#the studio owner who is a father to me gave me a gold star for it 🥲❤️‍🔥

[haml3t]

Latest releases from the kiln! 💜💚💜

[kokina-kizoku]

Noblesse Painter AU: The Meeting

Go here for the presentation of this AU.

Frankenstein was in a state of deep torment. His emotions were dueling: admiration against disgust, wonder against rage. He had finally arrived in Lukedonia, the world capital of painters, and was certainly not disappointed by the artistic quality of what he saw: everywhere on the walls of the buildings were painted magnificent frescoes, each with a unique theme. For example, the Kertia mansion was decorated with images of wind and lightning, representing speed, and the Landegre mansion was very imposing with its elegant columns, painted with nobility and distinction.

However, wherever he looked, he saw the injustice that enraged him: ease. The children born in Lukedonia were supported by great artistic masters, brought up in luxury, lodged and fed like princes. And all their paintings represented opulence. Frankenstein was thinking about his mother, who died for lack of money to cure her, and to himself who had to search the trash and sometimes even steal to get a tiny amount of paint to express his art.

At one point, he passed a large mansion decorated with frescoes representing the fire, with the sign "Avgain Family" written in gold letters above the door. These warm colors made him think of Tesamu and he felt a poignant sadness add to his anger. Fucking Union. Fucking humans unfair and selfish.

The heart hardened by this memory that still hurt, even after three years of separation with his little assistant, he took a dark resolution. That night, he was going to add his colors to the rich and pretentious city of Lukedonia.

The brush slowly slid against the canvas, bright red mixing with the black to create a blood-colored hue. Raizel knew this mixture by heart. In each of his works, there was at least one small red spot. It was his signature, for lack of a real one. Raizel did not know how to write. The only thing he had always been able to do was paint over and over again. He had no idea of the letters that made up his name, but why sign his works? Anyway, there was no one to admire them.

That night he was sketching the image of angel's wings on his canvas. Two scarlet and bloody wings. Those whom his brother had not had to fly when he had pushed him off the cliff to prevent him from doing evil.

A tear fell on Raizel's pale cheek, devoid of color because he was never exposed to the sun. The pain that filled his heart was impossible to express, even with the greatest artistic talent in the world. He hated crying. His father had always told him that it was a weakness. That his emotions should never be expressed otherwise than by art.

Raizel's fingers were shaking. He hated his talent. He would have liked to learn something else... To learn love, happiness... Now that he was alone, he had nothing left. Just hundreds of useless paintings adorn his huge, empty house.

Suddenly, a sound of fast footsteps echoed across the door of his studio and Urokai Avgain entered. He was out of breath and his eyes were furious.

''Sir Raizel! There is a poverty-stricken who wreaks havoc in the city... We hastily painted his portrait. If you have seen it, report it to us!’’

Urokai placed a folded sheet on the table, bowed with deference, and hurried away. Raizel sighed. This sudden visit had at least had the advantage of distracting him from his grief.

He rose slowly. His body was thin and weakened by inaction and lack of food. Indeed, he had already spent 24 hours painting, completely forgetting his physical limits. But his health did not matter to him. He took the paper and unfolded it carefully.

The man in portrait had young and beautiful features. His blond hair in battle fell on his broad and strong shoulders, his lips were tight with determination and his eyes seemed troubled, lost. Blue like the sky. This portrait gave off power and wandering. Raizel recognized, for having already seen it before, the characteristic signature of Ragar Kertia at the bottom of the sheet. This man had always been talented, drawing with extraordinary speed and perfect precision.

Raizel brought the sheet to his easel. He had just found the inspiration, the person he was going to illustrate as an avenging angel with scarlet wings.

Frankenstein was exhausted. His arm was aching and the cold of the night made him shudder. He always wore rags, worn clothes on his travels, and had no time or money to buy a good coat. But he plunged his brush again into the purple paint. On the main wall of the Kertia mansion, he smeared furiously another streak of color. He had time to finish blackening these offensive designs; he was returning from the Urokai mansion and the men were still looking for him.

He took a few steps back to evaluate the whole, then raised his brush again in order to make the final line that would create in his drawing without a definite shape, that wild and unstable harmony he so much loved. But his movement stopped in the air when a soft and severe voice called to him.

‘’I ask you to stop now.’’

A few steps from him, the Kertia clan leader was standing, looking very calm, alone in the middle of the street. Frankenstein gritted his teeth. He would have preferred to see the man start screaming at him and attacking him. It would have been worse than the impassive gaze as he faced her, his cashmere scarf hiding the lower part of his face and his silk coat. As for him, he was panting, dressed in torn clothes, covered with paint and trembling with cold. This contrast of richness between them made his anger even more vivid and he said defiantly:

'' What if I do not stop? ''

"These frescoes were painted by my father, in honor of our family. I politely ask you to respect that. I do not wish to fight you; I am a painter, not a warrior. ''

"Oh, do you see that?" Frankenstein mocked. ''Your little bourgeois hands can not be damaged by giving a blow? ''

"It would be dishonorable for me to do it out of anger, you are clearly not in a normal mental state at the moment, and, moreover, sick and shaky. Be reasonable, stop now. I know very well why you are if angry with the nobles, your art is eloquent and denounces opulence, but there are many things you do not understand... Please, calm down and let me help you."

'' BULLSHIT! Why would you help me? You do not know anything about me! ''

"I know what suffering is."

"That's enough, Ragar," said another voice, more serious and ripe. "He is not able to think and listen to you right now. The mayor has given us the order to capture him and bring him behind him. Let's fulfill this mission now."

Frankenstein watched with resentment as the second, silver-haired, older man emerged from the shadows. Ragar looked sad and nodded.

"You are right, Gejutel. I'm sorry, but we're going to force you to-"

He paused when Frankenstein grabbed the paint bucket with one hand, ready to swing it in his face. But he changed his mind at the last second and instead threw it on the named Gejutel, who was splashed with violet paint from head to toe.

He barely heard the old man's shout of surprise, running at full speed. He hated to run away but he had no choice at the moment if he wanted to save his life. The members of the Urokai family had tried to kill him and he did not trust the mayor of this town, which certainly should not be less radical. The man called Ragar had seemed kind and understanding, but he could not take any chances.

Frankenstein ran as far as the city, a terrible pain oppressing his chest. His cough increased and he had difficulty breathing. He found himself in a field and without the cover of the buildings, the cold wind slapped him without pity and he could not see anything in that absolute darkness. There were not even stars in the sky.

He saw the lights of a manor shining in the distance. A manor house in such an isolated place? Strange... He was getting ready to go into the forest, but he felt his head spinning and realized he could not stay outside anymore. The cold would end up killing him. He also had a chance to die if the inhabitants of the manor found him, but between that and let his corpse be found in the morning in the middle of a field...

He gathered his last strength to get to the mansion. It was tall and imposing, and even in the dim light, Frankenstein noticed that he was not decorated with frescoes like all the others. It gave him a good impression. The owners of this mansion were not eager to show what they had to others.

As he entered, a flush of heat made him shiver with relief. But the house was not as hot as it should have been, and despite the lit oil lamps in the hallway where he walked, the mood was dark and empty. Dust covered the floor, and there were only two footprints track on it. He was so exhausted, his mind so lethargic that he automatically followed this track instead of trying to hide. He had a presentiment that he was not in danger in this manor.

As he passed, he put on a white shirt hanging from a coat rack, ignoring the fact that it was not his. It was a beautiful linen garment, the same one he had dreamed of wearing when he was a kid. As he climbed the stairs, trying to drive out those sad memories of his memory, his gaze stopped on the huge paintings hanging on the wall and his breath was cut off.

They represented ragged landscapes, with fuzzy and faded colors, with spots of red spotted in a few places. Such a poignant emotion filled them that Frankenstein put a hand to his heart, upset. Other paintings represented people with empty eyes, wandering in the fog and completely alone...

Suddenly, footsteps on the first floor brought him out of his contemplation. He had to hide. A coughing fit shook him and he pressed a hand against his mouth, leaning against the wall. His legs were close to collapse, but his survival instinct was stronger and he forced himself to walk to the end of the hallway and open the door to the last room.

He froze on the spot. It was a painting workshop, filled with pots of all colors, high ceiling. Paintings decorated the old tapestry. And near the window, an easel was installed. A man sat with a brush in his hand and stared at him. This man was frail and livid, his skin white as snow, his hair black as night and his eyes glistening with a reddish glow. His deep eyes pierced Frankenstein into his soul.

'' I ... I ... ''

He could not speak. The silence of this man was an invincible weapon. The window, open despite the intense cold, let in the wind that whipped the thin figure of the painter and fly through the air immaculate curtains. A flash of light suddenly illuminated the sky, creating dazzling lights in the room, and the thunder sounded. Frankenstein, like electrified, says in a whisper:

‘’Good evening. I came to work here.’’

Raizel, bewildered, looked at this intruder who had desperate and suspicious eyes like those of a wild animal. It was him, the one who was wanted through Lukedonia. He has released as much power and torment as in his portrait. Raizel could feel his panic, his anger, his loneliness. Then, gently, he did something he had not done in years, naturally, to appease the terror he saw in his blue eyes like the sky. He spoke.

‘’You wear my shirt.’’

The man looked embarrassed, but relieved at the same time not to be hurt.

‘’Ah, uh, yes. I did not find anything else, forgive me.’’

The door opened suddenly, and panic returned in his eyes. Frankenstein took a step back. The old man with silver hair, looking satisfied, or at least the most we can be when we are covered with purple paint, stood next to Ragar Kertia in the embrasure of the door. The latter, on the other hand, did not seem very happy and rather guilty of not being so.

"We found him. It was the last place I would have thought ... "

"He came to work here."

Gejutel paused, his mouth open and his eyes wide. He looked at Raizel as if to ask him if it was really him who had just spoken.

"You ... um ... what do you mean?"

"He came to work here because I live alone and I need someone to maintain my paintings."

Frankenstein did not understand much about his situation, except that the ebony-haired painter was defending him. He tried to support his words, but a violent cough shook him as soon as he opened his lips. He placed his palm in front of his mouth to repress it, and blood fell on his palm.

"You are sick," Ragar said. Frankenstein gave him a annoyed look.

"I know how to take care of myself."

"We have to take him to the mayor," Gejutel said authoritatively, ignoring the dialogue between the two. Raizel replied in a whisper:

"I will send him when he is healed."

The two clan leaders bowed, and came out after giving Frankenstein a last look. The latter, once the door closed, found himself without words. The painter looked at him with compassion, and got up to close the window from which the cold draft was coming.

"Thank you for saving me," he finally said. '' My name is... Frankenstein...''

"Cadis Etrama di Raizel."

Frankenstein printed this name in his memory. He was not at all like the other nobles... Faded, silent, and surrounded by an aura of power and calm. His eyes fell at random on the canvas he was painting. He stepped forward, fascinated. The painting depicted a man with scarlet wings... A man with blond hair and blue eyes like the sky...

He realized with shock that it was himself and the memories poured into his memory.

"Mom, you always say that angels protect us. Who are they?''

'' They are the artists, my treasure. Those who create beautiful and moving things for humans... "

"Can I become an angel, mother?"

''I think so. You are so good for others.''

Frankenstein's lips began to shake. There was no reason for him to be combed like this; he was more of a demon than an angel. But this painting was moving, more beautiful than any other he had seen in his life.

"It's so beautiful ..." he said in a panting breath. The painter lowered his eyes. Frankenstein convulsed as another fit of coughing him, preventing him from breathing and filling his mouth with blood.

He fainted.

Coming soon in Noblesse Painter AU: Frankenstein's healing, his first moments with Raizel and his confrontation with Ragar.

