Song(s) of the Day # 4,048 Eddie Floyd

 

'I don't want to lose this good thing. That I've got.'

I brought a record the other day. Listened to it. I'm listening to it again now. I'm in a good moment in life at the moment. I have space. I can really listen to records and that's what I try to do most days. Really listen to them. Try to enter into the spirit and times they were made in. Appreciate the craft. Today's Song(s) of the Day is a prime example of the value of taking time out of your day to make an effort to do that, 

Eddie Floyd is primarily remembered now as a mid ranking Sixtues Soul journeyman. He put out a number of albums, a clutch of singles on Stax Records. He hit one big bullseye. Knock On Wood. I've got his debut album which bears the same name and was recorded in sessions take took place between July and December 1966. Perhaps you prefer to listen and wonder at Revolver or Pet Sounds. They're incredible. No criticism intended of either. But sometimes I like to sit down and listen and think. And try to write about something like this. 

Floyd had the Stax houseband Booker T & The MGs playing and writing with him on the record. Steve Cropper, Duck Dunn, Booker T Jones, Al Jackson Jr . It has Isaac Hayes on piano. We're talking the elite here. A band and set of musicians who played on any number of the best known Soul and Rock and Roll records ever made. They're no mere backing band. They punctuate the records they appear on. Ingest them with heart and poetry as well as backbone. Such is the case here.

The singer provides the narrative. Floyd is no Otis. no Aretha. But the songs and his vocals provide storylines that you don't require a PhD or a streak of genius to follow and appreciate. On Knock on Wood you get songs that anyone who ever had a heart. Had it broken, or broke someone else's or made up the peace and kept soldiering on. Working on the seam. Anyone with ears can read or relate to this.

Over the course of the album you get; I can't believe you're stepping out with me. I can't believe my luck. But I don't plan to take this for granted.  We're all working at a seam.On the mystery of love.. And that's just in Knock On Wood itself. Elsewhere Eddie and the boys work on related seams in the goldmines of love, pain, desire and heartbreak. They keep things simple. If you want something more showy there are plenty of Sting records for you to listen to. This by contrast is simplicity itself. .But if it was that simple everybody would do it. That's enough from me. Track down the record and try to work it out for yourself. This is a universal language. The best kind ever invented.