like given that producer Jon Tiven gushes about working with Pickett. At this point in his career, it seems like Pickett would have been the guiding influence for his music.

Sadly, that is an erratic final album, even vocally. While on earlier albums, Pickett taps into something primal with his screams and roars, he sounds like he is gargling his way through "Stone Crazy World." And while he opens the album well with smooth, classic soul vocals on "Outskirts Of Town," he loses that articulate, sensual voice rather quickly on the album. Indeed, when my wife came in during the angry vocals on "Stomp," she looked at me and asked "What are you listening to?!" I promised her most of Wilson Pickett's other works are better.

Instrumentally, It's Harder Now is very much a classic R&B/funk album. Pickett sings over heavy bass on "Outskirts Of Town" and there is a prominent percussion section employed throughout the album. But more than having brass accents, the electric guitar dominates the album underneath the drums and percussion. Songs like "Taxi Love" sound far more like rock and funk than they do like a classic R&B song that Pickett fans might be used to. And while instrumentally, the album does seem like Pickett trying to keep up with the times, songs like "It's Harder Now" (the single) do manage to sound like Wilson Pickett more than Pickett trying to be badass.

The problem most listeners to classic R&B or funk are likely to have is more with the lyrics Wilson Pickett is singing on this album than anything else. From the blandly promiscuous "Taxi Love" to "What's Under That Dress?" the album is a celebration of infidelity, sex and outright lust as opposed to anything classy. When Pickett sings "Used up all my best lines in my own youth / All I've got to give you, girl, is the honest truth / I'm attracted to you girl, as I must confess / Only one thing I gotta know; what's underneath that dress" ("What's Under That Dress?") this is the closest to classy he gets on the album and considering how classless the lines are, it is a harbinger for the rest of the album.

That said, album is almost completely redeemed by the struggle detailed in the songs "It's Harder Now" and "It Ain't Easy." Following the melancholy "Soul Survivor" about all of the R&B comrades of Pickett's who were no longer recording (or alive), Pickett sings about the struggles of aging and this is a rare topic for a rhythm and blues or funk song. But he makes the struggle sound sensual when he presents the lines "It used to be there to mess up my mind / But it's harder now / Used to be there to take up my time / But it's harder now / I used to be an open book / Anyone could have a look / You just took all that you took / But it's harder now" ("It's Harder Now"). The jazzy sound is smooth and it sounds like a struggle and with Pickett's vocals, the song sounds like the years have laid a heavy toll, which makes for a musically interesting presentation.

There is a sense of irony on "Better Him Than Me," though, which is about relationships that is actually funny. Wilson Pickett sings about seeing how the next man in his ex's life treats him and concludes that he'd rather the new guy take the brunt of his ex's wrath than him. The song is surprisingly funny and it is a relief after songs about infidelity and the world beating the musical protagonists down.

Honestly, I consider this an "average" album probably only because of Pickett's stature and history. Even so, it is hard to recommend to anyone; those who like classic soul, funk or R&B are likely to be disappointed by the fairly vulgar themes on It's Harder Now, while fans of contemporary hip-hop, rap and R&B are likely to say it doesn't go far enough.

The best song is "Better Him Than Me" and the low point is "All About Sex."

For other works by prior Artist Of The Month artists, please check out my reviews of:
Opiate – Tool
Simply The Best - Tina Turner
Any Day Now – Joan Baez

4.5/10

For other c.d. and singles reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.


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Unimpressive Pickett: Wilson Pickett In Philadelphia Screams Through Being Repetitive.

The Good: Some very cool, funky songs.
The Bad: Short, Replays poorly, Repeats similar tracks.
The Basics: A dismal classic R&B album, In Philadelphia is a repetitive Wilson Pickett album which does not showcase much of his talent.


When my February 2010 Artist Of The Month, Wilson Pickett, was revealed, my local library has managed to get me in a large stack of Pickett’s c.d.s. This, almost, makes me sorry I started with The Very Best Of Wilson Pickett (click here for that review!) as I am rapidly getting a better idea of the sound and feel of Wilson Pickett’s works to be able to judge better what are his better albums.

