In 1955, when he was twenty years old, Eddie Floyd co-founded the Detroit-based soul group The Falcons, who would score a major R&B hit four years later with “You’re So Fine.” Joe Stubbs was the lead singer of the group at that time but Floyd would eventually become the lead singer until a guy named Wilson Pickett—who would later record the seminal hits “In the Midnight Hour,” “Land of 1,000 Dances,” and “Mustang Sally”—became the lead singer. The Falcons broke up in ’63, a year removed from Pickett deciding to go solo, and Floyd would eventually go down to Memphis and join the roster at the burgeoning Stax Records label. Floyd was signed as a writer and producer with Stax working primarily with Carla Thomas but in 1966 he began working with Steve Cropper, the lead guitarist of Stax’s house band Booker T. & the M.G.’s and all-around music genius.[1]
Floyd and Cropper’s collaborations resulted in a hit—”634-5789 (Soulsville, USA)”—for former Falcon Wilson Pickett who was now on the Stax roster as well. The two also penned a song called “Knock on Wood” that was originally intended for Otis Redding, but Redding and Stax weren’t thrilled with the song because it sounded like a Pickett knock-off. Atlantic Records, who had first dibs on anything recorded at Stax at this time, however, thought the song would be a hit and they grabbed it. “Knock on Wood” became a hit and the defining song of Eddie Floyd’s catalog.
Floyd would go on to record a handful of Top 40 R&B hits—”I’ve Never Found a Girl (To Love Me Like You Do)” chief among them—and stay with Stax as a writer until its bankruptcy[2] but nothing really ever compared to “Knock on Wood,” a single that both buttressed Stax Records’ signature sound (horns, heavy drums, Cropper’s textural work with a guitar) as well as connecting to a casual music audience, albeit briefly, in ways that Pickett and Redding were not able to.
That last part is beyond pertinent as Floyd sat nicely in between his former band mate (Pickett) and the burgeoning giant whose crossover success resonated with white audiences in new ways (Redding, whose performance at Monterey Pop Festival in 1967 was his national coming-out party). Pickett could make you move and dance and was cut from the same entertainer’s cloth as James Brown and Little Richard and Jackie Wilson; high energy guys whose energy seemed to quintuple when performing live. Redding was one of those rare souls that could captivate you regardless of style or genre. If he sang fast, one moved; if he sang a soulful ballad, one melted. In between the two sat Floyd, who had the authoritative voice and the ability to make one dance but who performed at a slower pace—too quick for a soul ballad but slightly slower than much of the R&B of the day.
“Knock on Wood” is emblematic of the Stax sound and emblematic of the depth of talent that flowed through that Memphis studio so many decades ago. It is not merely a one-hit wonder. It is part of the mosaic that makes Stax Records an indelible part of modern American music and it plays a role in explaining why Memphis in the ’60s rivaled Detroit as far as creative output. That Eddie Floyd is indistinguishable from a ghost for some people is frustrating, but names, like years and dates, sometimes float into the aether. They become collectively erased until a different point of reference jogs our memory. Ask someone to explain 1870 in America and most will struggle, but if you say that Grant was President during that year it becomes a little easier to guess what was going on because it’s not too far removed from Lincoln and the Civil War and the beginning of Reconstruction. Mention Eddie Floyd to someone and you might be met with a shrug but play “Knock on Wood” and they will most likely know this song.
Eddie Floyd deserves a better more universal history; his name doesn’t deserve to be stuck in the aether. In the meantime, this song is a seminal recording in the Stax library which is something that artists from the same era with more recognizable names cannot lay claim to.
[See post to listen to audio]
[1] Cropper will never be revered like Page or Hendrix or Vaughan or Clapton amongst casual rock fans, but make no mistake: Steve Cropper is a goddamned national treasure. Just listen to “Time Is Tight.” He won’t wow you like the other Rock Gods; instead, he’ll just wow you with his technical mastery. Sometimes, greatness lies in how easy you make something look/sound/feel. Steve Cropper is the Renoir of guitarists, able to make the ordinary extraordinary upon closer inspection.
[2] The short story is that Stax never fully recovered from Otis Redding’s death.
