Producer Scott Ward pays tribute to Wilson Pickett on guest-filled compilation
Goldmine spoke with producer, songwriter, and bassist Scott Ward about I Believe I’ll Run On: A Tribute to Wilson Pickett on Nola Blue Records, engineered and mixed by Billy Lawson at Wishbone Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. The dozen song collection includes versions of Pickett’s Top 20 hits “Land of 1000 Dances,” “634-5789,” and “Don’t Let the Green Grass Fool You,” along with three flip sides. Featured musicians and vocalists include Jimmy Hall of Wet Willie, Simon Kirke of Free and Bad Company, Corey Glover of Living Colour, and Steve Cropper of Booker T. & the MG’s, who co-wrote four of Pickett’s mid-‘60s hit singles. In the brand-new Goldmine Fall 2024 issue, Lee Zimmerman interviewed Cropper, who shared, “Every night in concerts, there are classics that I play, and if I don’t, the fans will get mad at me. I don’t want that. If I don’t do Wilson Pickett’s ‘In the Midnight Hour,’ the fans are going to retaliate.” Songs on the new tribute album that Cropper co-wrote are “634-5789,” sung by T. Graham Brown, and both sides of the 1966 single, “Ninety-Nine and a Half Won’t Do” and “Danger Zone,” which is where we begin this interview in our weekly Fabulous Flip Sides series.
GOLDMINE: Welcome to Goldmine. Where did the title I Believe I’ll Run On come from?
SCOTT WARD: It is named after a fantastic up-tempo Gospel song that Wilson recorded. I started going to Muscle Shoals, Alabama in 2001. I was invited by David Hood of the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section to hear his band The Decoys. I started visiting the recording studios. The first one I went to was FAME and I saw all the gold records. I had played Wilson’s music, primarily “Mustang Sally,” in bar bands in the ‘80s and ‘90s. I enjoyed looking at the credits on the gold records. I met Spooner Oldham, began doing a lot of work with him, and he has become a good friend. A lot of time on the Muscle Shoals radio station WLAY, they play the classic hits that were recorded in that area. One night I was driving into Muscle Shoals, and they were playing “Land of 1000 Dances” on the radio and it hit me on how Wilson Pickett’s vocal style was so energetic and exciting, and he was backed constantly by so many fantastic musicians. It just caught my ear, especially the horn parts, Tommy Cogbill’s bass parts. I just learned to love it, especially being a bass player. Fortunately, my friendships grew among the musicians. I had done a similar project in 2016 for Spooner Oldham and Dan Penn, showcasing their compositions, which featured Jimmy Hall, Steve Cropper, Christine Ohlman, and David Hood and all the Muscle Shoals guys, so I was able to put this new project together, with some of the guys who played on Wilson’s original recordings. Now I have this new collection which begins with “Land of 1000 Dances” featuring Jimmy Hall of Wet Willie on vocals.
“One night I was driving into Muscle Shoals, and they were playing ‘Land of 1000 Dances’ on the radio and it hit me on how Wilson Pickett’s vocal style was so energetic and exciting, and he was backed constantly by so many fantastic musicians. I was able to put this new project together with some of the guys who played on Wilson’s original recordings.” - Scott Ward
GM: I first learned “Ninety-Nine and a Half Won’t Do” from Creedence Clearwater Revival’s debut album with “Suzie Q,” where they covered some rock and soul classics. You have Steve on guitar and Jimmy on vocals, doing the same type of growl I heard him do with Wet Willie, when I was growing up. In ’78, I had lunch with Wet Willie members, gathering quotes for a concert article that I would be writing, hours before they would be the opening act for Meat Loaf, the night he received a platinum album on stage for Bat Out of Hell on Steve Popovich’s Cleveland International label. What a nice group of guys they are. Jimmy, Steve and the guys do a wonderful job on this song.
SW: It is a lot like Wilson’s version, especially with Steve on guitar. I bought Wet Willie records in the ‘70s when I was in school and would never dream that I would become friends with Jimmy Hall. It also features members of Jason Isbell’s band and Al Gamble on keyboards from St. Paul and the Broken Bones. We had some great musicians on the song.
GM: The original flip side of “Ninety-Nine and a Half Won’t Do” was “Danger Zone,” another Cropper and Pickett composition, and you include a version of this song on the new collection. This sounds like an up-tempo beach music song that people could shag dance to, and the brass comes through very nicely.
SW: John Jorgenson, who played in Elton John’s band in the ‘90s, sang and played all the instruments on “Danger Zone.” He is a diverse musician. He has a music degree in woodwinds and is a virtuoso on any instrument he plays.
