Still Wicked: Wilson Pickett's Raw Return
Ted Drozdowski, The Boston Phoenix, 18 October 1999
THE HOWL is unmistakable. Raw as fresh meat, gritty and powerful as sandblasting. That's Wilson Pickett shouting thunder over the fatback grooves of a new album called It's Harder Now (Bullseye Blues & Jazz). And it's a shock. Not only because Pickett hasn't made an album since the mid-'80s, but because his voice still has all the torque and flexibility – the chained-but-snapping emotionalism – that it did at the peak of his career, when he was one of the top soul-music stars in the world.
Total word count of piece: 857