(Actually, I’m not sure this even counts as a cover, but I don’t have a “Pay Homage to Me” category.)
“Ninety-Nine and a Half (Won’t Do)” peaked at #53 on the Pop Singles chart and #13 on the R&B Singles chart when Pickett released it on his 1966 album, The Exciting Wilson Pickett.
We know that Bruce has always been a Wilson Pickett fan, and he’s often quoted the title hook of one of Pickett’s greatest hits.
But when Bruce covered it in 1992… well, let’s just say calling it a cover is a stretch.
Bruce changed the melody and ditched all the lyrics except for the title hook, basically turning the soul hit into a comedic set piece that gave him a chance for some audience and band interaction.
It’s not the first time Bruce has dramatically altered a song when covering it, but it’s certainly one of the more extreme examples. Given Bruce’s encyclopedic musical knowledge, though, his adaptation of “Ninety-Nine and a Half (Won’t Do)” might have also been a sly wink at the fact that Pickett himself did the same thing.
Pickett took his inspiration from Dorothy Love Coates’ gospel hit, “Ninety-Nine and Half Won’t Do,” first recorded by Sister Rosetta Tharpe and her mother Katie Bell Nubin in 1949. Just like Bruce, Pickett kept just the title/refrain and changed everything else.
So there’s a nice bit of historical rhyming in the way Bruce chose to cover “Ninety-Nine and a Half (Won’t Do).”
It was never much more than a lark, though, destined for one-off status from the start.
Or two-off, I suppose, to be accurate. That clip above is the one most fans have heard, from Bruce’s Meadowlands show in the summer of 1992. Bruce covered it one additional time, though, just seven weeks earlier. That performance is harder to come by (and a lot harder to make out), but you can listen to it here.
Ninety-Nine and a Half (Won’t Do)
First performed: June 5, 1992 (Los Angeles, CA)
Last performed: July 25, 1992 (East Rutherford, NJ)
