Stax Records Week (pt 3)
This One's for the Groomsman:
"Stax Profiles" - Eddie Floyd
I'm almost ashamed to admit it, but here it is: I, like many music listeners, spent far too many years believing Eddie Floyd's classic "Knock on Wood" was recorded by Wilson Pickett. Now hold on for a second, before you accuse me of a lack in R&B credibility and storm away; the fact is, my embarrassingly long-lived mistake wasn't too far off the mark. Anchored by a hard-driving horn refrain and that chunky, funky Steve Cropper guitar, "Knock on Wood" is a dead ringer for the powerful, earthy brand of soul the Wicked Pickett made famous. And Floyd's vocals clearly hail from a similar school: strident, half-shouted, tuneful but without the subtle nuances of, say, Otis Redding, the Eddie Floyd of "Knock on Wood" represents Southern Soul at its raw-power peak. They say Stax president Jim Stewart even delayed the release of the single by a year because he felt it sounded too much like Pickett's "In the Midnight Hour." Combine that story with the persistent rumors that Floyd's biggest hit was originally written for Otis, and you've got a song which officially lives in history despite, not because of its singer. Never mind that a cursory glance at the rest of Floyd's career as singer and songwriter will reveal a surprisingly wide range of soul stylings beyond "Wood"; such is the man's nature - always a groomsman, never a groom.
Perhaps part of the reason for Floyd's consignment to the Stax/Volt sidelines has to do with his career's late bloom. Though he was musically active as early as 1955, when he co-founded R&B combo The Falcons in his then-hometown of Detroit, the veteran performer didn't really make his presence felt as a solo artist until 1966, with the release of (you guessed it) "Knock on Wood." Before then, he cut his teeth as a staff songwriter and producer for Stax Records, penning "Comfort Me" by Carla Thomas, among other hits. But the Stax to which Floyd arrived was a label at the absolute peak of its powers, with all of its biggest-name stars - the Otises, the Booker T's, the Sams and Daves - firmly ensconced. It would be difficult for anyone, even a singer as phenomenal as Eddie Floyd, to make a name for himself amongst such legendary artists. For that matter, the sheer breadth of material he recorded during his tenure at the label couldn't have helped, either. Artists like Pickett, and even the more well-rounded Redding, could be pegged down to a specific and identifiable style. But Floyd recorded a little bit of everything: gospel-infused shouters, Northern-style ballads, and even material which verged into the realms of funk and rock'n'roll.
Eddie Floyd's entry in the Stax Profiles series may not be a definitive compilation for the artist - that's not really the name of the game here - but compiler Dan "Elwood Blues" Aykroyd does an excellent job of capturing the man's range regardless. "Knock on Wood" is present and accounted for, of course; so is a lesser-known version of that pesky Pickett's "634-5789," which Floyd and Cropper happened to co-write. But in addition to the regulation Stax-sound chestnuts, there's also "California Girl," a syrupy, string-laden slice of pop bliss which is about as un-Memphis as the titular state itself. Such a drastic difference in style might be interpreted by some as a lack of personality on Floyd's part - but in reality, it's just proof that the man was an amazing craftsman, perhaps more so than he was an artist with shooting-star intensity. His ability to handle any variant of soul music, and do it just as well as he did his most famous material, is staggering: though it's a given that each listener will have favorites and least-favorites amidst this set, the difference in esteem from track to track has a lot more to do with individual taste than objective quality.
My favorite Eddie Floyd? Rock Eddie, hands down. The comp's opening track, "Big Bird" (famously inspired by an aborted flight to the funeral of Otis Redding), pushes Stax's house band to their absolute limits, with a heavy guitar and snare rapport in the verses that you could cut with a knife. And then there's "When the Sun Goes Down," Floyd's 1971 blues-rock tour de force, which unpacks Led Zeppelin's entire first-album trick bag - think "How Many More Times" - before putting Page and Plant to shame with a genuine dose of soul power. These tracks, to me, represent the essence of Eddie Floyd as an artist. More than any other musician on Stax, he stood at the crossroads of soul, rock and blues, straddling the three strains of black music like fault lines; to dig into his deeper cuts is to find some of the most thoroughly electrifying music in the Stax canon. And for a guy who, somewhere in the world, is probably still being mistaken for Wilson Pickett, that's not too bad at all.
In celebration of the recently-released Stax Profiles series, the Modern Pea Pod is hosting Stax Records Week. In the following days, we'll cover discs by Otis Redding, Booker T. & The M.G.'s, Rance Allen, Albert King, Johnnie Taylor, Little Milton, and the Staple Singers, all of them specially compiled by noted musical figures from Elvis Costello to Steve Cropper. Watch this page for updates!
Official Site
History of Rock: Eddie Floyd
Buy Stax Profiles: Eddie Floyd
on Amazon
See Also: knock on wood.
