|
 |
"I Found Love (On A Lonely Highway)" Jeff Floyd Composed by Jeff Floyd
February 1, 2014: NEW ARTIST GUIDE ALERT!
Jeff Floyd is now the #14-ranking Southern Soul artist on Daddy B. Nice's new 21st Century Top 100 Countdown.
Go to Daddy B. Nice's new 21st-Century Artist Guide to Jeff Floyd.
*************
October 8, 2012: NEW ALBUM ALERT
Sample or Buy Jeff Floyd's Watch Me Work CD.
***********
Listen to a full copy of "I Found Love (On A Lonely Highway)" on YouTube while you read Jeff Floyd's Artist Guide.
***********
Jeff Floyd fans familiar with this page can also find key entries and links for additional Jeff Floyd information in Daddy B. Nice's "Comprehensive Index." Scroll down to "Tidbits" section of this Artist Guide for the latest updates on Jeff Floyd.
************************
Watch a video of "I Found Love (On A Lonely Highway)" from a genuine chitlin' circuit hole-in-the-wall in Jackson, Mississippi, where the entire audience sings the lyrics along with Jeff.
*******************
July 25, 2010 Update Note:
Over the last couple of years, Jeff Floyd has consistently ranked among the top five artists searched for at SouthernSoulRnB. More often than not, he has been among the top two or three sought-after artists, a show of interest far surpassing his number-21 ranking on the Top 100 Southern Soul Artists chart.
The reason? I think it's Jeff Floyd's rare combination of sweetness and roughness. Think of the songs from "I Found Love" to "Someone's Gonna Lose A Good Woman Tonight" down to "Lock My Door." They are done in a gritty, down-to-earth style, but they all have unabashed melodies and an undeniable romantic verve.
--Daddy B. Nice
******************
Daddy B. Nice's Original Critique
I'm continually amazed at the expectations fans put on artists to follow up their "big hit" with more of the same. I understand the artist's need for a fan base, a base of loyal support--everybody's gotta pay the bills--but I've never quite understood the "fanatic's" perspective, a kind of partisanship on behalf of the artist, like a baseball fan cheering his team to win the Pennant every year. So what's the alternative, you may ask your Daddy B. Nice? Well. . . It's the music. The best music, wherever it's coming from, should always come first. A hit record, even in the limited sense of an "adult" R&B hit record, is as often as not a once-in-a-lifetime achievement.
It's being in the right place at the right time, with the right material and the right producer and the right amount of preparation and the right sidemen. It's an achievement so rare that each and every hit recording represents hundreds, if not thousands, of near-misses and millions of failures. A single--a hit song--is by definition a masterpiece, and by implication a miracle.
Take Jeff Floyd's "I Found Love (On A Lonely Highway)" (Powerhouse, Wilbe, 2000). Here's a guy who wasn't born in central Mississippi or its environs, as it sometimes seems every Southern Soul musician was. Floyd is out of Florida (and not the Panhandle, either), he has no discernible Delta pedigree, and before this seven-minute-in-the-blink-of-an-eye, instantaneous classic showed up on Southern radio, he had no musical history to speak of.
But from the very first, swinging, swaying notes of the full orchestra, this record kicks butt on the competition. There is not a hint of tentativeness or arbitrariness. The song arrives in full arranging-and-producing glory, and one can't imagine anyone doing it better.
"I was blind, and I could not see,
Somebody was blowing their horn
And looking at me."
"I Found Love (On A Lovely Highway)" by Jeff Floyd (not to be confused with "I Found Love" by Robert "The Duke" Tillman)--posits the highway as a metaphor for life, and certain phrases, like "I could not see," and "She pulled me over," are meant to convey emotional states and life-changing decisions.
"I said, 'Woman, you're crazy,'
You can't help me.
I'm looking for a lover
Who won't ever hurt me."
She "pulls him over" anyway. In fact, "I Found Love" has a world-weary but buoyant romanticism. The woman transforms the hero's apathy and reawakens his ability to love, and his joy shines through his every sylllable.
Everything about the record--the memorable melody, the vocal phrasings, even the extended length--testify to the artistic "sweat and blood" Jeff Floyd must have poured into his creation over time--performing, tweaking and refining, until he knew he finally had completed something that was irresistible to the ear.
So is Jeff Floyd a one-hit wonder? Fans would have probably found that acceptable, given the astounding success of "I Found Love" and the fact that, as a certified new Southern Soul "oldie," it never fails to sound fresh on the radio.
