Eddie Floyd

Eddie Floyd, a soul singer and songwriter, delivered one of the signature achievements of Memphis soul through his recording of “Knock on Wood,” a chart-topping R&B single whose raw energy embodied the Stax sound at its most unpolished. Born in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1935, he spent his formative years in Detroit, where his uncle Robert West operated several record labels, among them Lupine. In 1955 Floyd helped establish the Falcons, an influential early soul ensemble that achieved a major R&B success with “You’re So Fine” in 1959, featuring Joe Stubbs—later of the Contours and 100 Proof Aged in Soul—as lead vocalist. Following Stubbs’s exit, Floyd assumed the lead role for a short time before Wilson Pickett joined the lineup. Still on West’s Lupine imprint, the Falcons and Pickett produced their second enduring classic, the gospel-tinged ballad “I Found a Love,” in 1962. Pickett soon launched a solo career, and the Falcons disbanded in 1963.

Floyd issued several solo recordings for Lupine before relocating temporarily to Washington, D.C., to collaborate with his friend, the disc jockey Al Bell; together they launched the Safice label and production company, co-writing material and releasing Floyd’s own tracks. When Bell took a promotions-director position at Stax, Floyd moved to Memphis and joined the label’s staff as a songwriter and producer. He initially focused on sessions with Carla Thomas and William Bell, frequently partnering with house guitarist Steve Cropper. Early in 1966 their composition “634-5789 (Soulsville, USA)” reached number one on the R&B chart for Wilson Pickett; around the same period Floyd released his debut Stax single, “Things Get Better,” which did not chart. That summer he recorded “Knock on Wood,” another Cropper collaboration originally earmarked for Otis Redding. Stax executives were unenthusiastic because the song relied heavily on the chord progression of Wilson Pickett’s “In the Midnight Hour,” yet Atlantic Records recognized its potential and issued it nationally. Their judgment proved accurate: by year’s end “Knock on Wood” had become Stax’s third number-one R&B hit, even though it barely cracked the pop Top 30. Over the next four years Floyd followed this breakthrough with additional Top 40 R&B singles, among them “Raise Your Hand,” “Love Is a Doggone Good Thing,” “On a Saturday Night,” “I’ve Never Found a Girl (To Love Me Like You Do)” (his second-biggest success), and a version of Sam Cooke’s “Bring It on Home to Me.”

Despite declining sales, Floyd remained with Stax as both performer and writer until the label’s bankruptcy in 1975. He spent two years at the Southern soul and blues imprint Malaco, releasing the album Experience in 1977; although it found regional favor, the style had already lost mainstream traction. A short tenure at Mercury did not reposition him for the disco era, and after a collaboration with British mod-revival band Secret Affair he largely stepped back from recording. Floyd mounted a comeback on Ichiban with the 1988 album Flashback. The following year he performed at President Bush’s inaugural ball and joined the Blues Brothers Band on tour. In 1998 he appeared in the film Blues Brothers 2000 and joined Pickett and Jonny Lang for a rendition of “634-5789.” Countless artists have since interpreted “Knock on Wood,” most notably Amii Stewart, whose disco rendition topped the pop charts in 1979. While in his seventies Floyd recorded the reflective Eddie Loves You, revisiting earlier material; the album appeared in 2008 on a revived Stax Records, reuniting the artist with his most formative label.