[sabraeal]

Flapping Lips

Massively late for the Obiyuki Soundtrack Challenge, but this is for track 2. Part of Go For Broke

Kai’s a good kid; Obi’s never quite been sure exactly what his job title is -- bouncer? butler? bodyguard? Both him and the older guy seem to share whatever job gets thrown at them, all in unironic ascots and tails -- but he leads Obi straight out to the poolside when he arrives, murmuring, “Miss Arluleon has been waiting for you.”

Good thing he wore black today; at least none of these turkeys would see him sweat.

“That so?” he manages, adjusting his hat. “Can’t wait.”

The first time he’d seen the soon-to-be Mrs Izana Wisteria, she’d been splayed on a bunk in the barracks, all legs and sun-kissed skin, blonde hair bobbing over bare shoulders.

The new Betty Grable, Hiro had said proudly, showing off his collection of pin-ups. Obi hadn’t known there was anything wrong with the old one, but there was something about her, barely eighteen and all tits and ass and sunny smile. She’d been the wallpaper of every place he’d bunked down, sharing space with Vargas girls and Rita Hayworth as men talked about their girls back home.

Now’s not the time to think about how most of them never made it.

Obi’s never held a hundred dollars in his life, never even seen Franklin except in school books, but here he is now, standing at the end of million-dollar legs, all 35-22-35 above them wrapped up in a white bikini that would have been an instant favorite in the bunks.

There hadn’t been many good times in the war, but what ones there were, Haki Arluleon was there. She just...doesn’t know that.

Her chin tilts up, and beneath her wide sunglasses and brimmed hat, her lips spread into her signature smile.

“What do we have here?” she drawls, angling herself so the oil on her skin glistens, so that she looks like one of those bronze statuettes her set are so keen to hoard. “Mr Private Investigator, I presume? Izana did tell me you’d drop by.”

She arches a brow, somehow coy and innocent at the same time, and -- ha, maybe she does know about those good times.

“Obi,” he says, taking the hand she offers. Despite the lean curve of her body, her grip is strong; a businessman’s daughter through and though. “No ‘mister’ needed.”

“Obi.” The way her lips wrap around his name is like something out of a Bogart movie. “No last name? How mysterious.”

He grins at that. “A little bit of mystery in this town can go a long way.”

“My my,” she says, too pleased. “I wouldn’t expect that sort of sentiment from a man in your line of work.”

It’s dangerous, this Bogart-and-Bacall banter they have going; it makes him want to like her, want to think that she couldn’t have anything to do with the bad business stinking up this house.

He can’t help himself. “Without it I wouldn’t have much of a job, now would I, Miss Arluleon?”

“A fair point,” she allows with an enigmatic smile. “Though I can’t see why you’d look for one here. There’s nothing mysterious about Wistal.”

He wants to laugh -- even without Wisteria gasping his last with his pretty little nurse-turned-heiress holding his hand, there was probably more than enough dirty laundry in these walls to spend two lifetimes unraveling, let alone for the greenbacks Zen Wisteria waved under his nose.

Hell, everything in Wistal stinks to high-heaven, and here he is, the sucker who wants to believe Haki Arluleon smells like roses.

“Well, someone didn’t feel that way,” he hedges, though by her face, he can tell he might as well have named names for all the secret it was. “And I thought I might as well poke around. You know, since the lady of the house gave me permission.”

Obi’s watching her close, waiting for that smile to waver at the mention of the other woman, but instead that mega-watt smile only grows brighter. The skin around her eyes crinkles, and for one moment, he can tell she’s forgotten to mind her face, to remember that every real smile now is a dime she won’t make later.

“Shirayuki is always so accommodating, isn’t she?” The words are pleasant, but he doesn’t miss the sharp glint in her eyes as she watches him. “Such a doll. I don’t know what I’d do without her.”

He catches himself reaching for his shoulder, flexes his hand instead. Obi’s not sure he’d go so far as to say Red’s been accommodating; he’d been surprised by her letter -- or her lawyer’s, really, even if the man swore the permission came from the young miss’s mouth herself -- but he wasn’t about to start calling it altruism.

People got antsy, trying to prove their innocence. Especially the guilty ones.

“She’s sure a lot of something,” he allows, leaning on the lounger. “But I’m not here for her, Miss Arluleon.”

“Is that so?” A curved brow arches over the rim of her sunglasses. “A pity.”

There’s a strange amount of sincerity in that.

She rolls toward him on her lounger, looking attentive. “But I’ll be as helpful as I can.”

“I appreciate it,” he says, wry. “Can you tell me where you were when Kain Wisteria died?”

She tilts her head, like she has to wrack her brain to remember, like she hasn’t already given this statement half a dozen times since the old man rattled out his last and shook all the tinsel in this town with it.

“In bed,” she says finally, slowly. “We’d had quite the late night, Izana and I. A party down at the marina. On Shenezard’s boat, I think. One of them, you know he has something like a dozen. His son was having a little soiree on one of the more...reserved yachts in his father’s fleet.”

Now that’s an interesting tidbit. Not to do with the investigation, of course -- alibis were such fickle things when their owners had the clams to make bodies disappear -- but the tabloids would love to hear something like that: Wisteria Heir Makes Time On Shenezard Pleasure Cruise.

“I didn’t think Izana kept up much with Raj Shenezard.” His father worked for another one of the Big Five, and by all accounts the Prince of Paramount ran with a faster crowd than Izana Wisteria would be caught dead with. “Must have been some party.”

“He puts in his appearances at a few of them, for old time’s sake.” She waves a hand. “And sometimes it’s the only place to catch who you need to see. Even some of the wallflowers come out for a party on a Shenezard boat.”

Obi wouldn’t know, but he nods. “This is the night before.”

“And the wee hours of the morning,” she laughs. “I don’t think we left before one, and by then it was much too late for me to be going all the way back home, so Izana insisted I stay here.”

He quirks an eyebrow. Another thing the supermarket rags would love to hear. “And I suppose this is your fiancé’s alibi as well?”

Without the help of colorists, it doesn’t seem like Haki Arluleon can blush, but she claps a hand to her cheek as if she had. “Why, of course not! I may have spent the night in Wistal, but we stayed in separate beds.”

“Of course,” he allows, wry. “And I’m sure you’re planning to keep that arrangement when you’re married too.”

She presses a hand to her heart, mouth curved to one side. “I live my life by the Hays Code, sir.”

Only because being in her unmentionables doesn’t break it. “Sure you do.”

“Why, I’ve already picked out the nightstand to go between our two singles.” Teeth flash behind red lips. “Mahogany and marble tops all around.”

“Sounds dynamite,” he assures her. “But what about the morning?”

“Asleep,” she tells him, easy. “I don’t think I roused myself before noon. That was when Izana came in and told me --” she gasps, hand pressing to her chest -- “told me that Kain had -- had --” she makes a real show of struggling with the words -- “passed.”

It’s a good show; clear to see why she’s got so many of those metal statuettes at home, even though she’s barely scraping twenty-five, but he didn’t come here for a bunch of lines.

“Can anyone vouch for you, Miss Arluleon?” he asks, watching her dab at the corners of her eyes. He wonders how many of the chuckleheads down at the precinct have been taken in by her, if they all bought her Perils of Pauline act.

“I’m not sure.” Her lips purse into a thoughtful moue. “The staff must have seen me at some point, but there was no one...well, watching me sleep.”

It’s tempting to buy into her ingenue act even now, even knowing that she’s not a Grable but a full Bacall. Even more tempting to think that she is just how the nastier tabloids paint her: a gold-digger who made a name for herself with her legs and her measurements, a girl looking for a leg up in the movie world and found a man able to lift her tits and ass and all into the Olympus of Hollywood Royalty.

It’s tempting, but Obi is a man who does his research. Not some clown with a badge.

“How long had you known your father-in-law?” he asks, voice light, inquiring.

“Oh,” she sniffs. “Ages. Daddy hardly worked with anyone else, even in the studio. Only the best for Kain, you know.”

And there it is -- what sets the gumshoes above the flatfoots. So tempting to think a girl needs a leg up, when she looks like a dream wrapped in a fantasy --

But Haki Arluleon never has. Tabloids don’t care about colorists -- technicolor might as well be magic, for all they know -- but Hollywood does.

Kain Wisteria did. The rest of the world might see a pin-up reaching for the stars, but Haki’s practically Hollywood Royalty herself; after all, you don’t get a Swedish model mother by having a nobody as a father. Not in this town.

“Of course,” he says with a smirk. “How else would we have that Wisteria blue?”

Her smile freezes like a rictus on her face. “Arluleon blue.”

Sitting so close to her, he can tell why. Sure, it comes close to the shade of Izana’s eyes, to Zen’s, but --

It’s not their peepers that would be true to color on film.

He leans in, conspiratorial. “Can you think of anyone that would want to rub out Kain Wisteria?”

The piercing look evaporates, as if it never existed at all. “Oh, never.”

“Never?” She’s got to know that’s a bridge too far, even if he was a cop. If there were a thousand reasons to kill in this city, all but a hundred of them would have to do with the Big Five.

“Well,” she tilts her hair, coy. “He had been in the business for years. I’m sure he’s stepped on a few toes.”

An understatement of the century. Like saying Randolph Hearst was moderately wealthy.

“But someone who would want to -- to kill him?” She shakes her head sadly. “I can’t imagine it.”

“You know, people say Kain and Izana had been arguing in the days leading up to his death,” he presses.

She waves a hand, as if the idea itself was absurd. “It’s hard to thrive under a shadow as large as Kain Wisteria’s. Izana has been wanting to try his hand at directing for ages, but Kain was determined to keep him on screen as long as possible.”

“And you don’t think he’d try to get out from daddy’s thumb another way?”

She sighs, unimpressed. “It’s the same story all around this country. Boy doesn’t want to take over the family business, him and his father fight about it until we’re all sick of hearing it. Zen was trying to take some opportunities at another studio, and they’d all been having a fit about that too.” She shrugs. “Nothing anyone would kill over.”

He sits back, doesn’t tell her that happens all the time. People get tired of being bossed around, they fight back, and suddenly Pa’s on the floor with a crack in his skull. Or in this case, poison in his lungs.

“It’s all so unfortunate,” she sighs dramatically, settling back against the lounge. “Kain was an institution in this town, but he’s been ill for years. Gassed in the first war, you know. That’s the reason he had to drop out of acting. Ruined his voice, and all they wanted after the war was talkies.”

He hesitates. Now that he hadn’t know.

“That’s why he had Shirayuki,” she confides, keeping her voice soft. “Chronic infections. Every sniffle could be the end. It was only a matter of time until it was.”

Obi grits his teeth around the truth. Something tell him Miss Arluleon wouldn’t be so forthcoming if she knew what the papers in his pocket said.

“He died as natural a death as a man could in his condition,” she concludes. “It’s sad that some have got to see shadows in sunlight. Though,” she adds, a bit lower, “I suppose that apple never fell too far from its tree.”

“Is that what Kain was like?” Obi asks, a little too sharp. “Seeing shadows in sunlight? A few sandwiches short of a picnic?”

Her body goes rigid, just for a moment, and then she eases back into her sultry lean, her bright smile. “Of course not! Kain had his eccentricities, but so do all geniuses, don’t they?”

He nods. “So you can your soon-to-be father-in-law got along well, I take it?”

She gives him a reproachful look, as if she’s surprised he doesn’t know better. “Of course. I was his muse after all.”

Obi raises a brow. “Didn’t they say that about Haruto, back in her day?”

“And his first wife,” she adds, her playful tone taking an edge.

He blinks. “First wife?”

He’d known about Haruto -- a scandal that the rags still like to bring up whenever there was a good photo of Kain standing next to young starlets; she’d hardly been eighteen when he’d cast her in her first role, and before it’d even wrapped they were married, Kain nearly twenty years her senior.

