Knock! Knock! Knock! On Wood: My Life in Soul

Chapter 1

ALL MONEY AIN’T FOR YOU

If you want to see the road in Montgomery, Alabama, where I grew up, you’re out of luck. Mason Street, in the heart of the area known as Washington Park, was bulldozed in the 1960s and now sits right underneath the intersection of two big Expressways: I-65, which runs north to south, and I-85, which runs east to west. Used to be I knew a thousand people in a neighborhood that barely exists anymore. The main street, Holt, still stands, running near enough alongside the I-65, but it’s a ghost of what it once was, back when it was full of stores and offices and churches and clubs and everything that make a neighborhood a neighborhood. There was the Carver Theater, one of the great old cinemas of the day; there was Dr. Smiley’s dentist office, Pitts Drug Store, Arrington’s Sweet Shop … the shops have all gone, but the Carver—which my older brother Benny used to manage—remains. These days it’s called Big Boyz Club, and that tells you something about how our culture has changed over the years.

Some of the local churches have survived, too, though the most famous of them are boarded up. Still, no way anyone’s going to tear down the Holt Street Baptist Church. That’s where 5,000 people gathered the evening of December 5, 1955, four days after Montgomery resident Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus for a white person. My grandmother was out there that night, bringing water to the crowds; nobody had seen nothing like it. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his first major speech to a crowd there. He was only twenty-five, a new pastor in town, and I guess people knew he was special because only hours earlier, he had been elected as first leader of the Montgomery Improvement Association, itself formed that evening at the Mount Zion AME church right next door. A decade later, in March 1965, just before the bulldozers came and wiped out half the ’hood, the famous civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery came right on up Holt Street and passed those two churches on its way to the state capital. Sometimes it feels like everything that moved around the country was on my goddamn block.

But before my neighborhood became famous to the rest of the world, it was just that: a neighborhood. A thriving neighborhood. There was no distress. No people out here in pain. Just people living. Doing what they had to do to get by and then coming home again. We lived all right, me and my mother and my grandmother and my younger brother Joe. We moved around a little when I was very small, but by the time we were on Mason Street, we had a backyard, and I had family all around me. Joe and I got on fine; when the weather was good, we’d play outside, and when the storms rolled in at night, we’d get scared and hide under the bed, where we’d knock on wood for good luck. That memory served me well over the years.

My grandfather Ben West worked as a pullman—a porter—on the trains, a coveted job for black men back then. My uncle Price West was an electrician who helped build the clock at the Union Station downtown. Another uncle, Robert West, was a bellman at the Jefferson Davis Hotel, named for the only President of the Confederate States. Robert went up to Detroit after that; you’ll hear a lot more about him soon enough. Like I already said, my older brother Benny ran the Carver as well as two black theaters downtown. And so it went. There was work for everyone, and so everyone worked.

But it was the women in my family who had the major impact on me. My grandmother, Louise Williams, was a strong woman, a loving woman, a no-nonsense woman, and after marrying Ben West, whose family came from Virginia but had moved down to Montgomery, she passed those qualities on to my mother, Florence West. Florence was first married to a man by the name of Benny Horton, and they lived up in Anniston, Indiana, where my mother attended school for nursing. There they had three children: Louise, Benny Jr., and David, before they got divorced and my mother moved her family back on down to Montgomery. There she met my father, Prince Edward Floyd, who hailed from nearby Selma, and he and my mom got married in 1936, I believe. I came along on June 25, 1937, and my brother Joe was born a couple of years later.

Prince Edward—and maybe that name told me I’d have me some love from the British people down the line—had gone on up to Detroit by then and got himself a job in the steel mills there, part of the exodus of black people from the south in search of better wages and conditions in the industrial cities of the north. They called it the Great Migration. Dad was a part-time boxer, a welterweight; he trained at the Brewster-Wheeler Recreation Center in Detroit, where Joe Louis—who also moved from Alabama to Detroit between the wars—had trained on his way to becoming heavyweight champion of the world. As a little kid, Joe Louis was our idol, so I’m not really going to be thinking about my father as a boxer when we got a connection to the greatest one in history. Still, the only picture I have of my father is one that shows him in the ring, with a look in his eyes like he’s fixin’ to kill someone. I took up boxing myself for a short while, just before I hit my teens—until this guy hit me in the eye, and then I figured that singing was a better way to earn my keep. Not that I can’t fight, but I’ve never gone looking for it.

