Amii Stewart - The Hits & The Remixes (1997)

Amy Stewart was the fifth of six children. Amii Stewart's father Joseph Stewart II, signed her up for singing and dancing lessons in 1960, at the age of four. There already was an Amy Stewart registered with Actor's Equity, so she changed the spelling of her name to Amii. She began attending Howard University in Washington but soon left to work with the D.C. Repertory Dance Company, studying ballet and modern dance. Before being signed to Ariola Records, Stewart was in the touring company of the stage production Bubbling Brown Sugar in 1975, firstly in Miami, then Broadway, and eventually London's West End, where she met Barry Leng, a record producer for Hansa records.

At the end of 1977, "You Really Touched My Heart" a Leng/Simon May composition, produced by Leng, was Stewart's first recording. An album followed, which contained five Leng/May songs, one Leng/Morris song and three cover versions.

Her first single, a disco cover version of the 1966 Eddie Floyd hit "Knock on Wood" (Floyd/Cropper), reached number one in the U.S. in April 1979, and earned her a platinum record and a Grammy Award nomination. It also reached number 6 in the U.K., and number 2 in Australia, in the same year. It was her only American pop chart hit and as a result she is considered a one hit wonder there[citation needed], although she also achieved several Top 10 and Top 20 hits in the U.S. dance chart. Peter Boita, the well known U.K. session drummer, synced up a Linn Drum Computer to a non click track driven master tape to overdub a much more heavy and contemporary drum beat and sound. Peter then manually overdubbed SImmons SDS7 tom toms using his unique technique of hitting four Simmons pads simultaneously with just two drum sticks! This layering of drum sounds gives the track an enormous depth of sound making the track instantly recognisable after just a couple of opening bars. Peter also overdubbed an 18" length of suspended hollow scaffolding pole ( originally from the Victoria Palace Theatre in London ) played with two triangle beaters, at Trident Studios in London's St. Anne's Court ( the studio in which Elton John recorded his first album in the early 1970s ). This overdub is not noticeable on the single track ( although it contributes subtly to the overall rhythmic feel ) but is brought to the fore as an intro to one of the later "megamixes" continuing to add a percussive dimension to the whole track.

Among her other successes in music recordings, there is the song entitled "Friends" in 1985. This song was a collaboration with the Italian composer/music artist Mike Francis and was a big hit in the UK and the Philippines.