March 18, 1941

Singer Wilson Pickett was born in Prattville. Working in the cotton fields of his sharecropping parents as a child, Pickett’s music career took off in 1965 with his hit “In the Midnight Hour,” recorded at Stax Records’ studios in Memphis. Pickett recorded many of his biggest hits at Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals, including “Land of 1,000 Dances,” “Mustang Sally” and “Funky Broadway.” In all, he recorded more than 50 songs that made the Billboard U.S. R&B charts. Pickett was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991 and the Alabama Music Hall of Fame in 1999.

Read more at Encyclopedia of Alabama.

Wilson Pickett. (Courtesy of Alabama Music Hall of Fame, Encyclopedia of Alabama)

Wilson Pickett. (Courtesy of Alabama Music Hall of Fame, Encyclopedia of Alabama)

FAME Recording Studios, Muscle Shoals, 2010. (The George F. Landegger Collection of Alabama Photographs in Carol M. Highsmith’s America, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division)

FAME Recording Studios in Muscle Shoals. (The George F. Landegger Collection of Alabama Photographs in Carol M. Highsmith’s America, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division)

For more on Alabama’s Bicentennial, visit Alabama 200.