John D Wyker

Sailcat, an early Southern Pop/Rock band, was the innovation of John Wyker and Court Pickett who formed the group in 1971 near Decatur, Alabama. Wyker was a veteran of the Muscle Shoals, Alabama rock music scene who had been in The Rubber Band with John Townsend (later of the Sanford-Townsend Band).

Court Pickett was the vocalist and bass player from Tuscaloosa, Alabama, who had just moved from Macon, Georgia where he had been playing and singing for Sundown, a band that also had Chuck Leavell (Rolling Stones, Allman Brothers), Charlie Hayward (Charlie Daniels Band), and Lou Mullenix (Alex Taylor Band, Dr. John). He’s also the brother of The Rubber Band’s, Ed Pickett. An early demo tape cut by the duo, which included the song “Motorcycle Mama”, was initially discarded by the band but after it was presented to Elektra Records led to a record contract and 1972 album release titled: Sailcat “Motorcycle Mama”. The resulting album was produced by Pete Carr, was a concept album with biker theme, about a motorcycle riding drifter in the Easy Rider vein who tires of life on the road and falls in love with a young woman. The cover art and drawings inside the gatefold cover were drawn by Jack Davis, featuring motorcycles, predominately the Harley-Davidson with a series of drawings for each song on the album. The concept album‘s songs loosely tell the story of a motorcycle vagrant, who apparently bums for a living, meeting a woman and settling down to start a family. However, he apparently keeps some of his selfish behaviors as the last drawing shows him reclining on his porch while his wife hangs the laundry and his child hoes the garden. In 1972, single “Motorcycle Mama” hit #12 on the Billboard magazine singles charts, and the album went to #38 and led them to appearances on American Bandstand and at Carnegie Hall. John D. Wyker and Sailcat perform Motorcycle Mama and Walking Together Backwards on their first televised appearance on August 26, 1972.^[1] Sailcat toured to promote the album, released one more non-LP single, “Baby Ruth”. Soon after releasing the album, Sailcat broke up. Sailcat leader Johnny Wyker, who had been a member of the Rubber Band who recorded the original version of “Let Love Come Between Us,” later a hit for James and Bobby Purify, went on to play with many of the great Southern rock musicians like Eddie Hinton, Dan Penn, Delany Bramlett, among others. He is currently working on a benefit project called The Mighty Field of Vision Anthem, a group dedicated to raising funds for musicians who have fallen on hard times. On the 1990 compilation album Rubáiyát, the song is covered by The Sugarcubes featuring Björk. The album was officially re-release on CD in 2004..

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