Eli “Paperboy” Reed

Eli "Paperboy" Reed

“It’s been twenty years since I’ve had a real job”, laughs Eli Paperboy Reed from his Brooklyn apartment. In some ways, he’s not joking, though those two decades have been chock full of the round-the-clock hustle that it takes to make a career in the fickle music industry. Indeed, Reed has found a way to maintain a famously high standard for both his critically acclaimed albums (nine and counting) and his notoriously sweaty, searing and soulful live sets. None of this was a foregone conclusion.

Reed cut his teeth in the early 2000s, first in the juke joints of Clarksdale, MS where he moved after graduating high school in 2002, and then in the southside Chicago church of Soul legend Mitty Collier. By 2005 though, Reed was back in his hometown of Boston, driving a van delivering flowers in the mornings (“the best job I ever had”) and spending his free afternoons busking in Harvard Square, Cambridge for tips. He put in the proverbial 10,000 hours playing guitar, harmonica and singing for 3-4 hours a day, as long as it was above 50 degrees. He had just “released” his first album, the optimistically titled “Sings Walkin’ and Talkin’ (and other Smash Hits). It was recorded all live to analog tape in mono and Reed scraped together the money to press up 300 CDs.

Around the same time, he put his first band together, composed of an oddball collection of musicians who could play everything from avant garde jazz to modern gospel. They all coalesced around Reed’s rough and ready guitar playing and astonishingly soulful voice, making for an exciting, unpredictable and potent blend. The band’s live show, and in particular Reed’s singing, began to get noticed around the Boston area and came to the attention of musician and producer Ed Valauskas who worked out of Q Division Studios in Somerville, MA.

What “Ed V” (as he was known) didn’t know was that Reed was prepared for this moment with a batch of newly penned original songs and an unshakeable sonic sensibility. The two clicked, Reed stepped into the studio with his band in tow and the tape rolling and proceeded to make magic. “Roll With You”, Reed’s first album of all original music, was released in 2008 and the world began to stand up and take notice. Soon there were calls coming in from everywhere: Television shows in the U.K. and France, festivals in Australia and a jaw-dropping of national and international tour dates.

“Roll With You” was critically lauded and Reed’s blow-off-the-roof live set at the famed SXSW music festival in Austin, TX brought major labels calling. A deal was inked with Capitol Records in 2009 and saw the release of “Come and Get It” the following year, along with more dates, more festivals and more positive press. At the same time, Reed added another arrow to his quiver: Licensing. Songs from “Come and Get It” began to show up in movies, television shows and commercials. The album’s follow up, 2014’s “Nights Like This” recorded this time for Warner Bros. followed the same trend all while Reed continued to wow audiences on five continents.

In 2015, the music industry, and major labels in particular were in freefall and Reed fell victim to the death rattle. Some fans balked at the poppier sound of “Nights Like This” and without the support of a major label, Reed returned to his homebase of Brooklyn, NY to regroup. He was down, but not out. In a span of six weeks, he wrote an entire LP’s worth of material that became the album “My Way Home.” It’s an album that’s both back-to-basics and startlingly current and it began Reed’s relationship with famed indie label Yep Roc Records, a partnership that continues to this day.

With the whirlwind of the major label experience behind him, Reed emerged older, wiser and more mature as a songwriter and performer. Parenthood also gave him a newfound perspective; his daughter Stella was born in 2016 and son Oscar in 2019. He returned to the south to record his seventh full-length “99 Cent Dreams” at the legendary Sam Phillips Recording studio in Memphis, TN. This time around he was joined by soul legends The Masqueraders on background vocals. The title track was given an unexpected boost with a feature by hip-hop pioneer Big Daddy Kane! No Depression wrote: “Reed never disappoints and on 99 Cent Dreams he takes his musical game to a new level, elevating us with it.”

With every step forward, Reed attempts something new, different and untested. The COVID lockdowns of 2020 inspired him to fulfill a dream he’d had since the very beginning: To record an album’s worth of songs by country music legend Merle Haggard. Reed’s versions of The Hag’s classic songs like “Workin’ Man Blues” and “Mama Tried” brought another milestone: An invitation to perform on the venerable stage of Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry where he brought the house down.

Reed was one of the very first of the new wave of singers and songwriters to embrace unabashedly soulful music and he’s still doing it his way, two decades on. He’s celebrating that milestone with a 20th anniversary reissue of the album “Walkin’ and Talkin’” from 2005, this time on vinyl. “Listening back to those songs and my 21 year-old self” he says, “is a strange sensation.” “I can hear the wheels turning, the speed picking up, taking me in the direction I wanted to go, but I didn’t know where it would lead me or how long it might take to get there.” Twenty years on, Reed is still singing, playing and writing his heart out, heading towards the next stop.

Host or Publisher Fairfield Theatre Company