Wilson Pickett - Get Me Back On Time, Engine Number 9 & RIP

Wilson Pickett - Get Me Back On Time, Engine Number 9 (Pts.1&2) mp3

Wilson Pickett sadly died of a heart attack last Thursday, January 19th, aged 64.

This giant of the soul scene was born in Alabama. Raised in gospel, he picked up early work with the Falcons, before signing as a solo artist with Atlantic Records in 1965. Nicknamed "Wicked" Pickett by Jerry Wexler, he moved to detroit, and then Memphis, where he was one of the foremost front men for the Stax sound, backed by the MG's. Co-writing "In The Midnight Hour" with Steve Cropper brought him overnight fame, and his sessions with both the Stax and Muscle Shoals studios developed a roster of gritty, sweaty out-and-out soul shouters that blazed a trail for contemporaries and those who tried to follow.

Live performances garnered equal fame for the same level of intensity and hord working showmanship. With a catalogue that now included "Land of 1000 Dances," "Mustang Sally," and "Funky Broadway", Pickett soared, until an ill-advised signing with RCA started a dwindling of hits, and consequently fortunes.

Before that happened, Pickett worked with Gamble & Huff at Sigma Sound Studios, where Get Me Back On Time, Engine Number 9 was laid down in all it's sweat-drenched, dirty glory in 1970.

RIP.

Serge Gainsbourg - Requiem Pour Un Con Video

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Bit of a treat for you, and for a limited time only, it's from the Serge Gainsbourg DVD that's out at the moment - little more than a collection of his music videos, or at least disc 1 is. This is a clip taken from the 1968 movie Le Pacha, and it is magfuckinificent.

The Blues Busters - I Won't Let You Go

Blues Busters / Byron Lee & The Dragonaires - I Won't Let You Go mp3

Phillip “Boasy” James and Lloyd “Lloydie” Campbell started their careers duetting on the showboats that anchored in the harbours of Jamaica. Working up a brassy style that owed more to the blues shouters than the Inkspots-style doowop, it was inevitable that such talent caught the ears of one C.S. Dodd Esq.

Linked up with Byron Lee and his super-tight Dragonaires, massive hits lit up the dancefloor : "Behold", "Wings of A Dove", but it was the Dragonaires' journey to the International World Fair in New York that really created it all. While there, they laid down the tracks for their debut LP in Atlantic Studios, engineered by the legendary Tom Dowd.

And this session is where our track comes from. Magnificent, strident soul that starts off like a theme for a lost Western, and then breaks into glorious harmonies, utterly crafted arrangement and a loping rhythm. Truly the moment when ska met R&B and created a whole new level of soul.

(The MP3 is taken from the original vinyl. I wouldn't have it any other way, to be honest - as the WFMU byline states, "surface noise runs deep", but if you're an ADD DDD kid, then hoist yourself off to go and score the venerable Trojan Record's "Behold! The Blues Busters Anthology". You will not regret it.)