Wilson Pickett – Love Will Keep Us Together
The Wicked One!
Listen/Download – Wilson Pickett – Love Will Keep Us Together MP3
Greetings all.
The end of the week is here, and so then I must ask you once again to tune in the Funky16Corners Radio Show, which comes to you each and every Friday with the best in soul, funk, jazz and rare groove, all on original vinyl. You can subscribe to the show as a podcast in iTunes, listen on your mobile device via the TuneIn and Stitcher apps, check it out on Mixcloud, or grab yourself an MP3 right here at Funky16Corners.com
We close out a week of familiar songs in unfamiliar renditions with a very solid souping up of one of the biggest slices of AM Gold from the 70s.
The first time I heard (thanks Mike Schaefer!) that Wilson Pickett had done a cover of the Captain and Tennille’s ‘Love Will Keep Us Together’ (a song I actually dig in the original version) I could scarcely believe it.
When I finally heard it, I was pleasantly surprised.
It’s not that I thought that Pickett wasn’t capable, but rather that I suspected that he might be too powerful a singer, and would blow through it like a bullet through a wet tissue.
Recorded in 1976 and released on Pickett’s ‘Chocolate Mountain’ LP (a one off on his TK distributed Wicked label), ‘Love Will Keep Us Together’ was a #69 R&B hit (no notice on the Pop charts, other than some minor regional success in L.A.).
Pickett’s version is slightly funky with enough pop polish to keep the AM audience interested, but no so much as to scare away his diehard fans.
It’s really cool to hear the song removed from Toni Tennille’s buttery voice and recast with Pickett’s razor-sharp growl.
I dig it, and I hope you do, too.
See you all on Monday.
Keep the faith
Larry
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Themocracy
Pickett seemed to like doing unexpected covers. The famous story, of course, is that Duane Allman persuaded Pickett to record a cover of “Hey Jude.” On the same album is a cover of “Born To Be Wild.” And elsewhere, he covered “Mama Told Me Not To Come.”
I love his version of ‘Born To Be Wild’, and his ‘Hey Jude’ is amazing, too.
A version I really like is from the 1977 album A Man and A Woman, by Isaac Hayes and Dionne Warwick. Granted it’s part of a medley and Dionne doesn’t really make it her own but the pace is rolling.