When “Knock On Wood” came out in 1966, it was a #1 R&B single, but it only did moderately well on the pop charts, peaking at #30. It’s a simple enough song, but it’s got a great hook: “It’s like thunder! Lightning! The way you love me is frightening!” Floyd recorded it himself, giving it a raw and sweaty vocal performance. Inspired by a story about Floyd hiding under the bed with his brothers during thunderstorms in Alabama as a kid, they came up with “Knock On Wood,” a song about being really into your relationship and worrying that you can lose it anytime. One night at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Floyd got together with Steve Cropper, the Stax house guitarist who co-wrote “ (Sittin’ On) The Dock Of The Bay” with Otis Redding, to work on some music. (Early in their career, the Ohio Players had been a backing band for the Falcons.) In the mid-’60s, after the Falcons broke up, Floyd went to work for Stax Records in Memphis, where he wrote songs for people like Pickett and Otis Redding. Pretty weird!Įddie Floyd, the man behind the original “Knock On Wood,” was an Alabama native who’d grown up partly in Detroit and who sang, early on, in the Falcons, a group that also included Wilson Pickett. So the disco cover of the soul song was the bigger hit, but it’s also the one that has mostly disappeared from history. But you never hear the Stewart version anymore, and the Floyd one still pops up on soundtracks from time to time. Then Amii Stewart came out with a stiff disco take on it that eclipsed the original in popularity completely. It was only a moderate hit, but it stuck around. In its original form, “Knock On Wood” had been a beautifully distilled piece of nasty Southern R&B. Eddie Floyd’s original version of “Knock On Wood” was only 13 years old when Stewart’s take on the song hit. That’s the case, anyway, with Amii Stewart’s version of “Knock On Wood,” probably one of the least-remembered big hits of the entire disco era. And by the time it reached its precarious popularity peak, disco was completely removed from soul - so far removed, in fact, that a disco version of an old soul song could almost sound like a joke. It caught on with white audiences in a way that soul - or non-Motown soul, anyway - only rarely did. But disco evolved into its own thing, especially as the synthetic Giorgio Moroder/Pete Bellotte Euro-disco sound came in. In the early days of disco, DJs in New York’s gay clubs would play fast, rhythmic soul songs, thus giving career boosts to people like ex-Temptation Eddie Kendricks. The relationship between soul music and disco is a fascinating one. W.In The Number Ones, I’m reviewing every single #1 single in the history of the Billboard Hot 100, starting with the chart’s beginning, in 1958, and working my way up into the present. Engineering (Utopia Studio) – Greg Walsh, John Mackswith.Engineering (Red Bus Studio) – Geoff Calver, Tony Swain.Engineering (Marquee Studio) – John Eden, Phil Harding, Steve Holroyd.Gerry Morris – bass guitar, backing vocals."Get Your Love Back" ( Kenneth Gamble, Leon Huff) – 3:56."Am I Losing You" (Barry Leng, Gerry Morris) – 3:20." Light My Fire" / "137 Disco Heaven" (The Doors) / (Leng, May) – 8:26." Knock on Wood" ( Eddie Floyd, Steve Cropper) – 6:11.The album was released as simply Amii Stewart in the UK.Īll songs written by Barry Leng and Simon May, except where noted This release paired this album with the follow-up release Paradise Bird and one bonus track "My Guy, My Girl", and includes all original artwork. The original Knock on Wood album in its entirety remains officially unreleased on compact disc, a semi-official release was issued in Russia in 1999 on AS4000. A double A-side single with remixed versions of "Knock on Wood" and "Light My Fire" reached #7 on the UK charts in 1985 followed by a re-issue of "You Really Touched My Heart" (UK #89). The album yielded two successful single releases, "Knock on Wood" (#1 US Pop, #6 US R&B, #5 US Club Play, #6 UK, #13 Germany) and "Light My Fire / 137 Disco Heaven" (#69 US Pop, #36 US R&B, #5 UK, #26 Germany). Knock on Wood is a studio album by Amii Stewart released in February 1979. "You Really Touched My Heart (UK Only)".
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