But a first wife? That’s...something different.

“That’s the only way to be a Mrs Wisteria,” she says, voice tight. “Catch Kain’s eye.”

There’s something about the way she’s looking at him, like she’s willing him to hear the words she’s saying, but --

“Shirayuki!”

He blinks, head swiveling over his shoulder, back towards the house, only to find his nose practically brushing the cotton of a sensible skirt. Thoroughly ignoring his presence, she skirts around him, holding out a dripping glass.

Haki seizes it with gusto. “You’re a darling, Shirayuki. What would I ever do without you?”

The lady of the house offers a tight smile, pointedly not looking in his direction. “I’m sure you would manage.”

“I’d suffer,” Haki tells her, raising the glass to her lips. “After all, who else would bring me --” she sputters as she takes a sip, eyes wide -- “Why, darling, this isn’t gin at all.”

“It’s water,” Red tells her, brows raised. “It’s practically desert weather out here. You need to keep hydrated.”

Haki gestures out to the pool. “I have plenty of water.”

A long suffering look passes under those freckles. “Sitting by it doesn’t count.”

“It should.” Under Red’s unwavering look, Haki sighs, taking a sip. “If you’re up anyway, darling, do you mind heading back inside? I need a little gin to help the water go down.”

If Red were any less of a lady, she’d roll her eyes. As it is, she just muffles a sigh. “Of course.”

Nowakoski pivots on the stacked heel of her Oxfords, military-sharp, and strides past him without a glance, like he’s no more than a stain on the pristine white of the lounge.

He clucks his tongue, gathering up his fedora. A dame like that should know that ignoring a man was more intoxicating than come-on. At least men like him, who make their business digging up the skeletons everyone else would rather stay buried.

“If you’ll excuse me, Miss Arluleon,” he murmurs, getting to his feet, “I think I’m getting a little parched.”

Her mouth rucks to one side in a smirk. “And here I thought you’d come for me.”

Obi reaches out, gives her hand another shake. “Who’s to say you can mix business with pleasure?”

Her lips give a wry quirk, amused. “And here’s me, wondering which one I’m supposed to be.”

In the closed confines of the house, Obi can admit – he’s in a real pickle trying to suss out which one Red is himself.

There’s a right answer: between pin-up and zipped-up, it should be clear to any red-blooded man which one is the pleasure part of the equation. There wasn’t a boy in Camp Shelby that wouldn’t have given his best nut to have ten minutes with Haki Arluleon, sure, but –

But there’s a real economy of movement in Red as she nips behind the bar, a sort of focus he hasn’t seen since he crossed back over the Atlantic. She looks almost at home back there, even with the high collar of her blouse, and the school marm cut of her skirt. There’s enough booze on the shelves it’s daunting; he doubts there’s a single person in this house that’s tried a nip from every bottle, but she cuts through with hardly more than a glance, gripping a bottle’s neck with a sort of confidence that leaves him more than a little dry-mouthed.

“So.”

She startles, hand slipping on the lemon she’s juicing. Her eyes dart up, owlish and wary, watching him lean on the bar.

“What’s the most expensive thing here?” He makes a show of squinting at the bottles, like he knows a damned thing about anything that isn’t a couple of cents a bottle. “Whiskey?”

She stares. Arluleon would have made a fortune if he could capture a color like that on film.

“How about two fingers of that.” He knocks on the bar, like he’s at any old dive. “On the rocks.”

Her mouth tightens, lips pressing white.

“If you’re thirsty,” Red says with her politest voice, “I’m sure there’s a half dozen bars between here and the bus stop that would be happy to oblige.”

“Aw, kicking me out, Red?” he drawls, leaning on a fist. “After you gave me an invitation and everything?”

“I don’t believe that it included the bar,” she tells him primly, opening a jar of what looks like powdered sugar – even now, he salivates just thinking about that much of it in one place – and mixing it in with the juice.

“Part of the investigation,” he fires back. “Perfect place to hide poison, isn’t it? An after-dinner drink?”

Her eyes narrow, just the slightest bit. “Then you’re picking the wrong spirits. Mr Wisteria wasn’t a whiskey man.”

Those flushed cheeks, those ruffled feathers – just what he likes to see. People are so much easier to grill if they’re about to blow a gasket. He grins. Only thing left is to apply the right pressure.

He eyes the top button of her blouse, closed prudishly at her throat, the trailing bow that ties over it, contrasting neatly with crisp white. Good thing he knows just what laces to tug on girls like this.

“Now that’s what I’m looking for,” he drawls with a wag of his eyebrows. “Some moxie. Been missing out there with our Able Grable.”

This should be the point where she preens a little, where Cinderella takes a little joy at poking at one of her stepsisters, but –

Instead her expression shutters, shoulders tense as she tosses him an incredulous look. “If that’s what you think after talking to Haki, then Zen should have saved his money.”

It’s his turn to stare, for his jaw to practically come unhinged. That’s not – that’s not how the script is supposed to go. The hard-working Girl Friday and the Femme Fatale are not – not –

Friends.

“I may not…agree with Zen’s feelings,” she says haltingly after a moment. “But I respect that he needs to…to know. Beyond a shadow of a doubt.” She fixes him with a look. “So let me tell you that Haki is far cleverer than men like to think. And that’s the way she likes it.”

He recovers enough to ask, “Clever enough to murder a man?”

She lets out a long-suffering sigh. “Kain Wisteria died of pneumonia.”

Not according to the paper burning a hole in his pocket. “That wasn’t the question.”

She stares at him them, hard. “In my expert medical opinion, it doesn’t require much cunning at all to kill someone. It was harder to keep Mr Wisteria out of his bed than in it, at the end. But do I think Haki would kill a man? No.”

Obi taps his glass, watching her pour the gin, mix in the syrup, crush some ice. His chest burns where the paper sits, Suzu’s scrawling script practically tattooing itself into his skin. It’d be stupid to bring it up, to tip his hand early, but --

But there’s something about this girl that makes him want to ruffle her a little. Shake some of that blind confidence in the goodness of man.

So of course, he does. “You know, I had a friend look over your notes, and the ones from the coroner.”

Her eyebrows lift, unimpressed. “Is that so?”

“He works over at the university,” he says. “A real egg-head, you know? His boss is some big shot in medicine. Wise? Wives?”

“Weise?” she prompts, gaze swiveling toward him. “Your friend works for Shidan Weise?”

He’s not sure what the big deal about that is, besides that he made some…antidote for something during the war. Suzu’s explained it, but it all flies over his head. Still, it’s got Red’s attention, which is what he needs.

“Apparently,” he leans in, conspiratorial, “it all looked like pneumonia. Both you and the coroner’s notes agreed. But.”

She leans in, just slightly. “But?”

“The coroner’s report mentions something interesting.” He pitches over the bar, just a little more, until he can smell the soap on her skin. “An edema in the nose.”

She rears back, face ashen. “Edema?”

He nods. “Yeah, you know, some swelling --?”

“I know what an edema is,” she tells him, flatly. Her fingers drum on the countertop. “Do you happen to have that report?”

“Made a copy,” he says, showing it to her. “But I --”

It’s gone from his hands in seconds, Shirayuki poring over the words as her face goes stark white.

“I-interesting,” she murmurs, before adding, slightly louder, “But I’m not sure if – that’s not entirely – conclusive.”

“Well,” he drawls. “I think I can draw a conclusion from it.”

Her hands shake as she sets the paper back down. “If you’ll excuse me, Haki asked for that drink some time ago.”

She steps out from around the bar, hurrying toward the poolside.

The glass sits on the bar, sweating, forgotten.

[d3muree]

The arid breeze is drying out my pores. My feet stand stalwart on the late summer asphalt. It’s just a grocery store parking lot. I used to walk on the pavement, sandals smacking the concrete and sweat from my heels amplified the sound. The strip of businesses I came from were at a fifty degree angle from the doors of aggessive air conditioning. My sports bra clung to my chest and the minute I walked through the automatic doors every follicle of hair on my body stood in attention. It was a second wave of relief from the humid LED induced heat. A stand alone open regeneration block was my only destination. Select kombuchas were ripe and ready to be plucked. My bottle never made it to the checkout line before I cracked the plastic and took a sip. Some people think it’s bad taste, and I don’t care. Tonight I don’t have a kombucha in hand. I’m not wet with my own cooling system sweat, but I’m on the asphalt.

I’m gazing into the deep set chestnut eyes that belong to a man who laid his mat down to the right of me on the front row of class. Neither of us wanted to be bothered with the distraction of shaking bodies and people taking too many water breaks. My concentration hinged on my ability to tune everything else out. Instead of him on my right, the light of florescent signs illuminates the shape of his body. It is impossible to focus on anything but him now.

I remember with vivid clarity the first time I saw him in the lobby. A worn heathered grey shirt and faded green shorts that hit mid thigh. I took him in so quickly. His deep coffee hair framed his square and ridiculously symmetrical jaw line and stopped at the nape of his neck. The 5 o’clock shadow speckled his face, his nose was slightly crooked, but you could tell at one point it was straight. I immediately turned my whole body away.

I listened to the women musing at him. He didn’t give much away. I refuse to look too long, to fawn, and giggle. So, naturally I decide my best option is to ignore him. It was hard to ignore his quiet presence, but I do not look back. In the studio I assume my self designated spot. Front row, left and off center. The wall side feels too constricting and the center feels like a spot light. I’m here to learn. I’m also still here frozen like a mammoth from the last ice age on the asphalt.

The reverberation of his voice pulls me back into the present and melts me just like the first time he opened his mouth. It is a passed down west Texas drawl from his father mixed with the sound of his home town farm of Colorado country, and an overall roundness of a flat lander. All packaged with the depth and charm of a Hollywood cowboy. Our small talk has wings tonight.

He practiced next to me a few times before introducing himself. He had a gentle presence with the light of comets in his eyes. He was masculine, in charge of his space, selective, but warm towards me. We continued to practice in unison. Our flows synced very quickly. At the apex of the heat I bathed in is cool gasps and exhalations flowing down my back. He was a shot of cold river water in the blistering heat. A moment of true selfless relief. Maybe he knew how his breath made me feel, but it was an experience collective peace that haunts me.

One night he walked me out of the studio. We engaged in conversation though every person had filed out, and the owner gave me a low smile as she locked the doors. I saw the looks from the women, but they meant nothing. He told me there was a trail behind the building, and our feet began to move down the sandy path. Conversation flowed seamlessly. I tripped on a few rocks. After a mile or two we rested on a bench overlooking a stream while bats flirted between trees. We poured over a map of the US and traced highways and state lines. With each word we were more enthralled with each other. A sense of belonging welled between us. The droplets of understanding stuck to each other. Starlight talks on the hood of his gold rover, gloaming and fire light of the canyons on the river. Conversations that lasted well into the night. Light roast coffee and bagels with cream cheese. My body seeking shelter from the storm on his wooden floor. 

The stars are beginning to light their wicks at the windows of the night’s home formally known as the universe. I sense his breath. No fight or flight instincts here tonight. My round marble eyes peer into his again. Everything within my body is revolting, yet my external world conveys peace. I just look like a year old popsicle stuck in the back of the refrigerator, slightly cemented to the plastic. How can I say goodbye to this man? I have experienced something profound, I have touched the mystic, I have felt transcendence between two people. Can I communicate anything of meaning to him or am I about to monologue an incoherent stream of bullshit. Probably the latter. As I flow through a stream of conciousness he smiles through his eyelashes. His mouth stretches as wide as the rio grande. Somehow he my feet are capable of movement as he pulls my stiff body towards his.

