The song begins with an undeniable pulse—a groove that doesn’t just invite you to dance, but demands it. It’s the sound of sweat hitting a hardwood floor, of an electric guitar picking out a rhythm so fundamental it feels ancient. To hear Wilson Pickett’s 1965 masterwork, “In the Midnight Hour,” is to be instantly transported to a single, magical moment in music history: the confluence of Atlantic Records ambition and the downhome, intuitive brilliance of Stax Records in Memphis.
This track is Pickett’s career crystallization. Before it, he was a powerful, if somewhat unfocused, talent signed to Atlantic in New York. His initial singles for the label failed to ignite the charts. Atlantic executive Jerry Wexler, a visionary in soul music, correctly diagnosed the problem: Pickett’s raw, Alabama-born, gospel-soaked voice needed a Southern sonic context, not the slicker arrangements of New York. The solution? Send him to Stax, Atlantic’s distribution partner, and pair him with their resident session machine, Booker T. & the M.G.’s.
The collaboration, in May 1965, was instantaneous alchemy. Pickett co-wrote “In the Midnight Hour” with M.G.’s guitarist Steve Cropper, reportedly penning both it and “Don’t Fight It” in a couple of hours in a room at the Lorraine Motel. The resulting single became Pickett’s first massive hit for Atlantic, rocketing to the top of the R&B chart and peaking at a respectable number 21 on the broader pop chart, effectively launching the “Wicked Pickett” into superstardom. It was also the title track for his debut album for the label later that year.
The Delayed Rapture of the Backbeat
The true genius of this piece of music lies in a single rhythmic quirk, a creative decision that turned a good song into a legendary one. This is the fabled delayed backbeat.
When Pickett and the M.G.’s—Cropper on guitar, Donald “Duck” Dunn on bass, and Al Jackson Jr. on drums—first ran through the song, it was a relatively straight-ahead soul tune. Producer Jerry Wexler, present in the studio with Stax co-founder Jim Stewart, reportedly suggested the rhythmic shift based on a contemporary dance called “The Jerk.” The dancers were emphasizing the second beat in a way that dragged the rhythm.
Wexler, demonstrating the dance, convinced drummer Al Jackson Jr. to delay the snare drum’s crack—the backbeat on counts two and four—just a hair, pulling it slightly behind the established downbeat. This subtle, almost imperceptible drag gives the whole track a feeling of suppressed energy, a coiled tension that perfectly mirrors the lyrical theme of waiting in anticipation for love.
Donald “Duck” Dunn’s bass line anchors this rhythmic trickery with a relentless, simple groove. It’s a classic R&B pattern, played with a heavy, yet clean, attack. It grounds the entire experience, preventing the delayed drums from collapsing into sloppiness.
The instrumentation is sparse and powerful: no strings, no woodwinds (save for the horn section), and certainly no pop frills. It’s the purity of the rhythm section, known as the M.G.’s, combined with the Memphis Horns—Andrew Love, Charles Axton, and Floyd Newman—that defines the sound. The horns enter with short, declarative stabs that are more rhythmic punctuation than melody, adding a necessary, punchy aggression to the mix.
Cropper’s Concise Fire
Steve Cropper’s guitar work is another pillar of the song’s success. It’s not flashy, but it is utterly essential. He employs the simplest of rhythm figures—staccato, clean electric strums that chop against the delayed drum beat. This is less about showing off and more about building a sonic foundation of percussive texture. His sound is dry, immediate, and miked close, cutting through the mix without resorting to distortion.
This restrained brilliance became the signature of the Stax sound: economy over extravagance. Cropper, a master of the concise fill, understands that sometimes the best notes are the ones you choose not to play. The whole arrangement hums with a sense of inevitability.
Joe Hall’s organ, or sometimes referred to simply as piano, adds a creamy, sustaining texture beneath the razor-sharp edges of the rhythm section. It’s not a lead instrument here, but a vital part of the blend, giving the track its distinctly soulful, slightly church-inflected warmth. Without that low, sustained drone, the song would lose its emotional depth, its sense of yearning.
“It’s a perfect sonic metaphor for the tension between secular desire and spiritual restraint.”
Listening to it today on studio headphones, you can clearly isolate the subtle genius of the mixing. The track is dynamically compressed, giving it an undeniable, pumping loudness that made it leap out of the low-fidelity speakers of 1965 radios and jukeboxes. It’s raw, it’s visceral, and it sounds like a live band caught at the precise moment of transcendent groove.
The Wicked Pickett in Full Cry
Then there is Pickett. His voice is a force of nature, what he reportedly referred to as his “cornbread” vocals—a muscular rasp that is equal parts gospel shout and carnal plea. His delivery is pure catharsis. He sounds like a man utterly consumed by his desire, yet maintaining a sliver of the decorum necessary to await the appointed hour.
The lyrics are simple, direct, and sensual, promising that “my love will come tumbling down.” Pickett’s sustained notes and sudden, explosive shifts in register embody the tension between secular desire and spiritual fervor, a duality that lies at the heart of all great Southern Soul. He carries the weight of the church with him, but his message is strictly secular.
I vividly remember driving through a late summer rainstorm, the kind where the streetlights bloom into distorted halos, and having this song blare from the car speakers. The delayed backbeat seemed to synchronize with the erratic thump of the windshield wipers, creating a perfect, cinematic loop of anticipation and electricity. It was a tangible connection to the moment of creation—a reminder that this song, over two minutes and thirty seconds long, is about the ecstatic promise that is worth waiting for, even if only until the clock strikes twelve.
This single recording solidified the Stax/Memphis sound—the gospel-infused, gritty, rhythm-first approach—as the vital counterpoint to the smoother, more polished pop-soul coming out of Detroit’s Motown. Steve Cropper’s simple, but iconic, guitar intro has been studied in guitar lessons by musicians for decades, attempting to bottle that lightning. Yet, the song’s enduring appeal isn’t in its technicality, but in its perfect emotional pitch. It captures a universal human experience—the urgent, feverish anticipation of a midnight rendezvous—and makes it sound utterly magnificent.
It’s an invitation that still feels urgent six decades later, a testament to the raw, untamable power of true soul music.
Listening Recommendations
- Otis Redding – “Try a Little Tenderness”: Features a similar emotional crescendo built on Stax-style horn and rhythm arrangement.
- Sam & Dave – “Soul Man”: A quintessential Stax track, showcasing another powerful vocal duo backed by the M.G.’s and Memphis Horns.
- Aretha Franklin – “Respect” (Atlantic/Muscle Shoals version): Shares the same raw, Southern-recorded, gospel-rooted intensity and producer Jerry Wexler’s vision.
- Booker T. & The M.G.’s – “Green Onions”: The instrumental heart of Stax, perfectly demonstrating the rhythm section’s genius for minimalist groove.
- Eddie Floyd – “Knock on Wood”: Co-written by Cropper and Floyd, this song carries the same infectious, driving energy and crisp horn accents.
You can hear an official version of this iconic track here: In the Midnight Hour (45 Version) by Wilson Pickett.