Sadly, Wilson Pickett In Philadelphia (or Pickett In Philadelphia or In Philadelphia, depending on where one is going for the title) is an underwhelming outing by Wilson Pickett which has been transferred onto compact disc with a disappointing addition of more of the same tracks. In fact, if one word could be used to describe In Philadelphia best, “repetitive” might well be it. Originally released in 1970, it was remastered in 1995 and three songs were added to the original album, all three of which are just reworks of songs that were already on the album.

With a dozen songs taking up only 35 minutes on a c.d., In Philadelphia is an album which continues to help make the argument that older albums ought to be combined when remastering them for c.d. Even with three additional songs (or, rather, reworks of songs previously on the album) the short running time of thirty-five minutes makes this an underwhelming use of the medium. As well, by this point – or at least for this album-, Pickett was a performer, not an artist. He provides the vocal performances for all twelve of the songs, but did not write or co-write any of the songs. As well, he did not play any instruments on In Philadelphia, nor was he involved in the production of any of the songs or the album itself.

What In Philadelphia is is a surprisingly mundane r&b album which replays poorly because it is nine songs with three of them repeated in almost indistinguishably different versions. Single versions of “Don’t Let The Green Grass Fool You,” “Engine Number 9,” and “International Playboy” close the album after each song’s original version was presented on the album. While “Engine Number 9” has a moderately different sound than the two-part version on the album, “International Playboy” is virtually identical to the original.

What sinks In Philadelphia for me is that it is mundane in its vocals and instrumental accompaniment. Wilson Pickett sings with a roar and a shout frequently enough and on this album, the result is more noisy than passionate. He sounds appropriately cocky on “International Playboy,” but that song is the only one where his vocals sound even remotely smooth. Instead, on others, he makes excited utterances, holds notes until he screeches and generally mumbles his way through many of the songs. This is not the best example of his vocal capacity and as a result, hearing him stumble around some of the more mundane lyrics sounds less musical than they could.

Similarly, the instrumental accompaniment on this album is mediocre at best. Like many late-60s/early 1970s rhythm and blues albums, this is an electric guitar and horn dominated album with pounding drums and percussion instruments. While many of the songs have heavy bass, it is the crashing of cymbals and drums accompanied by the accents of trumpets which is more often memorable on the songs on In Philadelphia. This does not mean the entire album is unpleasant; “Engine Number 9” was an obvious musical influence on David Bowie as it sounds remarkably like Bowie’s song “Fame” in the instrumentation. But “Run Joey Run” which opens the album is musically rich to the point of being overwhelming. With brass, piano, bongos and guitars, the song has a big band sound which is auditorily confusing as well as occasionally confused.

Even so, on my first listen (I am up to listen number twelve now), I was excited about In Philadelphia because it opens so strong with “Run Joey Run” and moves nicely into “Help The Needy.” “Run Joey Run” is a funky storysong about ethnic inequality and the fear a young, black protagonist has for his life, based on the father of his girlfriend. It might seem satirical the way Pickett sings “Run Joey run / Papa done got a gun . . .Shoulda’ never told her she was your only love / Shoulda’ never took her to see the stars above” (“Run Joey Run”) but when one considers the interethnic tensions of the early 1970s, the lyrics make a musical record of the unfortunate stories of the time.

The flip side of this comes next on the album with “Help The Needy.” On that song, Pickett slows it down and begs listeners “Come on and help the needy / Come on and lend a hand / Come on and help the needy / Can’t you see I’m a desperate man? / I need love . . .” (“Help The Needy”). The song is both socially conscious and personal, mixing the idea of helping the poor and downtrodden with needing love and affection as a basic need. It sounds good and Pickett pulls the song off.

But some of the songs, most notably “Bumble Bee (Sting Me)” are just ridiculous songs with limited rhymes that hold up very poorly over multiple listens. The song is repetitive, has an obvious rhyme scheme and says nothing in the end. Whereas songs like “Don’t Let The Green Grass Fool You” have an obvious moral and message, “Bumble Bee (Sting Me)” is just musical filler with no real substance.