I can’t help but marvel that my head goes into hyperdrive while my body is incapable of control. My thoughts soften as my face rests on the warmth of his neck. I feel a sense of safety well up. He anchors me to a sanctuary like the space between two narrow canyons. I can still see the stars.

My arms curl around his back while his wide hands clasp his elbows encasing my torso in an even closer embrace. My thoughts stop. His cheekbone leans on mine, in a low voice he says “You’ll be back”. God I would do anything to stay tonight. I would give up a career, hopes and dreams, kombucha for a year, just to live in this moment. The river of what ifs comes surging back. There is not definite end and not clear start. I try to quiet the sound. It is always easier when his body is near. I mutter back “I know”. I also know it will be different. Nothing gold can stay. My heart picks up on his rhythmic beat a little too closely. I start to peel my densely packed atoms off of everything I’ve ever dreamed of knowing. “I have to go” leaves my body. It barely sounds like me from the inside. He looks into me “This isn’t it”. The phrase leaves his lips in slow motion. I don’t even know what the rosiness tastes like. I don’t know that the soft petal texture feels like.

The mouth of the dam of my mind is opened again, It ravages my brain. How have I not given in to him. How have I not given up what I do not want. I am looking at the face of an intelligent, attractive, thoughtful, generous, gentle, masculine, and emotionally attentive human dosed in creativity. He is the most interesting thing to exist. And I feel myself shove every notion of my higher will into the flood channels of my lower abdomen.

I take a step backward. My elbow lifts, my wrist flexes, and my fingers vaslliate. I smile and say something entirely meaningless. I can’t hear the sound of my own voice. I turn and walk away from everything I ever wanted.

[roseharlaws]

Dearheart

Much like Helene, this friend was enchanted by books in a way that animated his every word; what resonated between Helene’s voice on the page before me and my friend’s in my memory, was the respect, need, and love for books that characterized their mutual passion.

books provide: a way of reaching out across time and space to friends and strangers, and to the absent presences that play such a large part in all our lives. I

The books arrived safely, the Stevenson is so fine it embarrasses my orange-crate bookshelves, I’m almost afraid to handle such soft vellum and heavy cream-colored pages. Being used to the dead-white paper and stiff cardboardy covers of American books, I never knew a book could be such a joy to the touch.

The day Hazlitt came he opened to “I hate to read new books,” and I hollered “Comrade!” to whoever owned it before me.

I require a book of love poems with spring coming on. No Keats or Shelley , send me poets who can make love without slobbering—Wyatt or Jonson or somebody, use your own judgment. Just a nice book preferably small enough to stick in a slacks pocket and take to Central Park.

Please write and tell me about London, I live for the day when I step off the boat-train and feel its dirty sidewalks under my feet. I want to walk up Berkeley Square and down Wimpole Street and stand in St. Paul’s where John Donne preached and sit on the step Elizabeth sat on when she refused to enter the Tower, and like that. A newspaper man I know, who was stationed in London during the war, says tourists go to England with preconceived notions, so they always find exactly what they go looking for. I told him I’d go looking for the England of English literature, and he said: “Then it’s there.”

The Newman arrived almost a week ago and I’m just beginning to recover. I keep it on the table with me all day, every now and then I stop typing and reach over and touch it. Not because it’s a first edition; I just never saw a book so beautiful. I feel vaguely guilty about owning it. All that gleaming leather and gold stamping and beautiful type belongs in the pine-panelled library of an English country home; it wants to be read by the fire in a gentleman’s leather easy chair—not on a secondhand studio couch in a one-room hovel in a broken-down brownstone front.

Thank you for the beautiful book. I’ve never owned a book before with pages edged all round in gold. Would you believe it arrived on my birthday? I wish you hadn’t been so over-courteous about putting the inscription on a card instead of on the flyleaf. It’s the bookseller coming out in you all, you were afraid you’d decrease its value. You would have increased it for the present owner. (And possibly for the future owner. I love inscriptions on flyleaves and notes in margins, I like the comradely sense of turning pages someone else turned, and reading passages some one long gone has called my attention to.)

Thank you again for the beautiful book, I shall try very hard not to get gin and ashes all over it, it’s really much too fine for the likes of me.

Write me about London—the tube, the Inns of Court, Mayfair, the corner where the Globe Theatre stood, anything, I’m not fussy. Write me about Knightsbridge, it sounds green and gracious in Eric Coates’ London.

P. S. Your mother is setting out bravely this morning to look at an apartment for you on 8th Avenue in the 50’s because you told her to look in the theatre district. Maxine you know perfectly well your mother is not equipped to look at ANYTHING on 8th Avenue.

You may add Walton’s Lives to the list of books you aren’t sending me. It’s against my principles to buy a book I haven’t read, it’s like buying a dress you haven’t tried on, but you can’t even get Walton’s Lives in a library over here.

You can look at it. They have it down at the 42nd street branch. But not to take home! the lady said to me, shocked. eat it here, just sit right down in room 315 and read the whole book without a cup of coffee, a cigarette or air.

Doesn’t matter, Q quoted enough of it so I know I’ll like it. anything he liked i’ll like except if it’s fiction. i never can get interested in things that didn’t happen to people who never lived.

Boy, I’d like to have run barefoot through THEIR library before they sold it.

Fascinating book to read, did you know John Donne eloped with the boss’s highborn daughter and landed in the Tower for it and starved and starved and THEN got religion. my word.

You want to be the murderer or the corpse?

You’ll be fascinated to learn (from me that hates novels) that I finally got round to Jane Austen and went out of my mind over Pride & Prejudice which I can’t bring myself to take back to the library till you find me a copy of my own.

I houseclean my books every spring and throw out those I’m never going to read again like I throw out clothes I’m never going to wear again. It shocks everybody. My friends are peculiar about books. They read all the best sellers, they get through them as fast as possible, I think they skip a lot. And they NEVER read anything a second time so they don’t remember a word of it a year later. But they are profoundly shocked to see me drop a book in the wastebasket or give it away. The way they look at it, you buy a book, you read it, you put it on the shelf, you never open it again for the rest of your life but YOU DON’T THROW IT OUT! NOT IF IT HAS A HARD COVER ON IT! Why not? I personally can’t think of anything less sacrosanct than a bad book or even a mediocre book.

The Book-Lovers’ Anthology stepped out of its wrappings, all gold-embossed leather and gold-tipped pages, easily the most beautiful book I own including the Newman first edition. It looks too new and pristine ever to have been read by anyone else, but it has been: it keeps falling open at the most delightful places as the ghost of its former owner points me to things I’ve never read before. Like Tristram Shandy’s description of his father’s remarkable library which “contained every book and treatise which had ever been wrote upon the subject of great noses.” (Frank! Go find me Tristram Shandy! )

THOU VARLET? Don’t remember which restoration playwright called everybody a Varlet, I always wanted to use it in a sentence.

I shall be obliged if you will send Nora and the girls to church every Sunday for the next month to pray for the continued health and strength of the messrs. gilliam, reese, snider, campanella, robinson, hodges, furillo, podres, newcombe and labine, collectively known as The Brooklyn Dodgers. If they lose this World Series I shall Do Myself In and then where will you be?

Have you got De Tocqueville’s Journey to America? Somebody borrowed mine and never gave it back. Why is it that people who wouldn’t dream of stealing anything else think it’s perfectly all right to steal books?

I write you from under the bed where that catullus drove me. i mean it PASSETH understanding.

Up till now, the only Richard Burton I ever heard of is a handsome young actor I’ve seen in a couple of British movies and I wish I’d kept it that way. This one got knighted for turning Catullus—caTULLus—into Victorian hearts-and-flowers.

And poor little Mr. smithers must have been afraid his mother was going to read it, he like to KILL himself cleaning it all up.

I go through life watching the english language being raped before my face. like miniver cheevy, I was born too late. and like miniver cheevy I cough and call it fate and go on drinking.

I am starting with a script about New York under seven years of British Occupation and i MARVEL at how i rise above it to address you in friendly and forgiving fashion, your behavior over here from 1776 to 1783 was simply FILTHY.

When, as a little boy, William Blake saw the prophet Ezekiel under a tree amid a summer field, he was soundly trounced by his mother.

I will read the three standard passages from Sermon XV aloud,” you have to read Donne aloud, it’s like a Bach fugue.

i am going to bed. i will have hideous nightmares involving huge monsters in academic robes carrying long bloody butcher knives labelled Excerpt, Selection, Passage and Abridged.

Thought of you last night, my editor from Harper’s was here for dinner, we were going over this story-of-my-life and we came to the story of how I dramatized Landor’s “Aesop and Rhodope” for the “Hallmark Hall of Fame.” Did I ever tell you that one? Sarah Churchill starred as Landor’s dewy-eyed Rhodope. The show was aired on a Sunday afternoon. Two hours before it went on the air, I opened the New York Times Sunday book review section and there on page 3 was a review of a book called A House Is Not a Home by Polly Adler, all about whorehouses, and under the title was the photo of a sculptured head of a Greek girl with a caption reading: “Rhodope, the most famous prostitute in Greece.” Landor had neglected to mention this. Any scholar would have known Landor’s Rhodope was the Rhodopis who took Sappho’s brother for every dime he had but I’m not a scholar, I memorized Greek endings one stoic winter but they didn’t stay with me.

Wasn’t anything else that intrigued me much, it’s just stories, I don’t like stories. Now if Geoffrey had kept a diary and told me what it was like to be a little clerk in the palace of richard III—THAT I’d learn Olde English for. I just threw out a book somebody gave me, it was some slob’s version of what it was like to live in the time of Oliver Cromwell—only the slob didn’t live in the time of Oliver Cromwell so how the hell does he know what it was like? Anybody wants to know what it was like to live in the time of Oliver Cromwell can flop on the sofa with Milton on his pro side and Walton on his con, and they’ll not only tell him what it was like, they’ll take him there.

“The reader will not credit that such things could be,” Walton says somewhere or other, “but I was there and I saw it.”

that’s for me, I’m a great lover of I-was-there books.

We had a very pleasant summer with more than the usual number of tourists, including hordes of young people making the pilgrimage to Carnaby Street. We watch it all from a safe distance, though I must say I rather like the Beatles. If the fans just wouldn’t scream so.

I introduced a young friend of mine to Pride & Prejudice one rainy Sunday and she has gone out of her mind for Jane Austen.

I hope you and Brian have a ball in London. He said to me on the phone: “Would you go with us if you had the fare?” and I nearly wept.

But I don’t know, maybe it’s just as well I never got there. I dreamed about it for so many years. I used to go to English movies just to look at the streets. I remember years ago a guy I knew told me that people going to England find exactly what they go looking for. I said I’d go looking for the England of English literature, and he nodded and said: “It’s there.”

Maybe it is, and maybe it isn’t. Looking around the rug one thing’s for sure: it’s here.

We all lead busy lives—perhaps it’s better so.

If you happen to pass by 84, Charing Cross Road, kiss it for me. I owe it so much.

[blackkudos]

Wilson Pickett

Wilson Pickett (March 18, 1941 – January 19, 2006) was an American R&B, soul and rock and roll singer and songwriter.

A major figure in the development of American soul music, Pickett recorded over 50 songs which made the US R&B charts, many of which crossed over to the Billboard Hot 100. Among his best-known hits are "In the Midnight Hour" (which he co-wrote), "Land of 1,000 Dances", "Mustang Sally", and "Funky Broadway".

Pickett was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991, in recognition of his impact on songwriting and recording.

Early life

Pickett was born March 18, 1941 in Prattville, Alabama, and sang in Baptist church choirs. He was the fourth of 11 children and called his mother "the baddest woman in my book," telling historian Gerri Hirshey: "I get scared of her now. She used to hit me with anything, skillets, stove wood — (one time I ran away) and cried for a week. Stayed in the woods, me and my little dog." Pickett eventually left to live with his father in Detroit in 1955.

