I Hear You Knockin

“I Hear You Knocking” (or “I Hear You Knockin'”) is a rhythm and blues song written by Dave Bartholomew. New Orleans rhythm and blues singer Smiley Lewis first recorded the song in 1955. The lyrics tell of the return of a former lover who is rebuffed. “I Hear You Knocking” reached number two on the Billboard R&B singles chart in 1955, making it Lewis’s most popular and best-known song. Subsequently, numerous artists have recorded it, including Welsh singer and guitar. Several earlier blues and R&B songs use lyrics similar to “I Hear You Knocking”. James “Boodle It” Wiggins recorded an upbeat piano blues in 1928 titled “Keep A Knockin’ An You Can’t Get In”which repeated the title in the lyrics. It was followed by songs that used similar phrases, including “You Can’t Come In”, by Bert M. Mays (1928); “Keep On Knocking”, by Lil Johnson (1935); “Keep a Knocking”, by Milton Brown & His Brownies (1936); and “Keep Knocking (But You Can’t Come In)”, by Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys (1938). None of these early singles listed a songwriter or composer. However, when popular jump blues bandleader Louis Jordan and his Tympany Five recorded the song as “Keep A-Knockin'” in 1939, the single’s credits listed “Mays-Bradford” (Bert Mays and Perry Bradford). In 1957, Little Richard recorded it with the songwriter listed as “R. Penniman”, Richard’s legal name, although Bert Mays and J. Mayo Williams were later credited as songwriters. Beginning with his signing by the Los Angeles–based Imperial Records in 1950, Smiley Lewis was one of the main proponents of the emerging New Orleans rhythm and blues style, along with Fats Domino, Lloyd Price, original song Smiley Lewis recorded “I Hear You Knocking” with Dave Bartholomew’s band at J&M Studios in New Orleans, owned by Cosimo Matassa. Bartholomew is listed as the producer and songwriter, along with Pearl King (a Bartholomew pseudonym; the maiden name of his wife). He claims that he wrote it “in the backseat of a car coming out of San Francisco”. “I Hear You Knocking” uses a modified twelve-bar blues arrangement, in which the progression to the IV chord is repeated It has been notated in 4/4 time in the key of C with a moderate tempo. Instrumentally, the song is dominated by piano triplets in the style of Fats Domino, played by Huey “Piano” Smith. “I Hear You Knocking” was released as a single by Imperial Records in 1955. It entered Billboard’s R&B charts on September 3, where it spent eighteen weeks and reached number two. Dave Bartholomew, and Professor Longhair. tarist Dave Edmunds, whose version reached number one in the UK Singles Chart for six weeks in 1970 and was in the top 10 in several other countries.