THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,601) Eddie Floyd — “I’ve Just Been Feeling Bad”
This ’67 B-side co-written with Steve Cropper is an expression of sincere regret over how a man has treated his love. It is sooooooooo good. “Ohhh My My MY!!!” (CherylJ7501, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWCGZF4QUrk) Indeed!
Steve Huey tells us about Eddie Floyd:
Soul singer/songwriter Eddie Floyd scored one of the defining hits of the Memphis soul sound with “Knock on Wood,” a number one R&B smash that typified the Stax house style at its grittiest. Floyd was born in Montgomery, AL . . . but grew up in Detroit, where his uncle Robert West owned a couple of record labels, including Lupine. In 1955, Floyd co-founded the seminal proto-soul group the Falcons, who eventually scored a major R&B hit with “You’re So Fine” in 1959 . . . . Floyd spent a brief period as the Falcon’s lead singer, until Wilson Pickett joined up. . . . Pickett subsequently went solo, and the Falcons broke up in 1963. Floyd recorded a few solo sides for Lupine, and moved to Washington, D.C., for a time to work with his DJ friend, Al Bell; the two founded a label and production company, Safice, co-writing songs and releasing Floyd’s recordings. When Bell accepted a job as promotions director at Stax, Floyd followed him to Memphis, where he signed on with Stax as a staff writer and producer. He worked chiefly with Carla Thomas [see #432, 1,372] and William Bell [see #443] at first, and often wrote in tandem with house guitarist Steve Cropper. In early 1966, their composition “634-5789 (Soulsville, USA)” became a number one R&B hit for Wilson Pickett; around the same time, Floyd released his first single for Stax, “Things Get Better,” which failed to chart. That summer, Floyd cut “Knock on Wood,” another song he’d written with Cropper; initially intended for Otis Redding, the tune wasn’t big with Stax management because it was strongly based on the chord changes of Wilson Pickett’s “In the Midnight Hour.” However, distributor Atlantic smelled a hit, and released the song nationally; their instincts proved correct, as “Knock on Wood” became Stax’s third number one R&B hit by the end of the year . . . . Floyd followed his instant soul classic with several more Top 40 R&B hits over the next four years . . . . In spite of diminishing commercial returns, Floyd stayed with Stax as a performer and writer right up to the label’s bankruptcy in 1975.
https://www.allmusic.com/artist/eddie-floyd-mn0000168958#biography
Here is an excerpt from Bill Kopp’s superb interview with Floyd, talking about his collaboration with Steve Cropper and Booker T. Jones:
“I wrote my first song with the[ Falcons],” Floyd says. “Everybody listened at it and said, ‘Wow!’” Nobody showed him how to write songs; it came naturally, so he just did it. “I’d heard songs, and I knew how an intro would be, how a verse would be, so I came up with my first song,” he says. . . . Working with top-notch co-writers like guitarist/producer Steve Cropper and multi-instrumentalist Booker T. Jones – both of Booker T & the M.G.’s – Floyd came up with superb material that captured and exemplified the zeitgeist of the soul music scene. “We would sit and try to come up with a title first,” Floyd says, explaining his deceptively straightforward songwriting process. “And if you give me a title, I hear a melody in my head immediately. It just all depends on the title: that should be a slow song, that one should be faster.” As he came up with lyrics, the melody would often come right along with the words. “And if I get a title of something and I start singing the song, I can also hear the bass and I can hear the drums; I become the band,” he says. “So I can tell a bass player what I think he should be playing behind a certain thing that I’m doing.” He does this all despite the fact that he never became proficient on any instrument other than his voice. “I know a lot of guys went to school for writing,” he says. “They can write the notes down, but I can hear every instrument. So I basically talk my songs to musicians. . . . When Floyd cut his debut album for Stax – 1967’s Knock on Wood – four of the record’s 12 songs were written by him and Cropper. The same held true for 1968’s I’ve Never Found a Girl, though Floyd had begun to write with Jones as well. 1969’s You’ve Got to Have Eddie LP features Floyd/Jones and Floyd/Cropper songwriting collaborations as well. . . . “Cropper has the rhythm,” Floyd says, setting the scene for the way in which the entire band worked together to develop a tune. “And so we know the tempo. I have the lyrics and the melody, and then we get together with Donald ‘Duck’ Dunn the bass player, Booker T. on the organ, and Al Jackson the drummer.” . . . In fact, the creative give-and-take that characterized Floyd’s work with Cropper, Jones and others was an essential characteristic of most all the music that came out of Memphis, Tennessee-based Stax Records during its heyday. “I guess that was the success of Memphis music,” Floyd says. “You allowed everybody to put themselves into the concept. I don’t know if [other musicians] do that today; I don’t know. But that’s the way we did it, and we were successful.”
http://blog.musoscribe.com/index.php/2021/03/08/things-get-better-soul-man-eddie-floyd-part-1-of-3/, http://blog.musoscribe.com/index.php/2021/03/09/things-get-better-soul-man-eddie-floyd-part-2-of-3/
Here is Floyd with Carla Thomas:
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