Early musical career (1955–1964)

Pickett's forceful, passionate style of singing was developed in the church and on the streets of Detroit, under the influence of recording stars such as Little Richard, whom he referred to as "the architect of rock and roll.

In 1955, Pickett joined the Violinaires, a gospel group. The group accompanied the Soul Stirrers, the Swan Silverones, and the Davis Sisters on church tours across the country. After singing for four years in the popular gospel-harmony group, Pickett, lured by the success of gospel singers who had moved to the lucrative secular music market, joined the Falcons in 1959.

By 1959, Pickett recorded the song "Let Me Be Your Boy" with Florence Ballard and the Primettes as background singers. The song is the B-side of his 1963 single "My Heart Belongs to You".

The Falcons were an early vocal group bringing gospel into a popular context, thus paving the way for soul music. The group featured notable members who became major solo artists; when Pickett joined the group, Eddie Floyd and Sir Mack Rice were members. Pickett's biggest success with the Falcons was "I Found a Love", co-written by Pickett and featuring his lead vocals. While only a minor hit for the Falcons, it paved the way for Pickett to embark on a solo career. Pickett later had a solo hit with a re-recorded two-part version of the song, included on his 1967 album The Sound of Wilson Pickett.

Soon after recording "I Found a Love", Pickett cut his first solo recordings, including "I'm Gonna Cry", in collaboration with Don Covay. Pickett also recorded a demo for a song he co-wrote, "If You Need Me", a slow-burning soul ballad featuring a spoken sermon. Pickett sent the demo to Jerry Wexler, a producer at Atlantic Records. Wexler gave it to the label's recording artist Solomon Burke, Atlantic's biggest star at the time. Burke admired Pickett's performance of the song, but his own recording of "If You Need Me" became one of his biggest hits (#2 R&B, #37 pop) and is considered a soul standard. Pickett was crushed when he discovered that Atlantic had given away his song. When Pickett—with a demo tape under his arm—returned to Wexler's studio, Wexler asked whether he was angry about this loss, but denied it saying "It's over". "First time I ever cried in my life". Pickett's version was released on Double L Records and was a moderate hit, peaking at #30 R&B and #64 pop.

Pickett's first significant success as a solo artist came with "It's Too Late," an original composition (not to be confused with the Chuck Willis standard of the same name). Entering the charts on July 27, 1963, it peaked at #7 on the R&B chart (#49 pop); the same title was used for Pickett's debut album, released in the same year. Compiling several of Pickett's single releases for Double L, It's Too Late showcased a raw soulful sound that foreshadowed the singer's performances throughout the coming decade. The single's success persuaded Wexler and Atlantic to buy Pickett's recording contract from Double L in 1964.

Rise to stardom: "In the Midnight Hour" (1965)

Pickett's Atlantic career began with the self-produced single, "I'm Gonna Cry". Looking to boost Pickett's chart chances, Atlantic paired him with record producer Bert Berns and established songwriters Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil. With this team, Pickett recorded "Come Home Baby," a duet with singer Tami Lynn, but this single failed to chart.

Pickett's breakthrough came at Stax Records' studio in Memphis, Tennessee, where he recorded his third Atlantic single, "In the Midnight Hour" (1965). This song was Pickett's first big hit, peaking at #1 R&B, #21 pop (US), and #12 (UK). It sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc.

The genesis of "In the Midnight Hour" was a recording session on May 12, 1965, at which Wexler worked out a powerful rhythm track with studio musicians Steve Cropper and Al Jackson of the Stax Records house band, including bassist Donald "Duck" Dunn. (Stax keyboard player Booker T. Jones, who usually played with Dunn, Cropper and Jackson as Booker T. & the M.G.'s, did not play on the studio sessions with Pickett.) Wexler said to Cropper and Jackson, "Why don't you pick up on this thing here?" He performed a dance step. Cropper explained in an interview that Wexler told them that "this was the way the kids were dancing; they were putting the accent on two. Basically, we'd been one-beat-accenters with an afterbeat; it was like 'boom dah,' but here was a thing that went 'um-chaw,' just the reverse as far as the accent goes."

Stax/Fame years (1965–1967)

Pickett recorded three sessions at Stax in May and October 1965. He was joined by keyboardist Isaac Hayes for the October sessions. In addition to "In the Midnight Hour," Pickett's 1965 recordings included the singles "Don't Fight It," (#4 R&B, #53 pop) "634-5789 (Soulsville, U.S.A,)" (#1 R&B, #13 pop) and "Ninety-Nine and a Half (Won't Do)" (#13 R&B, #53 pop). All but "634-5789" were original compositions which Pickett co-wrote with Eddie Floyd or Steve Cropper or both; "634-5789" was credited to Cropper and Floyd alone.

For his next sessions, Pickett did not return to Stax, as the label's owner, Jim Stewart, had decided in December 1965 to ban outside productions. Wexler took Pickett to Fame Studios, a studio also with a close association with Atlantic Records, located in a converted tobacco warehouse in nearby Muscle Shoals, Alabama. Pickett recorded some of his biggest hits there, including the highest-charting version of "Land of 1,000 Dances", which was his third R&B #1 and his biggest pop hit, peaking at #6. It was a million-selling disc.

Other big hits from this era in Pickett's career included two covers: Mack Rice's "Mustang Sally", (#6 R&B, #23 pop), and Dyke & the Blazers' "Funky Broadway", (R&B #1, #8 pop). Both tracks were million sellers. The band heard on most of Pickett's Fame recordings included keyboardist Spooner Oldham, guitarist Jimmy Johnson, drummer Roger Hawkins, and bassist Tommy Cogbill.

Later Atlantic years (1967–1972)

Near the end of 1967, Pickett began recording at American Studios in Memphis with producers Tom Dowd and Tommy Cogbill, and began recording songs by Bobby Womack. The songs "I'm in Love," "Jealous Love," "I've Come a Long Way," "I'm a Midnight Mover," (co-written by Pickett and Womack), and "I Found a True Love" were Womack-penned hits for Pickett in 1967 and 1968. Pickett recorded works by other songwriters in this period; Rodger Collins' "She's Lookin' Good" and a cover of the traditional blues standard "Stagger Lee" were Top 40 hits Pickett recorded at American. Womack was the guitarist on all recordings.

Pickett returned to Fame Studios in late 1968 and early 1969, where he worked with a band that featured guitarist Duane Allman, Hawkins, and bassist Jerry Jemmott. A #16 pop hit cover of the The Beatles' "Hey Jude" came out of the Fame sessions, as well as the minor hits "Mini-Skirt Minnie" and "Hey Joe".

Late 1969 found Pickett at Criteria Studios in Miami. Hit covers of the Supremes' "You Keep Me Hangin' On" (#16 R&B, #92 pop) and The Archies' "Sugar Sugar" (#4 R&B, #25 pop), and the Pickett original "She Said Yes" (#20 R&B, #68 pop) came from these sessions.

Pickett then teamed up with established Philadelphia-based hitmakers Gamble and Huff for the 1970 album Wilson Pickett in Philadelphia, which featured his next two hit singles, "Engine No. 9" and "Don't Let the Green Grass Fool You", the latter selling one million copies.

Following these two hits, Pickett returned to Muscle Shoals and the band featuring David Hood, Hawkins and Tippy Armstrong. This lineup recorded Pickett's fifth and last R&B #1 hit, "Don't Knock My Love, Pt. 1". It was another Pickett recording that rang up sales in excess of a million copies. Two further hits followed in 1971: "Call My Name, I'll Be There" (#10 R&B, #52 pop) and "Fire and Water" (#2 R&B, #24 pop), a cover of a song by Free.

Pickett recorded several tracks in 1972 for a planned new album on Atlantic, but after the single "Funk Factory" reached #11 R&B and #58 pop in June 1972, he left Atlantic for RCA Records. His final Atlantic single, a cover of Randy Newman's "Mama Told Me Not to Come," was culled from Pickett's 1971 album Don't Knock My Love.

In 2010, Rhino Handmade released a comprehensive compilation of these years titled Funky Midnight Mover – The Studio Recordings (1962–1978). The compilation included all recordings originally issued during Pickett's Atlantic years along with previously unreleased recordings. This collection was sold online only by Rhino.com.

Post-Atlantic recording career

Pickett continued to record with success on the R&B charts for RCA in 1973 and 1974, scoring four top 30 R&B hits with "Mr. Magic Man", "Take a Closer Look at the Woman You're With", "International Playboy" (a re-recording of a song he had previously recorded for Atlantic), and "Soft Soul Boogie Woogie". However, he was failing to cross over to the pop charts with regularity, as none of these songs reached higher than #90 on the Hot 100. In 1975, with Pickett's once-prominent chart career on the wane, RCA dropped Pickett from the label. After being dropped, he formed the short-lived Wicked label, where he released one LP, Chocolate Mountain. In 1978, he made a disco album with Big Tree Records titled Funky Situation, which is a coincidence as, at that point, Big Tree was distributed by his former label, Atlantic. The following year, he released an album on EMI titled I Want You.

Pickett continued to record sporadically with several labels over the following decades (including Motown), occasionally making the lower to mid-range of the R&B charts, but he had no pop hit after 1974. His last record was issued in 1999, although he remained fairly active on the touring front until falling ill in 2004.

Pickett appeared in the 1998 film Blues Brothers 2000, in which he performed "634–5789" with Eddie Floyd and Jonny Lang. He was previously mentioned in the 1980 film Blues Brothers, which features several members of Pickett's backing band, as well as a performance of "Everybody Needs Somebody to Love."

Personal life and honors

Pickett's personal life was troubled. In 1991, he was arrested for allegedly yelling death threats while driving a car over the front lawn of Donald Aronson, the mayor of Englewood, New Jersey. Pickett agreed to perform a benefit concert in exchange for having the charges dropped. The following year, he was charged with assaulting his girlfriend.

In 1993, Pickett struck an 86-year-old pedestrian, Pepe Ruiz, with his car in Englewood. Ruiz, who had helped organize the New York animation union, died later that year. Pickett pleaded guilty to drunken driving charges and received a reduced sentence of one year in jail and five years probation.

Throughout the 1990s, despite his personal troubles, Pickett was repeatedly honored for his contributions to music. In addition to being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991, his music was prominently featured in the film The Commitments, with Pickett as an off-screen character. In 1993, he was honored with a Pioneer Award by the Rhythm and Blues Foundation.

Pickett was a popular composer, writing songs that were recorded by many artists, including Led Zeppelin, Van Halen, the Rolling Stones, Aerosmith, the Grateful Dead, Booker T. & the MGs, Genesis, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Hootie & the Blowfish, Echo & the Bunnymen, Roxy Music, Bruce Springsteen, Los Lobos, the Jam and Ani DiFranco, among others.

Several years after his release from jail, Pickett returned to the studio and received a Grammy Award nomination for the 1999 album It's Harder Now. The comeback resulted in his being honored as Soul/Blues Male Artist of the Year by the Blues Foundation in Memphis. It's Harder Now was voted 'Comeback Blues Album of the Year' and 'Soul/Blues Album of the Year.'

He co-starred in the 2002 documentary Only the Strong Survive, directed by D. A. Pennebaker, a selection of both the 2002 Cannes and Sundance Film Festivals. In 2003, Pickett was a judge for the second annual Independent Music Awards to support independent artists' careers.

Pickett spent the twilight of his career playing dozens of concert dates every year until 2004, when he began suffering from health problems. While in the hospital, he returned to his spiritual roots and told his sister that he wanted to record a gospel album, but he never recovered.

Pickett was the father of six children.

On September 10, 2014, TVOne's Unsung aired a documentary on him.