Wilson Pickett
Fabulous Flip Side: Danger Zone
A side: Ninety-Nine and a Half Won’t Do
Billboard Hot 100 debut: May 28, 1966
Peak position: No. 53
Atlantic 45-2334
GM: Recently I wrote about the album Pickin’ On The Doors, with bluegrass covers of Doors songs on CMH Records, which included two flip sides. Your collection includes three flip sides, so let’s continue with these flip sides. “I’m Sorry About That,” the flip side of “Funky Broadway,” is bluesy and was written by fellow Cleveland native Bobby Womack.
SW: Mark “Muleman” Massey is a great blues singer from Memphis and plays guitar a lot like B.B. King. He plays a lot around Memphis and did a great job on this new version of “I’m Sorry About That,” both singing and playing guitar.
GM: The third flip side included is “People Make the World,” originally the flip side of “A Man and a Half,” and is another Bobby Womack composition. One of my wife Donna’s favorite drummers, Simon Kirke of Free and Bad Company is on your new version of the song. When I interviewed Simon and cited Donna’s love of “All Right Now” and “Can’t Get Enough,” he told me that both songs were in the same rhythmic vein, which he calls his “hard rock swing.” The tempo on this one is slower than those classics from Simon, 3/4 time, and the vocalist beautifully delivers the message with a slight Aaron Neville style vibrato.
SW: Richard Bloom sings lead on this one with Corey Glover doing the harmony parts. Richard is a friend of mine from Connecticut, who sings for The Bramblemen.
GM: Wilson’s first charting single from 1963 is one of the songs you taught me with this collection, "If You Need Me." It sounds like some of the early ‘60s songs you would hear on the Dirty Dancing soundtrack, like Solomon Burke’s “Cry to Me.” It is beautiful.
SW: Billy Allen and The Pollies are featured on this song. Over a decade ago I met The Pollies. Billy Allen has recently joined them and is a great soul singer. They have gained some steam in the last few years, performing at concerts with Jason Isbell. This is a song that I learned recently in working on the project. I left it up to the artists to pick songs they wanted to do, and a lot of them I learned myself by doing the album.
GM: Surprisingly, Wilson didn’t have his first gold single until 1971, with “Don’t Let the Green Grass Fool You,” a song I loved listening to on WIXY AM in Cleveland and I wrote about in the mid-‘90s, when it was covered by the beach music band The Fabulous Kays. I am so pleased that it is included on this collection and that I get another chance to write about the song, sung here by your sound engineer and mixer Billy Lawson, at his Wishbone Recording Studio in Muscle Shoals.
SW: Billy is also a great songwriter and guitarist. The great studio he owns has a lot of history from the ‘70s with Wayne Newton, Roy Orbison, Charlie Daniels, and Hank Williams Jr. all recording there. Billy wrote a pair of “turn” songs, “I Left Something Turned on at Home” by Trace Adkins and “You Turn Me On” by Tim McGraw. He is really a great songwriter and a soulful singer. He told me that when he was singing at the Alabama Music Hall of Fame, that Wilson was in the audience and Wilson complimented his singing, which really touched him.
GM: In addition to the classic songs, there is a song that you co-wrote for the album with Mark Narmore about Wilson Pickett and Jerry Wexler, from Atlantic Records, with a “Funky Broadway” sound called “Giggy Giggy Googy Googy.”
SW: That title comes from Jerry telling Jimmy Johnson of the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section the sound he wanted from Jimmy’s guitar. Jerry wasn’t a musician, so he had to vocalize his desires. He would do that with bassists too, singing the bass part. Mark is another songwriter from Muscle Shoals, a friend of mine, and Spooner Oldham’s cousin. Mark and I write a lot of songs together. We have written with Steve Cropper, and we have a song recorded by Alabama on their 2017 American Christmas album. Mark also wrote “Moon Over Georgia” by Shenandoah and “That’s What I Love About Sunday” by Craig Morgan. He has had a lot of success as a country music songwriter, but he is also soulful and plays piano wonderfully. I am so pleased that Nola Blue Records has released the collection. They are a great blues label. Thank you so much and if you ever come to the Muscle Shoals area, please let me know so that I can show you around.
Related links:
playitsteve.com (Steve Cropper’s website, named after the “Soul Man” line)
Goldmine 2021 Steve Cropper interview
Goldmine 2019 Simon Kirke interview
Goldmine 2024 CMH's 'Pickin' On The Doors'-Iron Horse bluegrass interview
Fabulous Flip Sides is in its tenth year
goldminemag.com/columns/fabulous-flip-sides
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