I only saw my father but maybe three times in my life. I remember at four years old; that’s when my mother said, Go downstairs and see your daddy. We met again when I was twenty-five and he saw me sing in clubs in Detroit. Then all of a sudden, he’s sick, and I go and I see him in the hospital and I leave, and I come back home, and next I know, he’s passed. And I go back for the funeral. That’s the end of it.

But my dad has been in me all my life, and still is. I’ve noticed other people wear the absence of a father on their shoulder like a big chip. But not Eddie, because I’m not ever going to be like everybody. That’s a promise. What I told you about my father is what I know. I ain’t gonna cry about it.

Besides, I got my mother, my main influence—my one influence, I might say. Especially on my music; she took me to concerts up in Detroit as a child, turned me on to everything and everyone, and when I set out on my own, she backed me all the way. As a qualified nurse, Florence was able to get work in Montgomery and in Detroit, which was partly how we were able to keep going back and forth.

Everything you hear Eddie Floyd say, any words of wisdom, all come from my mother. How to treat people, what to do. She would tell me, Eddie, there isn’t anything you can’t do, though maybe there was a lot that I didn’t want to do! In her honor, I remain the same way, and I do the same. There’s never any time that she’s not in my mind. And any situation that I speak of, I speak the way she did; I think that way. So a song like Make Up Your Mind—so I can make up mine—well, that’s her way of speaking. Same with Raise Your Hand. Or Things Get Better. That’s the way I write. They’re statements of intent, of instruction, of inspiration. And I got them all from her.

There’s another thing my mother used to say to me, which I never turned into a song title, though maybe I should have done: All money ain’t for you. You gotta think about that one for a minute and maybe cast back to when I was younger, when maybe I wanted more out of life than I deserved, when maybe I thought I could get real rich, real quick, and my mother would always remind me, "Hey Eddie, all money ain’t for you." As a musician, as a singer, as a songwriter, I’ve carried that with me. You don’t have to demand every dime that’s out there to be a success—especially not by taking it from other people. You don’t have to be the biggest earner to be happy. The pot is for everyone, not for just one.

After my mother and my grandmother passed on, I erected a memorial to those two wonderful women on the ranch I’d built when I moved back down to Montgomery, over by what I call the pier, by the pond I’d dug out. Every single day I’m at home, I go down to the pier and speak to them. And in their memory, I keep their beds in a separate room: Grandma Louise’s bed goes back to the 1850s, because it was her mother’s before her. By connecting all of that to the present day, by keeping those beds in my house, I feel like I’m paying tribute to the two people who did the most for me. I wouldn’t have been anything without them, so I like to keep their presence in my own life.

My first school was right on Mason Street, at one of the many neighborhood churches that don’t exist no more. I’d pretty much roll out of bed, out the front door, and straight into Miss B’s class, kindergarten through second grade. Elementary school for black kids like us tended to be in the church back then; we didn’t have free-standing schools of our own.

Now I know a lot of people are going to want me to talk more about this, about race, about segregation, about growing up in the heart of the South, before the Civil Rights movement took hold on my very street, and at the peak of the old Jim Crow laws. But I’ll tell you something now, and if it’s a disappointment to you, well so be it … I don’t go there. I don’t deal with politics, period. We know there was drama down here, but what has that got to do with me singing all these songs? That’s all I’m saying. I was born in this town, and all the shit happened in this town. I left this town, I went to Detroit, we did music back and forth. What else? There’s always some journalist saying, Yeah, but during that time when things was happening, did you not have a problem? Well, maybe I did and maybe I didn’t. Music’s always been the thing I care about, and I leave the politics to the politicians. Don’t misunderstand me, I know right from wrong, and I’ll call you on it if you speak some bullshit. But I don’t make it my business if you don’t.