However, the talent necessary to pull off a coup like "Highway" reasserted itself (at last) in 2004 with Jeff Floyd's release of the radio single, "I Got My Woman Upset," from the CD The Power Is Still On (Wilbe). While not as symphonic as "I Found Love (On A Lonely Highway)," "I Got My Woman Upset" nevertheless pulls on the old heart strings just as fiercely, and with its own, perfectly-proportioned string section.
"I thought my woman was cheating on me,
But she was only helping me.
I asked my friends what she was doing,
And they didn't want to talk about it."
The melody has that wonderful, winsome quality that Floyd is so good at, and--again like "Highway"--a strong and unflagging rhythm track that propels you past new musical nuances as dependably as a Union Pacific sleeper unfurling the passing countryside.
"She had two jobs,
Didn't tell me about it.
And now I feel like a fool,
Having doubted."
"I Got My Woman Upset" shows signs of having "legs" too. Deejays of the Deep South were still putting it into their rotations in 2005, as if reluctant to deprive the air waves of such a rare and mellow groove.
--Daddy B. Nice
About Jeff Floyd
Jeff Floyd was born in 1965 in Jacksonville, Florida. He sang gospel as a child and became a multi-instrumentalist in demand in the Jacksonville-Daytona area as he grew older. His band, Jazz Jeff Floyd & The Sweat Band, played regularly at the Contemporary Jazz Lounge in Jacksonville in addition to opening for touring R&B acts that came through in the nineties.
Floyd produced a CD titled Changing Times on a private label (Jeff Floyd Music) that was reissued in Japan (P-Vine 1993). Powerhouse, his breakthrough disc, with "I Found Love (On A Lonely Highway)" as the lead-in track, appeared on Wilbe Records in 2000.
The release of The Power Is Still On (Wilbe, 2004) heartened fans who wanted to hear more from Floyd. In addition to the chitlin' circuit hit, "I Got My Woman Upset," the LP featured a mellow duet with old-school soul singer William Bell. (Read more about Bell in the Jaheim Artist Guide by clicking "William Bell".) The author of "I Forgot To Be Your Lover" meshes perfectly with Jeff Floyd on "Somebody's Gonna Lose A Good Woman Tonight."
"I Found Love (On A Lonely Highway)" dominated Southern Soul airplay for months after its release, and the song is still heard frequently on the Stations of the Deep South, having achieved the status of a classic. When Southern Soul deejays are in a romantic mood, it's usually Ollie Nightingale's "She's In A Midnight Mood" or Jeff Floyd's "I Found Love (On A Lonely Highway)" that they queue up.
Song's Transcendent Moment
"She said, 'Why do you think I pulled you over?
I wanna give you my love.'"
Tidbits
1. March, 2005. Chitlin' circuit deejays pulled another track from 2004's Power Is Still On as a radio single from Jeff Floyd's popular CD. The song was "Someone Is Gonna Lose A Good Woman Tonight" and featured a duet with William Bell of "I Forgot To Be Your Lover" fame. The song rang up the Southern Soul charts faster than a flag at morning reveille, and showed no signs of a quick exit.
2. August, 2005. The above is an understatement. Jeff Floyd can now count three songs that have dented chitlin' circuit consciousness. "Someone Is Gonna Lose A Good Woman Tonight" continues to be a deejay and fan-requested favorite, preferred now to the excellent "I Got My Woman Upset" (both from the Power Is Still On CD). When Jeff Floyd sings:
"Lately I've been thinking
That love has passed me by."
--and William Bell grunts in sympathy, the song immediately achieves a spiritual intimacy with the listener that is rare in contemporary music. DBN
3. March 31, 2007. Jeff Floyd fans familiar with this page can also find key entries and links for additional Jeff Floyd information in Daddy B. Nice's new "Comprehensive Index."
On the recording front, Jeff Floyd has "stayed pat" since his The Power Is Still On CD.
However, he has been performing quite regularly, including some dates with the recent extravaganza of Southern Soul heavy-hitters (Bobby "Blue" Bland, Willie Clayton, Theodis Ealey, Marvin Sease, Shirley Brown, etc.) touring the country in "The Blues Is Alright Tour."
In addition, he's hitting the chitlin' circuit hard. Jeff will be appearing Saturday, April 5, 2008, at the Spring Fling Concert at Gulf State Fairgrounds in Mobile, Alabama with Willie Clayton, Mel Waiters, T.K. Soul, Lebrado, and O.B. Buchana.
And on Sunday, April 20, 2008, Floyd will be appearing at the Crossroads Lounge in Jackson, Mississippi as part of the Big Annual Queen Bee and Dave Mack Birthday Celebration. He'll be joining Mack, Donnie Ray, Ms. Jody, plus special guests L. J. Echols, Sterling Williams, Tina Diamond, Fred Bolton, and Sorrento Ussery.
