Edward "Eddie" Lee Floyd (born June 25, 1937) is an American soul/R&B singer and songwriter, best known for his work on the Stax record label in the 1960s and 1970s and the song "Knock on Wood".

Biography

Floyd was born in Montgomery, Alabama, and grew up in Detroit, Michigan. He founded The Falcons, which also featured Mack Rice. They were forerunners to future Detroit vocal groups such as The Temptations and The Four Tops. Their most successful songs included "You're So Fine" and later, when Wilson Pickett was recruited into the group as the lead singer, "I Found a Love". Pickett then embarked on a solo career, and The Falcons disbanded.

Floyd signed a contract with the Memphis based Stax Records as a songwriter in 1965. He wrote a hit song, "Comfort Me" recorded by Carla Thomas. He then teamed with Stax's guitarist Steve Cropper to write songs for Wilson Pickett, now signed to Atlantic Records. Atlantic distributed Stax and Jerry Wexler brought Pickett down from New York City to work with Booker T. & the MGs. The Pickett sessions were successful, yielding several pop and R&B hits, including the Floyd co-written "Ninety-Nine and a Half (Won't Do)" and "634-5789 (Soulsville, U.S.A.)".

Knock On Wood is the debut album of soul singer/song-writer Eddie Floyd, released in 1967 on Stax Records. The album was recorded between July and December 1966 at Stax Recording Studio. It features his most well-known single, the title track, "Knock on Wood".

Track listing

Chart and single history

Personnel

Knocking on wood refers to the apotropaic tradition in Western folklore of literally touching, tapping, or knocking on wood, or merely stating that you are doing or intend same, in order to avoid "tempting fate" after making a favourable observation, a boast, or declaration concerning one's own death or other unfavorable situation beyond one's control. The origin of this may be in Germanic folklore, wherein dryads are thought to live in trees, and can be invoked for protection.

Similar traditions in other cultures

Knock on Wood may refer to:

Music

Film and television

Little Einsteins is an American animated children's television series on Playhouse Disney (later Disney Junior). The educational preschool series was developed for television by Douglas Wood who created the concept and characters, and a subsequent team headed by Emmy Award-winning director Olexa Hewryk and JoJo's Circus co-creator Eric Weiner, and produced by Curious Pictures and The Baby Einstein Company. The first episode of the Little Einsteins TV series premiered in Japan on TV Tokyo on October 5, 2005 and in the United States on the Disney Channel on October 9, 2005. In Europe, the second season of the show premiered on the Disney Channel around Christmas time, and in Japan, it aired on October 8, 2007, on Playhouse Disney Japan.

Little Einsteins was designed to teach the target demographic art and music appreciation by integrating famous or culturally significant art works (usually, but not exclusively, paintings) and classical music (most typically from the Baroque, Classical, and Romantic periods) into the scenery, plot and soundtrack of each episode. The show is also designed to encourage viewer interaction (such as patting their knees, gesturing or singing along to help the characters succeed on their "mission"); at the end of the mission, Leo says "Mission Completion!" and the Little Einsteins then do the Curtain Call. At the end of the Curtain Call, Leo says, "See you on the next mission!", then the curtains close and in season 2 a "That's Silly" segment is shown.