Look, we know our history down here, we know the struggles our people went through, and we have our heroes—and our heroines—as a result. We were always educated about that. But I know world history too. And it’s very similar. So, this is America, and this is what you want me to be talking about, but it’s not just America. Did the British not own part of America some day? Spanish too. Every country has its history of racism, every colonial power had slavery, so every country has to figure its own shit out. So for sure, Montgomery was the heart of the Old South, the birthplace of the Confederacy—but it was the birthplace of the Civil Rights movement too. You want to talk history: the British settlers came here and drove the Creek natives all the way to Oklahoma. Now, what’s left of the Creeks got a piece of land down by the river where they run casino boats, just a skip-and-a-hop down from the old slave auction blocks. History’s complex.

Besides, you go downtown to Montgomery nowadays, and young kids don’t want to hear about the old days; it’s not about that no goddamn more. There ain’t no discrimination on knowledge, what people want to know. Black person and white person be looking at the same piece of history about black people and white people, just we ain’t fighting each other when we looking at it! We just looking. I know the reasons things went down, you know the reasons—but it wasn’t you or I. So, sure, there’s always some old person who can’t turn it loose; he’ll make some little quote or something and spoil it, but believe me, the young kids don’t want to hear that shit. Nor do I.

I would take my bike and ride into downtown when I was a kid. Used to be this little studio you could go get your photograph taken, and when I was about thirteen, that’s what I did. The place was run by a black dude and it cost 25 cents; this guy had a couple of curtains that he’d open up so that it looked like there was a view outside of a window when in fact it was just a painting, and he had a little stool right there, so I put my foot up on the stool and acted cool as I could while the photo was taken. Years later I saw a photograph of Wilson Pickett’s father—he came from Prattville, just outside Montgomery—and I said, That’s the same photo booth! There weren’t many around, and to have just even one photograph of yourself back then was considered a big deal. That might be why, nowadays, I take photographs of everything and everyone. I want to document all that’s happening around my life.

Sometimes, in Montgomery, I’d see Hank Williams driving around in his big old Cadillac with his name on the side. Hank was a legend even then, the biggest name in country music, and he came from our hometown. He died young, just thirty years old, a victim of chronic pain, alcoholism, and, as often the case, some other unexplained business nobody’s ever fully figured out. Around 25,000 people came out to pay tribute to him after he died on New Year’s Day, 1953; they say it was the biggest event Montgomery had ever seen until then. I wasn’t among them; I was otherwise disposed for reasons you’ll find out soon enough. Still, I liked Hank’s music: just because it’s country don’t mean black folk don’t enjoy it. And just because it’s soul music don’t mean white people can’t dig it. A good song is a good song. A good singer, same thing.

They’ve got a museum for Hank Williams now, downtown, and it brings a lot of people to Montgomery. There’s talk of a museum for Nat King Cole too. So there should be. For many of us, he’s the real famous musician out of Montgomery, the greater legend. Like Joe Louis, Nat was a true role model; the man always carried himself correct and proper, whatever he may have been up against. A few years back, Cole’s childhood home was moved to the grounds of Alabama State University so that it could be renovated, and there’s a historical marker where it once stood on Harris Way. Even though Nat and his family left Montgomery for Chicago when he was just four years old, back in 1923, the Coles remained a major name in town. Nat’s nephew Ethan was a good friend of mine. Perhaps too good, as you’ll find out.

Like pretty much every kid from my time, I went to church on weekends with my mother, my grandmother, and my siblings—we were part of Mount Zion, where my grandmother, Louise, was one of the main people in charge. But unlike a lot of the future soul singers who are going to pass through this book, my background was not in gospel. I didn’t get my vocal chops from years of singing in the church choir.

