In the Midnight Hour

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For the Warren G album, see In the Mid-Nite Hour

"In the Midnight Hour" is a song originally performed by Wilson Pickett in 1965 and released on the 1966 album The Exciting Wilson Pickett. It was composed by Pickett and Steve Cropper at the historic Lorraine Motel in Memphis where Martin Luther King, Jr. would later be murdered in April of 1968. Pickett's first hit on Atlantic Records, it reached #1 on the R&B charts and peaked at #20 on the pop charts.

The song has become a '60s soul standard, and placed at #134 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All-Time, Wilson Pickett's first of two entries on the list (the other being "Mustang Sally" at #434). It is also one of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll, Pickett's only such entry.

The track has been covered by many artists, including The Doors and Van Morrison's Them band at the Whiskey A Go Go (1966),^[1]the Grateful Dead (who often played it as a closer to their sets in 1966 and 1967), B.B. King, Chocolate Watchband, Razzy Bailey, Roxy Music, The Jam, Johnny Thunders, The Chambers Brothers, The Toasters, Buddy Guy, The Rock Bottom Remainders, Rock Nalle, The Commitments, Cross Country, and Guy Sebastian. On the night of Pickett's death, Billy Joel and his band performed a rendition of this song in his honor.

The song was covered in a smooth and slow version by the group Cross Country, comprised of the basic lineup of the Tokens, in 1973. The song was later covered by David Hernandez in the "top 24" performance of American Idol, season 7, in March of 2008.

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