WILSON PICKETT
In 1967, livid Alabama soulman Wilson Pickett declined to join Solomon Burke, Ben E. King, Joe Tex, Otis Redding and Don Covay in supergroup The Soul Clan. But he was there when they reformed for one wild night in New York some 13 years later. And for Wic
In ’81, the Alabama shouter joined the legendary Soul Clan with Solomon Burke, Joe Tex, Ben E. King and Don Covay, to chaotic effect. The madness that followed on the road was “unbelievable”… read on for an Eyewitness report.
“IT WAS LIKE WATCHING THE THREE STOOGES.”
Solomon Burke: “The [original, 1967] Soul Clan was more
than a bit of business. It was a direct request to become entrepreneurs of the future. Our plan was to build houses, have scholarships for underprivileged children, to leave something in every city that we played, even if it was no more than food for the poor. What do you need to do that? You need seed money. We got that. Joe Tex, Ben E. King, Otis Redding, Don Covay – hits right and left. [But when we] put the record out, it got played two or three months, then it disappeared. No stores had the record.” [On July 24 1981, The Soul Clan partially reformed with Ben E. King, Wilson Pickett, Solomon Burke, Joe Tex and Don Covay at the Savoy Theater in Manhattan].
Wilson Pickett: (speaking at a press conference reported in The New York Times) “Our whole aim is to prove to the music world that this kind of thing works, that five guys like us can stick together and be loyal and mean business. And we hope the rebirth of The Soul Clan will open the doors for rhythm and blues again. R&B was cast aside during the disco age, cast aside by radio programme directors and record companies. We were thrown to the dogs! But you can’t cry. The thing to do is to team up.”
Ben E. King: “Yeah, that night was… um… that was different. We had too many drinks, and we had too many discussions. Oh God, we had rehearsals, and money spent. And this one was complaining… the typical thing would happen, again. The thing that I loved about it though was again we had no managers, no agents, no nothing involved, but when we put the fact out that we were going to do this concert everyone that could get into the theatre was there [Mick Jagger was among the celebrities who attended]. The media was out there for us. We did a press day and it was crazy. It did grow but we didn’t have someone’s input – again – to make sure we was saying and doing and acting the right way. Because once you get in front of a camera the public makes a decision on whether they’re going to see you or like you at that moment. The show was completely discombobulated, it was all over the place [each singer did a short hits spot, with a ragged mob-handed jam to finish, sans their best known song, Soul Meeting]. The music to me was great, but all the behind the curtains stuff was crazy. And Wilson got crazy… Joe Tex was out there doing Skinny Legs, and he had girls with skimpy outfits on, and Wilson literally walked out on-stage with his robe on and pulled one of the girls off. And she was raving and yelling, “Don’t be touching me, I’m going to call my husband, and he’s going to come and punch you out.” I am sober ’cos I don’t drink well, my daughter’s with me, Solomon’s a reverend, and we’re thinking, How do we handle Wil? She’s threatening him and her husband’s a young pup and he’s going to come down and punch Wilson in the mouth. All the audience thought it was a joke. I think Don had had so much to drink that he fell over backwards into the drum set. And we couldn’t laugh that one off, because you could see from the audience, this thing is going downhill. (Laughs) I had more fun that one night than I ever had in my life. It was like watching the Three Stooges. You didn’t know what the hell was going on. Not taking away from our talent, but we partied too soon for the party. Know what I mean? The whole thing was comic. It was us for real. We just didn’t have anyone to hold our hands and keep us out of trouble. It was four or five guys being… I think we were more or less overwhelmed with the success of what we had achieved that day, with the crowds that were there, the entertainers that had come to see us. It was bigger than we could have dreamed of.”