And this Labor Day (August 30, 2008) Jeff will appear at the Pensacola Interstate Fairgrounds, 6655 Mobile Highway, Pensacola, Florida, for the Pensacola 2008 Labor Day Funk, Blues, Reggae & Bike Festival, where he'll join the Bar-Kays, Lakeside, Theodis Ealey, O. B. Buchana and Lebrado.
(See Daddy B. Nice's "Concert Calendar" for more information on all the tour dates.)
Jeff Floyd's claim to fame at present rests solidly on a trinity of hits: "I Found Love (On A Lonely Highway)," "I Got My Woman Upset," and "Somebody's Gonna Lose A Good Woman Tonight."
The classic "I Found Love" continues to be played by deejays of the Deep South: your DBN only just heard it again on a radio station this afternoon while writing. "I Found Love (On A Lonely Highway)" is by far Jeff's most well-known song, and--amongst "general" Southern Soul fans--his big "hit."
(Check out the song's chart position on Daddy B. Nice's "Top 100 Songs of Southern Soul.")
Amongst insiders, though, two other Jeff Floyd songs count mightily. "I Got My Woman Upset" is a favored track to this day, and "Somebody's Gonna Lose A Good Woman Tonight," Jeff's duet with longtime recording star William Bell, has more soul in it than any other half-dozen R&B songs.
--Daddy B. Nice
4. Author's Forward: August 30, 2008
August 30th, 2008. The new Jeff Floyd album, Keepin' It Real (Wilbe), is on sale. The first single is "Lock My Door" (See Daddy B. Nice's Top 10 "Breaking" Southern Soul Singles (August 08).
Everyone in the Southern Soul deejay community is debating "Lock My Door's" similarity to "I Found Love (On A Lonely Highway)"--specifically, whether that is a good thing or a bad thing.
"Lock My Door" (written by Floyd, William Bell and Wizard Jones) has the same chord progressions, rhythm track and even vocal mannerisms as "I Found Love." Lyrically, moreover, it also echoes its predecessor: it's a second installment to the blossoming love relationship described in "I Found Love (On A Lonely Highway)."
"Lock my door
Before you go.
Please turn in the keys
Before you go."
And the similarities don't end there. Although "Lock My Door" doesn't run for a marathon-long seven minutes like "I Found Love," it does segue into a voice-over passage that makes it seem almost as long.
If your Daddy B. Nice sounds less than enthused, I guess I must admit that the derivative nature of "Lock My Door" does deflate my enjoyment. And when I go back and play "I Found Love (On A Lonely Highway)," which I'm doing as I write this, it sounds much, much better--newer, fresher, and more compelling after all these years.
And by comparison (with "Lock My Door"), Jeff's duet with William Bell on "Someone's Gonna Lose A Good Woman Tonight" from a couple of years ago sounds even more of a heart-felt masterpiece than it did at the time.
But until I hear more from this new Keepin' It Real CD, it's far too early to write off this latest effort from Jeff Floyd.
Jeff has earned our patience. Of the many artists on the SouthernSoulRnB website, his artist guide (which you're reading) consistently ranks at or near the top in "hits" (visitors). And with some two hundred pages on the website, those kind of statistics stand out.
The music of Jeff Floyd has connected with an awful lot of fans, and it's possible "Lock My Door" sounds as good to the new generation as "I Found Love (On A Lonely Highway)" sounded to us.
--Daddy B. Nice
If You Liked. . . You'll Love
If you loved the classic soul of The Spinners' "I'll Be Around," you'll find it hard to resist Jeff Floyd's "I Found Love (On A Lonely Highway)."
Honorary "B" Side
"Somebody Is Gonna Lose A Good... w/ William Bell "
|
|
I Found Love (On A Lonely Highway)
CD: Powerhouse
Label: Wilbe
|
Somebody Is Gonna Lose A Good... w/ William Bell
CD: Power Is Still On
Label: Wilbe
|
I Got My Woman Upset
CD: Power Is Still On
Label: Wilbe
|
Lock My Door
CD: Keepin' It Real
Label: Wllbe
|
King Size Bed
CD: Power Is Still On
Label: Wilbe
|
Let Me Know
CD: Power Is Still On
Label: Wilbe
|
Let's Git It On
CD: Powerhouse
Label: Wilbe
|
Lovin' Someone On The Outside
CD: Power Is Still On
Label: Wilson
|
Shake Somethin' Loose
CD: Keepin' It Real
Label: Wilbe
|
Using Me
CD: Watch Me Work
Label: Wilbe
|
Sample or Buy
Watch Me Work |
I'm Giving You My Private Number
CD: Powerhouse
Label: Wilbe
|
|
