Jerry Reed

If you draw a straight line from Roger Miller to the Nappy Roots, and another one from Ray Charles to Brad Paisley, where those lines cross you will find Jerry Reed. Devilishly handsome, freakishly talented and all too quickly forgotten. Until recently I (like most people) mainly remembered Jerry Reed for "East Bound and Down" and his role in "Smokey and the Bandit." I also knew that he was a great and idiosyncratic guitar player, a fingerpicker in the self-taught tradition of Chet Atkins.

I didn't know he wrote this little ear worm which has been rattling around my head basically since birth.


I didn't know he played lead guitar on Elvis records, or that he acted in "the Waterboy."

Here he is playing and singing the hell out of an old standard.


And here's another classic, performed in the 1970s, when less was less, and more was most definitely more.