Wilson Pickett: It's Harder Now

From Ray Charles on, soul music's marriage of the religious transcendence of gospel with the secular (and frequently sexual) impulses of R&B has led to no small amount of tension. Using a religious form of music to espouse the pleasures of the flesh has resulted in a crisis of identity for such stars as Al Green (who famously gave up secular music, for a while at least, to become a minister) and Aretha Franklin, whose 1972 gospel masterpiece Amazing Grace displays just how much her music owed to her church background. Soul, properly speaking, is now about as viable a genre as skiffle, never receiving the sort of revival enjoyed by blues, swing, and ska (which may not be such a bad thing). Two recent albums by soul survivors, however, prove that the tension is still very much alive, even if neither record makes a consistently compelling case for the music itself. Beginning his career performing gospel before becoming a disciple of another gospel-turned-soul singer, Sam Cooke, Bobby Womack returns to the music of his childhood on Back To My Roots. Clearly inspired by Amazing Grace, Roots finds Womack mixing gospel standards ("Motherless Child," "What A Friend We Have In Jesus") with more contemporary gospel and gospel-oriented songs (Cooke's "Ease My Troubled Mind," Simon And Garfunkel's "Bridge Over Troubled Water"). Seemingly born to sing inspirational material, Womack remains in great voice. Sadly, his own sterile, synth-driven, dated-sounding production undermines Back To My Roots at every turn. Erstwhile Womack collaborator Wilson Pickett fares considerably better on the uneven but worthwhile It's Harder Now. The quintessence of soul as sinners' music, Pickett's first album in 12 years finds him in high, frequently randy spirits. With songs like "In The Midnight Hour" and "Don't Fight It," Pickett has never really tried to hide his sexual side, and Harder's song titles alone ("Taxi Love," "All About Sex," "What's Under That Dress") suggest that Pickett is happy with the freedom to be more explicit than on his classic '60s work. Those tracks, which largely take the form of blues jams, don't always find him at his best, but the album has a fair number of highlights, among them "Outskirts Of Town," the reflective "Soul Survivor" (co-written by Dan Penn), "Bad People" (co-written by minor soul sensation Don Covay), and "Better Him Than Me" (co-written by Fame Studios' Donnie Fritts). More soul and less blues would have benefited It's Harder Now, but it's great to have Pickett back and living up to the "Wicked" nickname. This time out, the sinner wins again.