The song was composed by Pickett and Steve Cropper at the historic Lorraine Motel in Memphis, later (April 1968) the site of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Pickett's first hit on Atlantic Records,[1] it reached number one on the R&B charts and peaked at number 21 on the pop charts.

[3] More likely, Cropper was remembering The Falcons' 1962 song "I Found a Love," on which Pickett sings lead and says "And sometimes I call in the midnight hour!"

[4] Besides Cropper, the band on "In the Midnight Hour" featured Stax session regulars Al Jackson (drums) and Donald "Duck" Dunn (bass).

"In the Midnight Hour" reached number one on the R&B chart in Billboard magazine dated August 7, 1965, and crossed over to the Top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100 reaching number 21: however according to Stax owner Jim Stewart the domestic sales total of the single in its original release was a moderate 300,000 units.

In 2017, the song was selected for preservation in the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".