"Stax Profiles" - Eddie Floyd
I'm almost ashamed to admit it, but here it is: I, like many music listeners, spent far too many years believing Eddie Floyd's classic "Knock on Wood" was recorded by Wilson Pickett. Now hold on for a second, before you accuse me of a lack in R&B credibility and storm away; the fact is, my embarrassingly long-lived mistake wasn't too far off the mark. Anchored by a hard-driving horn refrain and that chunky, funky Steve Cropper guitar, "Knock on Wood" is a dead ringer for the powerful, earthy brand of soul the Wicked Pickett made famous. And Floyd's vocals clearly hail from a similar school: strident, half-shouted, tuneful but without the subtle nuances of, say, Otis Redding, the Eddie Floyd of "Knock on Wood" represents Southern Soul at its raw-power peak. They say Stax president Jim Stewart even delayed the release of the single by a year because he felt it sounded too much like Pickett's "In the Midnight Hour." Combine that story with the persistent rumors that Floyd's biggest hit was originally written for Otis, and you've got a song which officially lives in history despite, not because of its singer. Never mind that a cursory glance at the rest of Floyd's career as singer and songwriter will reveal a surprisingly wide range of soul stylings beyond "Wood"; such is the man's nature - always a groomsman, never a groom.Perhaps part of the reason for Floyd's consignment to the Stax/Volt sidelines has to do with his career's late bloom. Though he was musically active as early as 1955, when he co-founded R&B combo The Falcons in his then-hometown of Detroit, the veteran performer didn't really make his presence felt as a solo artist until 1966, with the release of (you guessed it) "Knock on Wood." Before then, he cut his teeth as a staff songwriter and producer for Stax Records, penning "Comfort Me" by Carla Thomas, among other hits. But the Stax to which Floyd arrived was a label at the absolute peak of its powers, with all of its biggest-name stars - the Otises, the Booker T's, the Sams and Daves - firmly ensconced. It would be difficult for anyone, even a singer as phenomenal as Eddie Floyd, to make a name for himself amongst such legendary artists. For that matter, the sheer breadth of material he recorded during his tenure at the label couldn't have helped, either. Artists like Pickett, and even the more well-rounded Redding, could be pegged down to a specific and identifiable style. But Floyd recorded a little bit of everything: gospel-infused shouters, Northern-style ballads, and even material which verged into the realms of funk and rock'n'roll.
Eddie Floyd's entry in the Stax Profiles series may not be a definitive compilation for the artist - that's not really the name of the game here - but compiler Dan "Elwood Blues" Aykroyd does an excellent job of capturing the man's range regardless. "Knock on Wood" is present and accounted for, of course; so is a lesser-known version of that pesky Pickett's "634-5789," which Floyd and Cropper happened to co-write. But in addition to the regulation Stax-sound chestnuts, there's also "California Girl," a syrupy, string-laden slice of pop bliss which is about as un-Memphis as the titular state itself. Such a drastic difference in style might be interpreted by some as a lack of personality on Floyd's part - but in reality, it's just proof that the man was an amazing craftsman, perhaps more so than he was an artist with shooting-star intensity. His ability to handle any variant of soul music, and do it just as well as he did his most famous material, is staggering: though it's a given that each listener will have favorites and least-favorites amidst this set, the difference in esteem from track to track has a lot more to do with individual taste than objective quality.My favorite Eddie Floyd? Rock Eddie, hands down. The comp's opening track, "Big Bird" (famously inspired by an aborted flight to the funeral of Otis Redding), pushes Stax's house band to their absolute limits, with a heavy guitar and snare rapport in the verses that you could cut with a knife. And then there's "When the Sun Goes Down," Floyd's 1971 blues-rock tour de force, which unpacks Led Zeppelin's entire first-album trick bag - think "How Many More Times" - before putting Page and Plant to shame with a genuine dose of soul power. These tracks, to me, represent the essence of Eddie Floyd as an artist. More than any other musician on Stax, he stood at the crossroads of soul, rock and blues, straddling the three strains of black music like fault lines; to dig into his deeper cuts is to find some of the most thoroughly electrifying music in the Stax canon. And for a guy who, somewhere in the world, is probably still being mistaken for Wilson Pickett, that's not too bad at all.
In celebration of the recently-released Stax Profiles series, the Modern Pea Pod is hosting Stax Records Week. In the following days, we'll cover discs by Otis Redding, Booker T. & The M.G.'s, Rance Allen, Albert King, Johnnie Taylor, Little Milton, and the Staple Singers, all of them specially compiled by noted musical figures from Elvis Costello to Steve Cropper. Watch this page for updates!
Official Site
History of Rock: Eddie Floyd
Buy Stax Profiles: Eddie Floyd
on AmazonSee Also: knock on wood.
<< Home