No, I was blessed that from the earliest age—six weeks old, or so I’m told—when I was spending half my time in Detroit. My mother would take me there to stay with her brother, Robert West, and his wife, Katherine, who didn’t have children of their own. Like I already mentioned, Robert moved on up to Detroit where he started a real estate business, which was important work in a city where there was not just a housing shortage as people flocked to find work, but invisible red lines marked where black people could buy a house. He was also a massive jazz fan, with 78s going back as far as the 1920s. And of course the great singers of the era all started out up front of one of those big jazz bands, so I got to hear the best of both worlds.

Going to Detroit from Montgomery, we’d take the train. You had to change at Cincinnati, and we’d usually stay overnight there. In the train station they used to have the Rock-Olas that played music. They actually had a screen that far back with pictures of the people who were singing the songs. Not moving pictures, just a picture that would pop up and you’d see someone … All the same, I used to think they were inside the Rock-Ola, and I’d say to my mama, Can you give me some money so I can play the Rock-Ola and see those people? I was just always interested in anything to do with music, no matter what.

Sometimes I still feel that way; when a great song gets to you, it’s like you can see the musicians in your head, you can see the singer, and you can imagine that they’re playing just for you. Music has always had a magical ability to transform me like that.

I admit I was lucky. Up in Detroit, thanks to my mother, I got to see all the greats, mostly at the Fox, which was the major black theater at the time, like the Howard was in D.C. or the Apollo was in Harlem. The concert that I always talk about, the one that I remember most vividly, the one that just cemented the magic for me, was Lena Horne, who performed with a big orchestra there, the way that used to be. Everyone’s in the theater and they’re talking loud, you can feel the excitement in the air, and then all of a sudden it gets quiet, and the announcement comes up: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, it’s … showtime! I get the shivers, because I know something special is about to happen, and then the lights go down—except for those that are on the curtains. The curtains open up, and you can hear the band playing, but you’re not seeing them, because there’s another set of curtains. Then those curtains open up, and you’re still not seeing the band, but then the third curtains open up, and finally there they are, the orchestra in their fancy suits, swinging that special groove, and there’s Lena Horne in her gown, looking like a million dollars and … oh wow! For me it was just unique. It was like all the glamor of Hollywood just a few feet in front of me—but with one of the greatest singers in the world instead of a film star. What more could a young boy ask for?

I knew then, if I didn’t already know from the Rock-Ola in Cincinnati, that I wanted to be a singer. I wanted to be the person inside that jukebox, the person on the Fox Theater stage, the one who brought magic to the world. Over the next few years, I had enough training: it felt like I saw all the greats in Detroit with my mother. Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald, Billy Eckstine … These people were icons to me, like they existed on a different level to anything I could ever imagine. And yet, fast forward just twenty-five years or so, and would you believe it, but Ella Fitzgerald is out there covering one of my songs. So is Count Basie and his Orchestra! And Billy Eckstine!

My two brothers can sing; my sister can sing and play piano. My older brother told me recently he’d had a little group for a while, and my other brother played trombone for high school, and then he sung in the choir through military. So maybe music ran in our family. But fact is, I was the only one who wanted to do something about it.

My uncle wasn’t a musician himself, but he understood how music worked, because he could talk to me about a particular record, what made it so special. I didn’t necessarily understand all that he’s telling me, but I was hooked on his every word all the same. By the age of seven, I’d memorize a song from his record player and then set myself up in another room, call my relatives in, and perform for them, like I was on the stage.

Detroit at the start of the 1940s was booming. The city was the automobile capital of the world, and as well as all the car companies that were based in Detroit with their factories, there were the factories that produced all the stuff that the car industry was dependent on to build their Chryslers, Fords, and GMs in the first place. No outsourcing the tires to Mexico and the tire rims to Canada; all of it got made right there in Michigan.

