Wilson Pickett Birthplace — Prattville, Alabama

Wilson Pickett was born on March 18, 1941, in Prattville, Alabama — the seat of Autauga County, just northwest of Montgomery — into a large family that moved to Detroit when he was a teenager. In Detroit he sang gospel and was recruited into the Falcons, a group that also included Eddie Floyd. He went solo in the early 1960s and signed with Atlantic Records, where producer Jerry Wexler sent him to record at FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals and later at Stax in Memphis — Southern studios whose rhythm sections gave his voice the raw, churchy setting it needed.

Pickett was the Wicked Pickett — a performer of explosive, barely contained energy whose screaming, preacher-inflected delivery was one of the most powerful instruments in soul music. "In the Midnight Hour" (1965) — written with Steve Cropper at FAME Studios and built on a rhythm that Wexler demonstrated by dancing — was his breakthrough. "Land of 1000 Dances," "Mustang Sally," "Funky Broadway," and "Don't Knock My Love" followed in a run of hits that established him as one of Atlantic's biggest artists. His sessions at FAME placed him directly in the creative ferment of the Muscle Shoals Sound.

Prattville and Autauga County have a historical marker acknowledging Pickett's birth there. He died on January 19, 2006, in Reston, Virginia, from a heart attack. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991. His recordings are central documents of Southern soul and his influence — on performers from Mick Jagger to Bruce Springsteen to Bruno Mars — is direct and frequently acknowledged.