Usually, when the best songs on an album (“Run Joey Run” and “Help The Needy” in this case) are not ones that show up in further anthologies, I tend to recommend the work. But in this case, In Philadelphia just doesn't work and despite liking those two songs that appear unique to this album, no one's life will be significantly changed by not hearing them.

For other male vocalists, please check out my reviews of:
Billy Currington - Little Bit Of Everything
Don McLean - American Pie
Kenny Rogers - 20 Great Years

3.5/10

For other album and singles reviews, please be sure to visit my index page!

© 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.


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The Very Best Of Wilson Pickett Opened My February Artist Of The Month Exploration!

The Good: Good vocals, Some very cool sound (even now)
The Bad: Becomes instrumentally droll upon multiple listens, Short
The Basics: Instrumentally rich, vocally diverse and lyrically all over the board (but focused on desire), The Very Best Of Wilson Pickett opened my exploration of Wilson Pickett’s music!


[Because my blog is still pretty new and I’m moving things over from the review site I used to write for to here, it is worth noting that when I get back to actual reviewing, I make a real effort to alternate the musical artists I review and frequently, I celebrate Black History Month by picking an artist who was influential in r&b, soul or even rap. February 2010 was my Wilson Pickett month and this was my first review from then! Enjoy!]

I come from a family filled with people with post-graduate degrees. My parents have Masters degrees (yes, plural!) and I’m pretty sure my father pulled of his Doctorate in Divinity, so I’m something of a black sheep in the family as I just have my Bachelor’s in English. But whenever the topic comes up about why I do not pursue anything beyond, I am quite happy to defend my lifestyle choice with the following two facts: 1. I don’t need any more certifications to do what I am most passionate about (writing novels) and 2. I never stop learning, so it’s not like my lack of further degrees is an indicator of stagnation. With that second concept, I gladly introduce my February Artist Of The Month: Wilson Pickett.

Wilson Pickett is a musical artist who I thought I only knew a single song from before I picked up The Very Best Of Wilson Pickett. I had seen a music video from the 1960s for the song “In The Midnight Hour” and I was astonished by it. In addition to having a very cool sound and feel to the song, the music video upset my public school education with the idea that at the height of the Civil Rights movement, during race riots, protests and jailing, there would be a music video which featured a black performer singing and dancing with an ethnically mixed group of women. The music video I saw had Pickett dancing at a campfire with women of all colors and the notion that ethnic inequality was so embedded in the American society in the 1950s and 60s is pretty much turned on its head by such video evidence! As it turns out, I actually had heard the song “Land Of 1000 Dances” on an episode of Once And Again where one of the fathers tries to show his daughter he’s cool with her black boyfriend by singing and dancing to the song. Either way, my de-ignorancing of the works of Wilson Pickett has begun with my immersion into his albums, starting with the Rhino release The Very Best Of Wilson Pickett.

With sixteen songs taking up 49:02 on a single c.d., The Very Best Of Wilson Pickett might be the best of the singer and songwriter, but his career has surprisingly little to show for it. Pickett is credited with co-writing seven of the songs. He provides the lead vocals on each and every track, but does not play any musical instruments. He is also not involved in the production of the album or the songs on it.

Wilson Pickett, as I am learning, is a classic Rhythm & Blues singer-songwriter. His responsibilities seem to be almost equally split between writing and performing his own works and performing the works which the studio handed to him or he selected. For those unfamiliar with classic R&B, the sound is what became funk in the 1970s and laid the bedrocks for hip-hop and rap. If rock and roll is primarily characterized by the guitar (or piano), bass and drums and Country is characterized more by pedal steel, banjo, and fiddles, then classic R&B would be the style of music dominated by brass (primarily trumpets and saxophone), guitar and percussion (not just drums). Wilson Pickett brings these very rhythm-oriented songs to life with robust vocals backed by trumpets, electric guitars and heavy beats.