When the USA entered the Second World War, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941, domestic car production stopped entirely, and the factories switched over to producing aircraft, tanks, anti-aircraft guns, you name it. All of which meant there was an even bigger demand for workers, especially as many of the men folk signed up to fight. So now even more people came up from the South—blacks went from 4 percent of the workforce at the start of the war to 15 percent of it just three years later—and in the meantime a lot of women moved on over into jobs that had previously been considered fit only for men. You can see why my mother could get work as a nurse up there. I’m just a small kid at the time, I don’t really know what’s going on with the war, and my family’s of an age that none of us get caught up in the actual fighting. We managed to avoid what they called the race riots of 1943 as well, when thirty-four people were killed, most of them black, and largely at the hands of the police and National Guard. Detroit was a home for us, and we were determined to make it our own.

So, after the war, Detroit returns to producing cars and all the things that go into them, and the workers from the South stay on, even though there’s competition now for jobs with those coming back from the war. But America is prosperous, and Detroit is booming once more, and it’s a proper jazz town with it. All the great groups are coming through, and some of them are picking up local musicians as they do. Dizzy Gillespie would make a habit of it. We’ve got our own big bands now as well, and they’re attracting national attention: Paul Williams hit it big in the late 1940s with Thirty-Five Thirty, the street number of Joe Von Battle’s record shop on Hastings Street, right there at the heart of what they called Black Bottom. Battle put out records by everyone back then—characters with names like Boogie Woogie Red, One String Sam, and Detroit Count—people you could find singing on up Hastings Street itself, not just in the bars and nightclubs but on the streets at times too. Battle also released sermons by the great Reverend C. L. Franklin, pastor at the New Bethel Baptist Church just on up Hastings Street, and the father of the future Queen of Soul, Aretha; he put out Aretha’s first-ever recording on one of those LPs in 1956, when she was just fourteen. I was living there myself by that point.

We also had great bluesmen in Detroit, especially John Lee Hooker, who, like so many, moved up from the South during the war, finding work in the factories and making a name for himself on Hastings Street. Hooker would end up recording for Battle, too, but first, in 1948, a label out in Los Angeles, Modern Records, took a chance on a demo he’d made called Boogie Chillen, and it became the best-selling race record on the Billboard charts the following year. After that, though, no more race records. Billboard changed the name of the chart to rhythm & blues, or R&B, at the suggestion of a staff writer by the name of Jerry Wexler. Me and that R&B chart would get to know each other well in the years to come. Me and Jerry Wexler, same thing.

All this helps explain why—if you’re a kid from Montgomery, Alabama, and you’ve fallen in love with popular music, and you’re spending half your time up in Detroit, at almost the very heart of jazz, blues, vocal music, gospel, you name it—then you really don’t want to be spending the other half of your time back down South. Which also explains why it was devastating for me when my mother decided that she’d had enough of going back and forth, and she was going to stay settled in Montgomery, right there on Mason Street where I’d started out. Me, I wanted none of that. I wanted to be up in the big city. I was restless, so I started acting up. Acting up got me into trouble. Trouble got me locked up. And getting locked up changed my life.

Chapter 2

SENT UP

It’s 1950, I’m pushing thirteen, and I’m restless, brother. I’m trying to get back to the music, back to Detroit, where it’s all happening. But my mom, she’s getting older, and she isn’t traveling anymore. So I tried to get there myself two or three times by running away. I was trying to run all the way to Detroit. If I could have called my uncle, I’d have called him. If I could write him, I’d write him. The way I think of it is, I ain’t really leaving family in Montgomery; it’s not like I’m running away from something. It’s that I’m running to something: Detroit.

Of course, I got no money, so I don’t get very far. One time I make it forty-nine miles to Selma. Another time, I get further: all of eighty-nine miles to Birmingham. Detroit? That’s another 700 miles, and here I am, only halfway up Alabama at best. And I got no money to ride the Greyhound bus there. So now what? I’ll tell you what: I turn around and go back!

All right, you can tell I don’t want to be here. And I’m making it obvious; I’m getting into trouble. Officially, I’m attending junior high at Loveless, just the other side of what’s now the I-65 from my house. The school is named for Henry