Death

Pickett died from a heart attack on January 19, 2006, in Reston, Virginia. He was 64. He was laid to rest in a mausoleum at Evergreen Cemetery in Louisville, Kentucky. Pickett spent many years in Louisville after his mother moved there from Alabama. The eulogy was delivered by Pastor Steve Owens of Decatur, Georgia. Little Richard, a long-time friend of Pickett's, spoke about him and preached a message at the funeral. Pickett was remembered on March 20, 2006, at New York's B.B. King Blues Club with performances by the Commitments, Ben E. King, his long-term backing band the Midnight Movers, soul singer Bruce "Big Daddy" Wayne, and Southside Johnny in front of an audience that included members of his family, including two brothers.

Discography

SinglesAlbums

It's Too Late (1963, Double L)

In the Midnight Hour (1965, Atlantic)

The Exciting Wilson Pickett (1966, Atlantic) US: #21

The Best of Wilson Pickett (1967, Atlantic) US: #35

The Wicked Pickett (1967, Atlantic) US: #42

The Sound of Wilson Pickett (1967, Atlantic) US: #54

I'm in Love (1967, Atlantic) US: #70

The Midnight Mover (1968, Atlantic) US: #91

Hey Jude (1969, Atlantic) US: #97

Right On (1970, Atlantic)

Wilson Pickett in Philadelphia (1970, Atlantic) US: #64

The Best of Wilson Pickett, Vol. II (1971, Atlantic) US: #73

Don't Knock My Love (1972, Atlantic) US: #132

Mr. Magic Man (1973, RCA) US: #187

Wilson Pickett's Greatest Hits (1973) US: #178

Miz Lena's Boy (1973, RCA) US: #212

Pickett in the Pocket (1974, RCA)

Live in Japan (1974, RCA)

Join Me and Let's Be Free (1975, RCA)

Chocolate Mountain (1976, Wicked)

Funky Situation (1978, Big Tree)

I Want You (1979, EMI) US: #205

Right Track (1981, EMI)

American Soul Man (1987, Motown)

Wilson Pickett's Greatest Hits (1987, Atlantic)

A Man and a Half: The Best of Wilson Pickett (1992, Rhino/Atlantic)

It's Harder Now (1999, Bullseye Blues)

Live and Burnin' – Stockholm '69 (2009, Soulsville)

Live in Germany 1968 (2009, Crypt Records 2009)

Funky Midnight Mover: The Atlantic Studio Recordings (1962–1978) (2010, Rhino)

Wikipedia

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Rick Hall, 'Father of Muscle Shoals Music,' Dead at 85

Legendary record producer and Fame studio owner Rick Hall, the man regarded as the "Father of Muscle Shoals Music," died early Tuesday morning, according to the Alabama Music Hall of Fame. Reportedly in declining health in recent months, Hall was 85. 

Hall's Grammy-winning production touched nearly every genre of popular music from country to R&B, and his Fame Studio and publishing company were a breeding ground for future legends in the worlds of songwriting and session work, as well as a recording home to some of the greatest musicians and recording artists of all time, including Aretha Franklin, Etta James, Wilson Pickett and many more. To date, the studio and its publishing company have been responsible for an estimated 350 million record sales, with songs by everyone from the Beatles to GeorgeStrait.

Raised by his father after his mother abandoned Hall and his younger sister, Hall played several instruments including guitar, fiddle and mandolin, and performed in a number of musical groups. After helping to license the Percy Sledge tune "When a Man Loves a Woman" in 1966, Hall co-founded Fame Publishing in 1959 with Tom Stafford and future Tammy Wynette and George Jones producer-songwriter Billy Sherrill. The company scored early cuts with tunes by Brenda Lee, Roy Orbison and pop star Tommy Roe, and Hall soon took sole ownership of Fame, which was an acronym for Florence Alabama Music Enterprises. In 1961, he produced the first gold record in Muscle Shoals history with Arthur Alexander's "You Better Move On," later cut by the Rolling Stones and an influence on the early work of the Beatles. "We were trying to get that bass sound Arthur Alexander was getting in Muscle Shoals, we love his records," John Lennon would say, according to the official Fame website. The studio's first rhythm section, in fact, included bass player Norbert Putnam, an Alabama native who would go on to become one of Nashville's most respected producers in his own right.

Muscle Shoals' "Swampers," the studio's second house rhythm section who were immortalized in Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Sweet Home Alabama," would leave Fame to form their own studio in 1969, but the ensuing decade would see Hall inking a deal with Capitol Records to distribute Fame Records, as well as working with producer Mike Curb, who brought future teen idols the Osmonds and their teenaged sister, Marie, to the studio to record. Others who scored major hits throughout the decade included country-pop crossover artist Mac Davis and songwriter Paul Anka. Terri Gibbs, the CMA's first-ever Horizon Award (now Best New Artist) winner, recorded at Fame and, in 1981, the publishing company scored a major hit with Ronnie Milsap's pop-country smash "(There's) No Getting' Over Me." 

Earl Thomas Conley, T. Graham Brown, Ricky Van Shelton and Alabama all scored hits with songs generated at Fame Publishing, and Hall would produce Larry Gatlin and the Gatlin Brothers' Top 10 Houston to Denver LP in 1984. Following several years without a hit, guitar icon Jerry Reed would return to the top of the country charts with "She Got the Goldmine (I Got the Shaft)" and "The Bird," both cut at Fame. In 1987, Hall was responsible for signing a local bar band playing just down the street from Fame –  Shenandoah. Later Fame tunes that became huge hits included "I Swear," a country hit for John Michael Montgomery that was also a pop smash for All-4-One in 1994. Tim McGraw's "I Like It, I Love It" also originated at Fame, co-penned by Mark Hall. The Dixie Chicks, GeorgeStrait, Martina McBride, Kenny Chesney and many others logged country hits with songs from the vast Fame catalog.

Other artists who more recently recorded at Fame include Gregg Allman, who cut his final album, Southern Blood, at the studio, Drive-By Truckers and Jason Isbell. In a Twitter post, Isbell wrote: "Rick Hall and his family gave me my first job in the music business, and nobody in the industry ever worked harder than Rick. Nobody. American music wouldn’t be the same without his contributions. His death is a huge loss to those of us who knew him and those who didn’t."

Rick Hall was inducted into the Alabama Music Hall of Fame in 1985. In 2013, he was featured in the acclaimed documentary Muscle Shoals, and in 2014 received a Grammy Trustees Award for his "significant contribution to the field of recording." In 2015, he published the memoir The Man from Muscle Shoals: My Journey from Shame to Fame. He is survived by his wife, Linda, and three sons, Rick Jr., Mark and Rodney. 

This content was originally published here.

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Charley Pride

Charley Frank Pride (born March 18, 1934) is an American country music singer, musician/guitarist, recording artist, performer and business owner. His greatest musical success came in the early- to mid-1970s, when he became the best-selling performer for RCA Records since Elvis Presley. During the peak years of his recording career (1966–87), he garnered 52 top-10 hits on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts, 29 of which made it to number one. He has appeared with country music star Brad Paisley and was featured in the 2016 CMA Awards.

Pride is one of the few African Americans to have had considerable success in the country music industry and one of only three (along with DeFord Bailey and Darius Rucker) to have been inducted as a member of the Grand Ole Opry. He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2000.

In 2010, Pride became a special investor and minority owner of the Texas Rangers Major League Baseball club.

Early life and career

Pride was born in Sledge, Mississippi, one of 11 children of poor sharecroppers. His father intended to name him Charl Frank Pride, but owing to a clerical error on his birth certificate, his legal name is Charley Frank Pride. Eight boys and three girls were in the family. He married Rozene Cohan in 1956.

When Pride was 14, his mother purchased him his first guitar and he taught himself to play. Though he also loved music, one of Pride's lifelong dreams was to become a professional baseball player. In 1952, he pitched for the Memphis Red Sox of the Negro American League. He pitched well, and in 1953, he signed a contract with the Boise Yankees, the Class C farm team of the New York Yankees. During that season, an injury caused him to lose the "mustard" on his fastball, and he was sent to the Yankees' Class D team in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. Later that season, while in the Negro leagues with the Louisville Clippers, another player (Jesse Mitchell) and he were traded to the Birmingham Black Barons for a team bus. "Jesse and I may have the distinction of being the only players in history to be traded for a used motor vehicle," Pride mused in his 1994 autobiography.

He pitched for several other minor league teams, his hopes of making it to the big leagues still alive, but the Army derailed this. After serving two years in the military, he tried to return to baseball. Though hindered by an injury to his throwing arm, Pride played three games for the Missoula Timberjacks of the Pioneer League (a farm club of the Cincinnati Reds) in 1960, and had tryouts with the California Angels (1961) and the New York Mets (1962) organizations, but was not picked up by either team.

When he was laid off by the Timberjacks, he moved to work construction in Helena, Montana, in 1960. He was recruited to pitch for the local semipro baseball team, the East Helena Smelterites, and the team manager helped him get a job at the local Asarco lead smelter. The lead smelter kept 18 jobs open specifically for baseball players, and arranged their shifts so they could play as a team. Pride batted a .444 his first year.

Pride's singing ability soon came to the attention of the team manager, who also paid him to sing for 15 minutes before each game, which increased attendance and earned Pride another $10 on top of the $10 he earned for each game. He also played gigs in the local area, both solo and with a band called the Night Hawks, and Asarco asked him to sing at company picnics. His job at the smelter was dangerous and difficult. He once broke his ankle, and routinely unloaded coal from railroad cars and shoveled it into a 2,400° F furnace, which he also had to keep clear of slag, a task which frequently gave him burns. In a 2014 interview, Pride explained, “I would work at the smelter, work the swing shift and then play music,” said Pride. “I’d work 11-7. Drive. Play Friday. Punch in. Drive. Polson. Philipsburg.”

Between his smelter job and his music, he made a good living in the Helena area. He moved his wife and son to join him and they lived in Helena until 1967, purchasing their first home there, and with their children Dion and Angela being born at the local hospital. The Pride family moved to Great Falls, Montana, in 1967, because Pride's music career was taking off and he required quicker access to an airport. The family ultimately left Montana and moved to Texas in 1969. In a 1967 interview with the Helena Independent Record, Rozene commented that the family encountered minor racism in Montana, citing an incident where they were refused service in a restaurant and another time when a realtor refused to show them a home, but she felt that the family endured less racism than she saw leveled against local Native American people, whose treatment she compared to that given to black people in the south. Pride has generally spoken with fondness of the near-decade he spent there. “Montana is a very conservative state...I stood out like a neon. But once they let you in, you become a Montanan. When the rumor was that I was leaving. They kept saying, ‘we will let you in, you can’t leave.’"

On June 5, 2008, Pride and his brother Mack "The Knife" Pride and 28 other living former Negro league players were "drafted" by each of the 30 Major League Baseball teams in a recognition of the on-field achievements and historical relevance of 30 mostly forgotten, Negro-league stars. Pride was picked by the Texas Rangers, with whom he has had a long affiliation, and the Colorado Rockies took his brother.

Rise to music fame

While he was active in baseball, Pride had been encouraged to join the music business by country stars such as Red Sovine and Red Foley, and was working towards this career. In 1958, in Memphis, Pride visited Sun Studios and recorded some songs. One song has survived on tape, and was released in the United Kingdom as part of a box set. The song is a slow stroll in walking tempo called "Walkin' (the Stroll)."

