Eddie Floyd - Knock! Knock! Knock! On Wood

KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK! ON WOOD:

MY LIFE IN SOUL

Copyright 2020 by Eddie Floyd. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher, with the exception of brief passages embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Book production by Adept Content Solutions.

Cover photo via Getty Images.

All interior photos from the collection of the author, except for the following: Photo on page P4, top photo on page P5, photos on page P8, and top photo on page P10 via Getty Images. Top photo on page P9 courtesy of W. Robert Johnson.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available upon request.

ISBN: 9781947026421

Published by BMG

www.bmg.com

September 5, 2017: Im standing on the stage of the Royal Albert Hall in London, on my third day of rehearsals for a sold-out concert to take place this evening: Stax Records: 50 Years of Soul. Now, just to be clear off the bat, as we start this story, the famous Stax Records, which was my musical home for one of the best decades of my life, was dealing in soul long before 1967. Still, that was the year we Hit the Road Stax, as we called our first visit to Europe, and thats the anniversary that the British are celebrating tonight with a live BBC broadcast. Even half a century on, people in Britain, France, Scandinaviathey still talk about that Stax/Volt tour as a major musical event, one of those revue shows that helped shift the tastes of a generation.

Only five of us who were part of that tour have made it over for the anniversary: yours truly, William Bell, and Sam Moore as featured singers, and Steve Cropper and Booker T. Jones, the two surviving members of the Stax house band, Booker T. & The M.G.s, that was on stage for every minute of those package shows fifty years back. Just about everyone else has passed on, sadly. Al Jackson Jr., without whom my signature song would never have had its signature drum fill, was tragically murdered in 1975; his killers have never been brought to justice. His rhythm section partner in the M.G.s, bassist Donald Duck Dunn, died in his sleep in Tokyo, in March 2012, after the second of two double shows with the Blues Brothers Band. He spent the last night of his life on stage with me, Cropper, and other musical friends, playing the songs he so loved, many of which he had helped make famous in the first place.

Otis Redding, who closed out the Stax/Volt Revue in 1967, left us when his private plane crashed into Lake Morona, Wisconsin, at the end of that year, taking the lives of almost all the original Bar-Kays, his young backing band at the time, with him. I was here in England at the time, and when my own plane had problems getting me home in time for Otiss funeral, I wrote a song about it: Big Bird. A few weeks later, Otis had his biggest hit with one of the last songs he recorded, (Sittin On) the Dock of the Bay. Steve Cropper, who cowrote it like he did a lot of my hits too, will be playing it tonight alongside Booker, with our BBC host Jools Holland on piano and the great Sir Tom Jones on vocals. Tom and I have our own good history, but thats true of me and most people, as youll find out if you stick around.

Me, I turned eighty years old just six weeks ago. By rights, I should have slowed down by now. And by my own standards I have: Ive told everyone this is the last time theyll see me on stage in Europe. But if you are to know anything about Eddie Floyd, its that I dont let the grass grow under my feet. For my eightieth birthday, I hosted a massive family gathering at my ranch outside Montgomery, Alabama. Brought in my children, my brothers and sisters, nieces, nephews, friends, exes. They came from all over the country: Detroit, D.C., Memphis, Atlanta, Macon, Montgomery just some of the places Ive called home over the years. A few weeks before the event, I drove up to Memphis to record with my friend there, Lester Snell, and a group of soul-funk musicians Ive been using there for the last few years. Made a CD single called Its My Party and gave a copy to everyone who attended the celebration. When you reach my point of life, its really not about selling the music no more. Took care of that a long time ago.

The BBC wants me to do two songs tonight out of the several hundred Ive written, recorded, or performed over the decades. One of them is from my first working visit to Stax as a writer in 1965 when Cropper and I penned 6345789 (Soulsville, U.S.A.) for Wilson Pickett, who was coming in to cut a session for Atlantic Records the next day. Pickett and I already had history, and youll be hearing a lot more about him in the coming pages. Tonight, Ill be singing 6345789 with James Morrison, a young Brit whose inclusion at the Albert Hall, along with other newer artists, goes to show how soul music has carried over into future generations.

Shortly after 6345789, Cropper and I wrote my biggest hit, at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis. A massive thunderstorm kicked in that night, and Cropper and I took inspiration from it. We figured we had something good, and we thought it would be perfect for Otis Redding. But because he never showed up to claim it, Stax put it out on me. By the summer of 1966 our record was on top of the R&B charts, and all over pop radio in ever country, so it seemed. In the years since, its been recorded by hundreds of different artists, from David Bowie to Ella Fitzgerald, and in every genre you can think of: rock, country, jazz, Latin, instrumental. Disco, too: in 1979, Amii Stewart took it to the top of the charts all over the world.

So I wrote some of my biggest hits with Steve Cropper; I wrote some of my best with Booker T. Jones, from the psychedelic soul of Big Bird to the ballads Ive Never Found a Girl (To Love Me Like You Do) and California Girl. I know that the British especially worship Big Bird. Funny to think about it now, but at the time, it was ignored. It didnt fit in with what Stax was doing; the R&B disc jockeys didnt know how to respond. And they didnt really know me over in the rock field, so I didnt get play there either. But my mind covers the universe. Always has. It seems to have worked out just fine in the long run.

Ive always been a singer and performer, but I wrote hits for almost every other artist on Staxand beyondalong the way. For Sam & Dave, for Otis, and a couple for my friend William Bell too. And I wrote my first hits for the one surviving person from that original Stax/Volt tour who is missing tonight: Carla Thomas. If it wasnt for Miss Carla agreeing to record two songs I wrote for her in D.C., way back in 196465, and making hits out of them, I would probably never have got invited in at Stax in the first place. Everything would have been different. And dont think I dont know that.

But thats why I call Stax a family, because there was nobody jealous of nobody else. It was just like: If he can do it, I can do it, and thats what we did. And we all had the freedom to do what we wanted. Its the same with every artist Ive ever worked with: Im a fan. Ive always been that. Weve never had any problems with the music over the years, whatever anyone tries to tell you.

So now the cameras are in place, and the director is giving me a signal. A couple of minutes back, I was sitting quietly in the wings, talking with my son Alan, whos flown over from his home in Atlanta to join me during some time off from his regular job as tour manager for Beyonc. And we were both just chatting with Deanie Parker, who came to Stax in the early 1960s as an aspiring singer, was hired as its first secretary and publicist, and for the fifty-plus years ever since has been one of its main keepers of the faith. Deanie and I wrote some songs together, too; thats how things were back there. Anyway, there we were talking about the old times, when a young assistant from the BBC politely interrupted to remind meagainthat I was up next. You dont need to tell me to do nothing two or three times. Same with singing; almost all my hits have been captured on first or second take. I could never be a movie star, not with all the takes they have to go through. B-o-r-i-n-g.