The bassline grabs you by the throat right from the first chords. The drums pack a left and right hook that leaves you punch drunk. The honky-tonk piano hits you in the plexus. And then Wilson Pickett’s voice kicks in with the KO. One of my absolute favourite R&B songs of all time, Mustang Sally has pride of place on my personal “Rock On” playlist. It has to be very reverentially played on every road trip. Without fail. Much to the amusement of other drivers, who can only see a bopping driver in a car going 70mph! I only heard this one time on Forces Request sometime in the late 70s and fell in love with this song – it’s from 1966, but it still slaps into oblivion hard stomping songs from three decades later!!

This song has been covered many many times but Wilson Pickett’s version is the definitive one for me – though The Commitments version from the 1991 movie version brought the song back into the mainstream and is probably the second-best version. The original song is by Mack Rice in ’65 (hence the line ‘I bought you a brand-new Mustang, a 1965’). Apparently Mack visited his friend Della Reese who was going to buy a Lincoln as a present for her band leader, but he wanted a Ford Mustang instead. Inspired, Rice wrote a song about someone (a woman called Sally) who is so besotted by her new Mustang, she is even refusing her boyfriend a ride in the car he bought for her! Originally called Mustang Mama it was renamed ‘Mustang Sally when Aretha Franklin heard the chorus which was ‘Ride Sally Ride’ and suggested the new name – and of course the Queen of Soul was right! Story is that Rice was performing this one evening and Pickett was also on the bill – he heard Rice’s version and decided he wanted to do his own version – which became a smash hit.

There are a gazillion versions of this song – some are actually very good and worth a listen too. I would recommend The Commitments version and the Jeff Beck & Buddy Guy version. Both are terrific!