Amii Stewart – Knock on Wood
1979
411K Likes
Best comments
1.“When you're on mushrooms and the gods begin singing to you.”
More comments
- 2.“According to my mother, this is the best roller-skating song in existence.”
- 3.“If you don't feel like dancing when you hear this song, there's something wrong with you.”
The story
Amii Stewart was a dancer first. She grew up in Washington, D.C., left Howard University for a dance company and spent a few years in Bubbling Brown Sugar, a Harlem Renaissance stage revue that carried her from Broadway to London. She stayed. In London she auditioned for producer Barry Leng, and her first single release was this one: a disco makeover of a soul song from 1966.
The original belongs to Eddie Floyd, who wrote it with Steve Cropper at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, drawing on childhood memories of hiding from storms. It was a number one R&B hit for Stax. Stewart's version went one better and hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100 on April 21, 1979. It went platinum, reached number six in the UK and earned a Grammy nomination.
The video is pure 1979: Stewart in a sci-fi headdress and tribal-futuristic jewelry, moving with a trained dancer's grace. Stereogum's Tom Breihan said she looked like a superhero, then gave the record a 4 out of 10 anyway. Tough room. She settled in Italy in the mid-'80s and built a long career there, and the song keeps coming back. Taylor Swift fans may catch it interpolated on Wood, from The Life of a Showgirl.
