I was late to the party, as usual, when it came to Eddie Floyd, the great but often unheralded Stax soul singer.
Seven years ago, Mojo magazine included a compilation of Southern soul music with its May issue. On that CD was a song called “I’ll Take Her.” Its premise, simply put in its lyrics: If you don’t want her, I’ll take her.
That upbeat tune, with Floyd’s smooth voice lifted by some sweet horns and backup singers as it chugged along, hooked me. Truth be told, I don’t think I’d been aware of him before that.
“I’ll Take Her,” Eddie Floyd, from “I’ve Never Found A Girl,” 1969. The LP out of print as such, but it’s half of “Rare Stamps,” a two-fer CD with his second and third Stax LPs on it. I don’t have this LP. I’ve never seen it while record digging. This rip is from the Mojo comp.
Floyd wrote this cut with songwriter Joe Shamwell and the great Memphis guitarist Steve Cropper. He worked with both of them while a songwriter at Stax Records in the mid-’60s.
To hear more Eddie Floyd, head over to The Midnight Tracker.
There, at our lightly traveled companon blog, one side of his debut album from 1967 has materialized through the sweet blue haze of time.
AM, Then FM 