He played music at clubs in Montana solo and with a four-piece combo called the Night Hawks during the time he lived in Montana. His break came when Chet Atkins at RCA Victor heard a demonstration tape and got Pride a contract. In 1966, he released his first RCA Victor single, "The Snakes Crawl at Night" Nashville manager and agent Jack D. Johnson signed Pride. Atkins was the longtime producer at RCA Victor who had made stars out of country singers such as Jim Reeves, Skeeter Davis and others. Pride was signed to RCA Victor in 1965. "The Snakes Crawl at Night", did not chart. On the records of this song submitted to radio stations for airplay, the singer was listed as "Country Charley Pride". At this time, country music was a white medium. Jack made sure that no pictures of Charley were distributed for the first two years of his career, to avoid the effects of Jim Crowism. Pride disputes that the omission of a photo was deliberate; he stated that getting promoters to bring in a black country singer was a bigger problem: "people didn’t care if I was pink. RCA signed me... they knew I was colored...They decided to put the record out and let it speak for itself.” While living in Montana, he continued to sing at local clubs, and in Great Falls had an additional boost to his career when he befriended local businessman Louis Allen “Al” Donohue, who owned radio stations including KMON, the first stations to play Pride's records in Montana.

Soon after the release of "The Snakes Crawl at Night", Pride released another single called "Before I Met You", which also did not chart. Soon after, Pride's third single, "Just Between You and Me", was released. This song was the one that finally brought Pride success on the country charts. The song reached number nine on the US country chart.

Height of his career

The success of "Just Between You and Me" was enormous. He was nominated for a Grammy Award for the song the next year.

In 1967, he became the first black performer to appear at the Grand Ole Opry since harmonica player DeFord Bailey, who was a regular cast member of the Opry from 1925 through 1941, and made a final appearance in 1974. Pride also appeared in 1967 on ABC's The Lawrence Welk Show. In 1975, he was one of the stars of Bob Hope's Stars and Stripes Show emceed by John Davidson and filmed in front of a live audience in Oklahoma City to celebrate the United States Bicentennial.

Between 1969 and 1971, Pride had eight single records that simultaneously reached number one on the US Country Hit Parade and also charted on the Billboard Hot 100: "All I Have to Offer You (Is Me)", "(I'm So) Afraid of Losing You Again", "I Can't Believe That You've Stopped Loving Me", "I'd Rather Love You", "Is Anybody Goin' to San Antone", "Wonder Could I Live There Anymore", "I'm Just Me", and "Kiss an Angel Good Mornin'". The pop success of these songs reflected the country/pop crossover sound that was reaching country music in the 1960s and early 1970s, known as "Countrypolitan". In 1969, his compilation album, The Best of Charley Pride sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc. Ultimately, Elvis Presley was the only artist who sold more records for the RCA label than did Pride.

Pride sang the Paul Newman-directed film Sometimes a Great Notion's main soundtrack song "All His Children" in 1970. The film starred Newman and Henry Fonda and received two Oscar nominations in 1972, one being for the song that Pride sang.

"Kiss an Angel Good Mornin'"

In 1971, he released what would become his biggest hit, "Kiss an Angel Good Mornin'", a million-selling crossover single that helped Pride land the Country Music Association's prestigious Entertainer of the Year award, as well as Top Male Vocalist. He won CMA's Top Male Vocalist award again in 1972.

"Kiss an Angel Good Mornin'" became Pride's signature tune. Besides being a five-week country number one in late 1971 and early 1972, the song was also his only pop top-40 hit, hitting number 21, and reaching the top 10 of the Adult Contemporary charts, as well.

1970s and Northern Ireland

During the rest of the 1970s and into the 1980s, Pride continued to rack up country music hits. Other Pride standards then include "Mississippi Cotton Picking Delta Town", "Someone Loves You, Honey", "When I Stop Leavin' (I'll Be Gone)", "Burgers and Fries", "I Don't Think She's in Love Anymore", "Roll on Mississippi", "Never Been So Loved (In All My Life)", and "You're So Good When You're Bad". Like many other country performers, he has paid tribute to Hank Williams, with an album of songs that were all written by Hank entitled There's a Little Bit of Hank in Me, which included top-sellers of Williams' classics "Kaw-Liga", "Honky Tonk Blues", and "You Win Again". Pride has sold over 70 million records (singles, albums, and compilation included).

In 1975, Pride's agent sold a 40-date tour package to a United Kingdom booking agent, who onward sold four dates to Dublin-based Irish music promoter Jim Aitkien. At the time, The Troubles (Irish: Na Trioblóidí) the ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland were at their height, and most nonresident music and sports teams were not traveling to Northern Ireland through fear of becoming involved or injured. Aitken subsequently traveled to Pride's winter 1975/'76 concert in Ohio, and persuaded Pride to play one of the concerts at Belfast's Ritz Cinema. Pride played the concert in November 1976, with his album song "Crystal Chandeliers" subsequently being released as a single in the UK and Ireland. Pride subsequently became a hero to both sides of the conflict for breaking the effective touring concert ban, his song "Crystal Chandeliers" seen as a unity song, and he enabled Aitken to book further acts into Northern Ireland after his appearance.

1980s and beyond

Pride remained with RCA Records until 1986. At that point, he grew angry over the fact that RCA began to promote newer country artists and did not renew contracts with many older artists who had been with the label for years, such as Dolly Parton, John Denver, and Sylvia. He moved on to 16th Avenue Records, where Pride bounced back with the number-five hit, "Shouldn't it be Easier Than This". He had a few minor hits with 16th Avenue, as well.

Pride's lifelong passion for baseball continues; he has an annual tradition of joining the Texas Rangers for workouts during spring training. A big Rangers fan (Dallas has been his home for many years), Pride is often seen at their games.

On May 1, 1993, Pride became a member of the Grand Ole Opry.

In 2008, Pride received the Mississippi Arts Commission's lifetime achievement award during the organization's Governor's Awards for Excellence in the Arts.

He performed the National Anthem at Super Bowl VIII and again at game five of the 2010 World Series, accompanied both years by the Del Rio High School JROTC Color Guard. He performed the National Anthem before game six of the 1980 World Series, as well.

In 2016, Pride was selected as one of 30 artists to perform on Forever Country, a mash-up track of "Take Me Home, Country Roads", "On the Road Again", and "I Will Always Love You", which celebrates 50 years of the CMA Awards.

Personal life

Pride met his wife Rozene while he was playing baseball in the Southern states. They married in 1956 and have two sons, Kraig and Dion, and a daughter, Angela. They currently reside in Dallas, Texas. Kraig now goes by the name Carlton and has somewhat followed in his father's footsteps as a performing artist. His band, Carlton Pride and Zion started in San Marcos, Texas in 1995 and they perform a variety of reggae, funk, and soul music throughout the United States.

Dion Pride played lead guitar for his father, and entertained troops on USO tours in Panama, Honduras, Guantánamo Bay, and the island of Antigua. Dion Pride cowrote a song on Charley Pride's 2010 album Choices titled "I Miss My Home".

In 1994, Pride cowrote (with Jim Henderson) his autobiography, Pride: The Charley Pride Story. In this book, he reveals that he has struggled for years with manic depression.

Pride had a tumor removed from his right vocal cord in 1997 at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. He returned to the site in February 2009 for a routine checkup and surprised the Arkansas Senate with an unplanned performance of five songs. He was joined by Governor Mike Beebe during the show. Pride is an avid fan and part owner of the Texas Rangers. He sang the national anthem before game five of the 2010 World Series, played between the Texas Rangers and San Francisco Giants. Pride sang the national anthem before game two of the 2011 ALCS between the Detroit Tigers and the Rangers. He also sang the national anthem and "America the Beautiful" prior to Super Bowl VIII.

On January 20, 2014, he sang the national anthem and performed at halftime for the Memphis Grizzlies, which hosted their 12th Annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Celebration Day. He also was interviewed during a break in the game that was televised nationally on NBA TV and SportSouth.

Film

On April 29, 2011, a biographical film was announced to be in the works based on Pride's life and career. The film will be produced by and star actor and professional wrestler, Dwayne Johnson.

Discography

Awards

Academy of Country Music Awards

1994 Pioneer Award

American Music Awards

1973 Favorite Country Album – "A Sun Shiny Day"

1973 Favorite Country Male Artist

1976 Favorite Country Male Artist

Ameripolitan Music Awards

2016 Master Award

Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum

Inducted in 2000

Country Music Association

1971 Entertainer of the Year

1971 Male Vocalist of the Year

1972 Male Vocalist of the Year

Grammy Awards

1971 – "Did You Think To Pray"

1972 Best Country Vocal Performance, Male – "Charley Pride Sings Heart Songs"

1972 Best Gospel Performance (other than soul) – "Let Me Live Lyrics"

2017 Lifetime Achievement Award

Wikipedia

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Wilson Pickett

Wilson Pickett (March 18, 1941 – January 19, 2006) was an American R&B, soul and rock and roll singer and songwriter.

A major figure in the development of American soul music, Pickett recorded over 50 songs which made the US R&B charts, many of which crossed over to the Billboard Hot 100. Among his best-known hits are "In the Midnight Hour" (which he co-wrote), "Land of 1,000 Dances", "Mustang Sally", and "Funky Broadway".

Pickett was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991, in recognition of his impact on songwriting and recording.

Early life

Pickett was born March 18, 1941 in Prattville, Alabama, and sang in Baptist church choirs. He was the fourth of 11 children and called his mother "the baddest woman in my book," telling historian Gerri Hirshey: "I get scared of her now. She used to hit me with anything, skillets, stove wood — (one time I ran away) and cried for a week. Stayed in the woods, me and my little dog." Pickett eventually left to live with his father in Detroit in 1955.

Early musical career (1955–1964)

Pickett's forceful, passionate style of singing was developed in the church and on the streets of Detroit, under the influence of recording stars such as Little Richard, whom he referred to as "the architect of rock and roll.

In 1955, Pickett joined the Violinaires, a gospel group. The group accompanied the Soul Stirrers, the Swan Silverones, and the Davis Sisters on church tours across the country. After singing for four years in the popular gospel-harmony group, Pickett, lured by the success of gospel singers who had moved to the lucrative secular music market, joined the Falcons in 1959.

By 1959, Pickett recorded the song "Let Me Be Your Boy" with Florence Ballard and the Primettes as background singers. The song is the B-side of his 1963 single "My Heart Belongs to You".

The Falcons were an early vocal group bringing gospel into a popular context, thus paving the way for soul music. The group featured notable members who became major solo artists; when Pickett joined the group, Eddie Floyd and Sir Mack Rice were members. Pickett's biggest success with the Falcons was "I Found a Love", co-written by Pickett and featuring his lead vocals. While only a minor hit for the Falcons, it paved the way for Pickett to embark on a solo career. Pickett later had a solo hit with a re-recorded two-part version of the song, included on his 1967 album The Sound of Wilson Pickett.

Soon after recording "I Found a Love", Pickett cut his first solo recordings, including "I'm Gonna Cry", in collaboration with Don Covay. Pickett also recorded a demo for a song he co-wrote, "If You Need Me", a slow-burning soul ballad featuring a spoken sermon. Pickett sent the demo to Jerry Wexler, a producer at Atlantic Records. Wexler gave it to the label's recording artist Solomon Burke, Atlantic's biggest star at the time. Burke admired Pickett's performance of the song, but his own recording of "If You Need Me" became one of his biggest hits (#2 R&B, #37 pop) and is considered a soul standard. Pickett was crushed when he discovered that Atlantic had given away his song. When Pickett—with a demo tape under his arm—returned to Wexler's studio, Wexler asked whether he was angry about this loss, but denied it saying "It's over". "First time I ever cried in my life". Pickett's version was released on Double L Records and was a moderate hit, peaking at #30 R&B and #64 pop.

