I Hear You Knockin' on Wood

In 1966, Eddie Floyd and Steve Cropper wrote "Knock on Wood" on a stormy night in Memphis at the Lorraine Motel, about two years before Martin Luther King would be assassinated in the same location.  At the time, the Lorraine was one of the few places in Memphis where Black and white people could meet together, or where Black people could stay in modern commercial accommodations. Over the years, virtually all of the great Stax acts stayed there, including Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, the Staple Singers, Otis Redding, and others. According to Steve Cropper, the thunderstorm gave them the idea for the refrain, "like thunder, lightning, the way you love me is frightening." The song was a hit for Eddie Floyd and has been covered many times over fifty years. Other "knockin'" songs on this post include Fats Domino's "I Hear You Knocking" and Little Richard's "Keep a' Knocking" (covering an earlier recording by Lil Hardin, as explained below).

Music begins at 1:50, but Cropper's introduction is pretty interesting.

I hadn't realized that Little Richard's version was a cover of Lil Hardin's earlier cut. Hardin, of course, was married to Louis Armstrong and played piano with him at Chicago's Dreamland Cafe and other venues. She had earlier performed with King Oliver, Armstrong's mentor, who introduced them. The 1923 marriage of the two notable musicians (the second for each) was covered by the Chicago Defender, which reported that the bride was dressed in a "Parisian gown of white crepe elaborately beaded in rhinestones and silver beads." It was Hardin who persuaded Armstrong to leave King Oliver and organize his own orchestra.

Comments

[cory]

The original and best known version of I Hear You Knocking is Smiley Lewis https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3-2nOlO528 - a 50s classic (not sure if that is Fats Domino on the piano). Dave Edmunds name checks him, I think George Harrison does on another song as well.
Most people don't like it but I sort of like Gale Storm's "white version", but it was a big hit. Gale Storm - My Little Margie https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0pqfjCmqCs pure 1950s