In the Midnight Hour
To honor Wilson Pickett's birthday, let's take a deeper look at his song "In the Midnight Hour" from 1965.
The song was composed at the site of where the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. would occur 3 years later
The song was composed by Pickett and Steve Cropper at the historic Lorraine Motel in Memphis.
One of the reasons, why the song failed to crack the top 20, was that the title was too suggestive of sexuality in the after hours
It did, however, reach number one on the R&B chart in Billboard magazine dated August 7, 1965, and crossed over to the Top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100 reaching number 21 and number 12 in the UK.
The tune earned Pickett his first Grammy nomination for Best Rhythm & Blues Recording at the 8th Annual Grammy Awards
He would also be nominated for the song's re-recording in 1987.
The song has been covered by the likes of the Grateful Dead, Bruce Springsteen, John Fogerty and Tina Turner
Finally, the song was selected for preservation in the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or artistically significant"
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