The percussion element is one that surprised me coming into The Very Best Of Wilson Pickett. Songs like “Engine Number 9” include guitar riffs and maracas that keep beat and make the song very danceable. The use of the guitar and bass to help keep time is something pop-rock seldom does, at least anymore. As well, songs like “She’s Looking Good” use bass to help keep time more than to create a harmony and that lends a strong sense of movement to a song that has very little in the way of melody. Accents with the trumpet are also quite common in the songs on The Very Best Of Wilson Pickett and this might be the jazz influence on the genre, but it sounds funky, surprisingly fresh and always energetic.

Vocally, Wilson Pickett is a vocalist who has a pretty extraordinary vocal range. He oscillates from baritone to tenor in “Hey Jude,” with his voice getting a little raspier in the lower ranges. But when he is in the tenor range, he has a smooth, sexy sound which is perfectly melodic. Songs like “I’m In Love” remain enduring romantic songs because his vocals have a sensual and fluid quality to them which is exceptional. Even so, some of his longer notes, like at the climax of “Hey Jude” collapse into little more than shrieking, which makes it a little harder to listen to over and over again. When Pickett begins shouting over his boisterous instrumental accompaniment he sounds unfortunately noisy. Fortunately, the balance of the songs are more like “In The Midnight Hour” where he is crystal clear with his lines, funky with his delivery and has a cool sound. Often, like on “634-5789 (Soulsville, U.S.A.)” he is backed by female vocalists and that accents the masculinity of his sound and vocals.

Oftentimes, The Very Best Of Wilson Pickett is characterized lyrically by desire. Pickett’s version of “Sugar Sugar” is slower, funkier and has emotional heat; the song sounds sexy in his interpretation instead of a beach-blanket surfer song. And while virtually every R&B artist seems to have done “Mustang Sally” at some point (Pickett’s version is on here and bears a strong resemblance to James Brown’s), what stands out are the songs Pickett seems to have done on his own. Songs like “She’s Looking Good” have a great resonance because they express the strength of desire very well. There is a dangerous quality to the way Pickett sings “When you wear your wigs, baby, you wear your dresses tight / You wear your 44, baby, when you step out late at night . . . Mama get your mojo, papa get your gun / I'm gonna steal your daughter, I'm gonna be your son / She's lookin' good, ah lookin' so good, look here / She's lookin' good like I knew that she would” (“She’s Looking Good”). What struck me about the lyrics was that Pickett isn’t just singing about getting it on. He’s singing about making a commitment and basking in the love for a lifetime. I suppose this is something which modern R&B has diverged from.

That said, the freshness of desire is well characterized by the only song I knew before listening to this album, “In The Midnight Hour.” Despite the simplicity of the lines “I'm gonna wait till the midnight hour / That's when my love comes tumbling down / I'm gonna wait till the midnight hour / When there's no one else around / I'm gonna take you girl and hold you / And do all the things I told you / In the midnight hour” (“In The Midnight Hour”) the song rocks even today and part of that is certainly the statement being made in it. It has both a primal and classy aspect and it sounds amazing. This is a nice foil to “Engine Number 9” which is repetitive beyond belief and just becomes noisy as it progresses.

I wish I had more experience with Wilson Pickett to say authoritatively that this truly is the very best of Pickett’s works (I will by the end of the month! I already have the next album ready to cue up!), but what I can say is that it is easy to listen to, mostly enjoyable and makes for a nice blend of known works and lesser known hits from one of the more impressive singer-songwriters of the 1960s. Anyone looking for a good R&B album, this seems like a great place to start listening to R&B (and less obvious than James Brown).

The best track is “In The Midnight Hour,” the low point was the repetitive and derivative “I’m A Midnight Mover.”

For other works by former Artist Of The Month artists, please check out my takes on:
Foreign Affair – Tina Turner
Opiate - Tool
Any Day Now – Joan Baez

6.5/10

For other music reviews, please be sure to visit my index page for an organized listing!

© 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.



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