It Was 50 Years Ago Today: “634-5789 (Soulsville, U.S.A.)” by Wilson Pickett
March 29, 1966
“634-5789 (Soulsville, U.S.A.)” by Wilson Pickett
#1 on the Billboard Hot Rhythm and Blues Singles chart, March 12 – April 29, 1966
Painted in bright blue letters on the outside of 2648 West Grand Boulevard in Detroit, Michigan are the words “Hitsville U.S.A.” This was Motown’s original base of operations from 1959 to 1972 — the label’s prime years, where it really did seem to be producing nothing but hits. Down south in Memphis, Tennessee, however, was another vital R&B center, one where the hits might not have flowed quite as freely, but which had a grittier, “realer” sound. Stax Records, and the South Memphis neighborhood surrounding its studios at 926 East McLemore Avenue, became known as “Soulsville, U.S.A,” a nickname that tweaked Motown’s self-billing while asserting its own soul bona fides.
Stax earned its first hit in 1960 with “Cause I Love You,” by father-daughter team Rufus and Carla Thomas. The single drew the attention of the other great R&B label of the era, Atlantic Records, which undertook national distribution of many of Stax’s records. Through the early ’60s, Stax’s deal with Atlantic helped make huge hits out of singles by Otis Redding, Booker T. & the M.G.’s, and the Mar-Keys. But in 1965, the relationship between the two labels advanced to the next level, with Atlantic sending their several of their artists to record at the Stax studios and capture some of the Memphis label’s distinctive, “organic” soul sound.
The most successful collaboration between Atlantic and Stax was with Wilson Pickett, the wild charmer of soul. Despite some backstage tensions between the Stax crew and the so-called “Wicked Pickett,” the records produced there are among the decade’s greatest, including “In the Midnight Hour,” “Ninety-Nine and a Half (Won’t Do),” and “634-5789 (Soulsville, U.S.A.).” When “In the Midnight Hour” was released in late 1965, it became Pickett’s first R&B chart-topper and Top 40 debut, establishing a template for the singer’s sound that endured even after he stopped recording at Stax. Follow-up “634-5789 (Soulsville, U.S.A.)” did even better, ruling the R&B charts for seven weeks and peaking at #13 on the Billboard Hot 100, his highest pop chart placement yet.
Like all of Pickett’s hits recorded at Stax, “634-5789” was co-written by Steve Cropper, guitarist for the label’s house band Booker T. & the M.G.’s. The song’s other writer, Eddie Floyd, had previously been in the R&B group the Falcons with Pickett; Floyd would have a hit on his own later in 1966 with “Knock on Wood,” which shares a similarly swaggering beat with “In the Midnight Hour.” But on “634-5789,” Floyd and Cropper seem to be aiming at something very different from the sound Stax had established previously for Pickett. In fact, its foursquare beat, poppy melody, and chirpy backing vocals (provided by Patti LaBelle & the Blue Belles) call to mind nothing less than Stax’s Detroit-based rivals. That “634-5789” shares five digits with Motown girl group the Marvelettes’ 1962 hit “Beechwood 4-5789,” and includes the winking subtitle “Soulsville, U.S.A,” seems to confirm that Cropper and Floyd were playfully referencing the soul-poppers up north.
Despite the record’s success, the session that produced “634-5789” turned out to be the singer’s last at Stax. The temperamental “Wicked Pickett” proved to be too difficult for the Memphis crew to handle, and Stax president Jim Stewart allegedly banned him from returning. Meanwhile, the relationship between Stax and Atlantic had begun to deteriorate, and Stewart was concerned about another label profiting off his studios’s sound. Instead, Atlantic began sending Pickett and its other artists (including Aretha Franklin) to FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, helping put another Southern soul center on the pop map. Pickett would cut such iconic hits at FAME as “Land of 1000 Dances,” “Mustang Sally,” and “Funky Broadway,” but it was his brief but fruitful stint recording at Soulsville, U.S.A. where he found his voice.
It Was 50 Years Ago Today examines a song, album, movie, or book that was #1 on the charts exactly half a century ago.