Pickett's first significant success as a solo artist came with "It's Too Late," an original composition (not to be confused with the Chuck Willis standard of the same name). Entering the charts on July 27, 1963, it peaked at #7 on the R&B chart (#49 pop); the same title was used for Pickett's debut album, released in the same year. Compiling several of Pickett's single releases for Double L, It's Too Late showcased a raw soulful sound that foreshadowed the singer's performances throughout the coming decade. The single's success persuaded Wexler and Atlantic to buy Pickett's recording contract from Double L in 1964.

Rise to stardom: "In the Midnight Hour" (1965)

Pickett's Atlantic career began with the self-produced single, "I'm Gonna Cry". Looking to boost Pickett's chart chances, Atlantic paired him with record producer Bert Berns and established songwriters Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil. With this team, Pickett recorded "Come Home Baby," a duet with singer Tami Lynn, but this single failed to chart.

Pickett's breakthrough came at Stax Records' studio in Memphis, Tennessee, where he recorded his third Atlantic single, "In the Midnight Hour" (1965). This song was Pickett's first big hit, peaking at #1 R&B, #21 pop (US), and #12 (UK). It sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc.

The genesis of "In the Midnight Hour" was a recording session on May 12, 1965, at which Wexler worked out a powerful rhythm track with studio musicians Steve Cropper and Al Jackson of the Stax Records house band, including bassist Donald "Duck" Dunn. (Stax keyboard player Booker T. Jones, who usually played with Dunn, Cropper and Jackson as Booker T. & the M.G.'s, did not play on the studio sessions with Pickett.) Wexler said to Cropper and Jackson, "Why don't you pick up on this thing here?" He performed a dance step. Cropper explained in an interview that Wexler told them that "this was the way the kids were dancing; they were putting the accent on two. Basically, we'd been one-beat-accenters with an afterbeat; it was like 'boom dah,' but here was a thing that went 'um-chaw,' just the reverse as far as the accent goes."

Stax/Fame years (1965–1967)

Pickett recorded three sessions at Stax in May and October 1965. He was joined by keyboardist Isaac Hayes for the October sessions. In addition to "In the Midnight Hour," Pickett's 1965 recordings included the singles "Don't Fight It," (#4 R&B, #53 pop) "634-5789 (Soulsville, U.S.A,)" (#1 R&B, #13 pop) and "Ninety-Nine and a Half (Won't Do)" (#13 R&B, #53 pop). All but "634-5789" were original compositions which Pickett co-wrote with Eddie Floyd or Steve Cropper or both; "634-5789" was credited to Cropper and Floyd alone.

For his next sessions, Pickett did not return to Stax, as the label's owner, Jim Stewart, had decided in December 1965 to ban outside productions. Wexler took Pickett to Fame Studios, a studio also with a close association with Atlantic Records, located in a converted tobacco warehouse in nearby Muscle Shoals, Alabama. Pickett recorded some of his biggest hits there, including the highest-charting version of "Land of 1,000 Dances", which was his third R&B #1 and his biggest pop hit, peaking at #6. It was a million-selling disc.

Other big hits from this era in Pickett's career included two covers: Mack Rice's "Mustang Sally", (#6 R&B, #23 pop), and Dyke & the Blazers' "Funky Broadway", (R&B #1, #8 pop). Both tracks were million sellers. The band heard on most of Pickett's Fame recordings included keyboardist Spooner Oldham, guitarist Jimmy Johnson, drummer Roger Hawkins, and bassist Tommy Cogbill.

Later Atlantic years (1967–1972)

Near the end of 1967, Pickett began recording at American Studios in Memphis with producers Tom Dowd and Tommy Cogbill, and began recording songs by Bobby Womack. The songs "I'm in Love," "Jealous Love," "I've Come a Long Way," "I'm a Midnight Mover," (co-written by Pickett and Womack), and "I Found a True Love" were Womack-penned hits for Pickett in 1967 and 1968. Pickett recorded works by other songwriters in this period; Rodger Collins' "She's Lookin' Good" and a cover of the traditional blues standard "Stagger Lee" were Top 40 hits Pickett recorded at American. Womack was the guitarist on all recordings.

Pickett returned to Fame Studios in late 1968 and early 1969, where he worked with a band that featured guitarist Duane Allman, Hawkins, and bassist Jerry Jemmott. A #16 pop hit cover of the The Beatles' "Hey Jude" came out of the Fame sessions, as well as the minor hits "Mini-Skirt Minnie" and "Hey Joe".

Late 1969 found Pickett at Criteria Studios in Miami. Hit covers of the Supremes' "You Keep Me Hangin' On" (#16 R&B, #92 pop) and The Archies' "Sugar Sugar" (#4 R&B, #25 pop), and the Pickett original "She Said Yes" (#20 R&B, #68 pop) came from these sessions.

Pickett then teamed up with established Philadelphia-based hitmakers Gamble and Huff for the 1970 album Wilson Pickett in Philadelphia, which featured his next two hit singles, "Engine No. 9" and "Don't Let the Green Grass Fool You", the latter selling one million copies.

Following these two hits, Pickett returned to Muscle Shoals and the band featuring David Hood, Hawkins and Tippy Armstrong. This lineup recorded Pickett's fifth and last R&B #1 hit, "Don't Knock My Love, Pt. 1". It was another Pickett recording that rang up sales in excess of a million copies. Two further hits followed in 1971: "Call My Name, I'll Be There" (#10 R&B, #52 pop) and "Fire and Water" (#2 R&B, #24 pop), a cover of a song by Free.

Pickett recorded several tracks in 1972 for a planned new album on Atlantic, but after the single "Funk Factory" reached #11 R&B and #58 pop in June 1972, he left Atlantic for RCA Records. His final Atlantic single, a cover of Randy Newman's "Mama Told Me Not to Come," was culled from Pickett's 1971 album Don't Knock My Love.

In 2010, Rhino Handmade released a comprehensive compilation of these years titled Funky Midnight Mover – The Studio Recordings (1962–1978). The compilation included all recordings originally issued during Pickett's Atlantic years along with previously unreleased recordings. This collection was sold online only by Rhino.com.

Post-Atlantic recording career

Pickett continued to record with success on the R&B charts for RCA in 1973 and 1974, scoring four top 30 R&B hits with "Mr. Magic Man", "Take a Closer Look at the Woman You're With", "International Playboy" (a re-recording of a song he had previously recorded for Atlantic), and "Soft Soul Boogie Woogie". However, he was failing to cross over to the pop charts with regularity, as none of these songs reached higher than #90 on the Hot 100. In 1975, with Pickett's once-prominent chart career on the wane, RCA dropped Pickett from the label. After being dropped, he formed the short-lived Wicked label, where he released one LP, Chocolate Mountain. In 1978, he made a disco album with Big Tree Records titled Funky Situation, which is a coincidence as, at that point, Big Tree was distributed by his former label, Atlantic. The following year, he released an album on EMI titled I Want You.

Pickett continued to record sporadically with several labels over the following decades (including Motown), occasionally making the lower to mid-range of the R&B charts, but he had no pop hit after 1974. His last record was issued in 1999, although he remained fairly active on the touring front until falling ill in 2004.

Pickett appeared in the 1998 film Blues Brothers 2000, in which he performed "634–5789" with Eddie Floyd and Jonny Lang. He was previously mentioned in the 1980 film Blues Brothers, which features several members of Pickett's backing band, as well as a performance of "Everybody Needs Somebody to Love."

Personal life and honors

Pickett's personal life was troubled. In 1991, he was arrested for allegedly yelling death threats while driving a car over the front lawn of Donald Aronson, the mayor of Englewood, New Jersey. Pickett agreed to perform a benefit concert in exchange for having the charges dropped. The following year, he was charged with assaulting his girlfriend.

In 1993, Pickett struck an 86-year-old pedestrian, Pepe Ruiz, with his car in Englewood. Ruiz, who had helped organize the New York animation union, died later that year. Pickett pleaded guilty to drunken driving charges and received a reduced sentence of one year in jail and five years probation.

Throughout the 1990s, despite his personal troubles, Pickett was repeatedly honored for his contributions to music. In addition to being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991, his music was prominently featured in the film The Commitments, with Pickett as an off-screen character. In 1993, he was honored with a Pioneer Award by the Rhythm and Blues Foundation.

Pickett was a popular composer, writing songs that were recorded by many artists, including Led Zeppelin, Van Halen, the Rolling Stones, Aerosmith, the Grateful Dead, Booker T. & the MGs, Genesis, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Hootie & the Blowfish, Echo & the Bunnymen, Roxy Music, Bruce Springsteen, Los Lobos, the Jam and Ani DiFranco, among others.

Several years after his release from jail, Pickett returned to the studio and received a Grammy Award nomination for the 1999 album It's Harder Now. The comeback resulted in his being honored as Soul/Blues Male Artist of the Year by the Blues Foundation in Memphis. It's Harder Now was voted 'Comeback Blues Album of the Year' and 'Soul/Blues Album of the Year.'

He co-starred in the 2002 documentary Only the Strong Survive, directed by D. A. Pennebaker, a selection of both the 2002 Cannes and Sundance Film Festivals. In 2003, Pickett was a judge for the second annual Independent Music Awards to support independent artists' careers.

Pickett spent the twilight of his career playing dozens of concert dates every year until 2004, when he began suffering from health problems. While in the hospital, he returned to his spiritual roots and told his sister that he wanted to record a gospel album, but he never recovered.

Pickett was the father of six children.

On September 10, 2014, TVOne's Unsung aired a documentary on him.

Death

Pickett died from a heart attack on January 19, 2006, in Reston, Virginia. He was 64. He was laid to rest in a mausoleum at Evergreen Cemetery in Louisville, Kentucky. Pickett spent many years in Louisville after his mother moved there from Alabama. The eulogy was delivered by Pastor Steve Owens of Decatur, Georgia. Little Richard, a long-time friend of Pickett's, spoke about him and preached a message at the funeral. Pickett was remembered on March 20, 2006, at New York's B.B. King Blues Club with performances by the Commitments, Ben E. King, his long-term backing band the Midnight Movers, soul singer Bruce "Big Daddy" Wayne, and Southside Johnny in front of an audience that included members of his family, including two brothers.

Discography

SinglesAlbums

It's Too Late (1963, Double L)

In the Midnight Hour (1965, Atlantic)

The Exciting Wilson Pickett (1966, Atlantic) US: #21

The Best of Wilson Pickett (1967, Atlantic) US: #35

The Wicked Pickett (1967, Atlantic) US: #42

The Sound of Wilson Pickett (1967, Atlantic) US: #54

I'm in Love (1967, Atlantic) US: #70

The Midnight Mover (1968, Atlantic) US: #91

Hey Jude (1969, Atlantic) US: #97

Right On (1970, Atlantic)

Wilson Pickett in Philadelphia (1970, Atlantic) US: #64

The Best of Wilson Pickett, Vol. II (1971, Atlantic) US: #73

Don't Knock My Love (1972, Atlantic) US: #132

Mr. Magic Man (1973, RCA) US: #187

Wilson Pickett's Greatest Hits (1973) US: #178

Miz Lena's Boy (1973, RCA) US: #212

Pickett in the Pocket (1974, RCA)

Live in Japan (1974, RCA)

Join Me and Let's Be Free (1975, RCA)

Chocolate Mountain (1976, Wicked)

Funky Situation (1978, Big Tree)

I Want You (1979, EMI) US: #205

Right Track (1981, EMI)

American Soul Man (1987, Motown)

Wilson Pickett's Greatest Hits (1987, Atlantic)

A Man and a Half: The Best of Wilson Pickett (1992, Rhino/Atlantic)

It's Harder Now (1999, Bullseye Blues)

Live and Burnin' – Stockholm '69 (2009, Soulsville)

Live in Germany 1968 (2009, Crypt Records 2009)

Funky Midnight Mover: The Atlantic Studio Recordings (1962–1978) (2010, Rhino)

Wikipedia