Eli Paperboy Reed

There are singers who sing, then there are singers whose sheer power of expression can knock you off your feet. Eli 'Paperboy' Reed falls firmly into the latter category. MOJO first encountered the diminutive 240year-old Bostonian bawler at SXSW in March 2007 at an inauspicious radio showcase. When Reed and The True Loves- a six piece outfit rising to a nine-piece on occasion- took the stage, the bar they were playing, in broad daylight, was empty. By end of their 30-minute set, the place was packed and thirsty, the bartenders having vacated their positions to jive at the front.

Gritty voiced, Reed's lessons were learnt in Clarksdale, Mississippi, were, aged 18, he ended up working at a local radio station by "weird happenstance" and through his friendship with Rooster Blues Records owner Patty Johnson he met veteran blues drummer Sam Carr, the son of Robert Nighthawk. "We just ended up playing together the whole time," enthuses Reed, who earned his nickname at this point for the "news reporter styled hat" he wore. A move to Chicago led him deeper into his exploration of blues and soul when he ended up at the church that former Chess Records star Mitty Collier had founded at 1818 East 71st Street. Despite his Jewish roots, Reed found himself accepted by the congregation. "I think they could see how much I loved the music," he says. Reed's love of the music he plays is what illuminates the True Loves' sound. Since moving back to Boston he's fashioned a group from friends and acquaintances to deliver his own righteous blend of Sam Cooke, Otis Redding, T-Bone Walker, and other precursors who've influenced him. "we're just trying to play soul music the way it was supposed to be played and in the spirit and the excitemnet that it's always been intended," he says passionately. With one album under his belt and his second, Roll With You, due on the Q Division label in March, Reed threatens to be one of the defining voices of the year.

- Phil Alexander.

- MOJO Feature

January 11, 2008,
Reed's Old Stylings Soar With Sincerity
Jessica Letkemann, N.Y.

On this unseasonably warm Wednesday night in Manhattan's Lower East Side, it wasn't long before baby-faced Eli Reed was sweating hard as he wailed on one Stax-inspired rave-up after another -- and the audience was fully swept up in the soul wayback machine he and his band constructed.

It was all too easy to forget this was 2008, and from the 24-year-old Bostonian's pinkie ring and chisel-toed Beatle boots to the horn section and Wurlitzer in his band the True Loves, stepping back into 1963 seemed to be the unrevolutionary -- but enjoyable -- point. This was not meant to be a show: it was meant to be a performance.

After a horn player gave Reed an amusing James Brown-like introduction, the Brylcreemed singer joined the True Loves on the tiny, crowded stage and proceeded to preview his forthcoming sophomore record, "Roll With You" (Q Division, due in March), nearly in its entirety. Following opener "Stake Your Claim" (which also opens the album), the ensemble hit everything from the "I Can't Stop Loving You" stylings of ballad "It's Easier" to the juke-ready jump of "The Satisfier," complete with backup vocals by the Divines, a trio of heavily eye-linered singers in matching A-line dresses and go-go boots. By the time the revue rolled into "(Am I Just) Fooling Myself," Reed was on his knees in water from a bottle he had kicked over, electrocution hazard be damned.

The 45-minute set might have felt like play-acting if not for the conviction with which Reed performed. A college-aged kid in a suit leading a 7-piece band through 60's-tinged soul cuts for a room of Manhattan hipsters could have easily been a disguise for nudge-wink irony. But one look at Reed wailing his guts out and it was clear he meant every note. - Billboard

The time is right for Eli "Paperboy" Reed and The True Loves' hollering, begging, braggin and a-screaming R&B, what with Amy Winehouse, Sharon Jones And The Dap-Kings and James Hunter making so many waves with their own takes on vintage soul. But Reed, despite his relative youth, is no "Johnny come lately", it's just that like Jones and Hunter before him, few people had their ears open to his early work. While Jones is fueled by the blistering funk and smouldering soul soul sounds of the James Brown revue, and Hunter follows a smoother trail uptown, Reed travels the gravel road: at his core, the fiery gospel passion of, say, Sister Wynona Carr or The Swan Silvertones, the southern soul grit of Otis and Sam And Dave and the deep soul yearning of Luther Ingram. And then there's that signature soul scream, every bit as wild, thrilling and untameable as The Wicked Pickett's ragged own.

Reed, who was dubbed "Paperboy" after he took to wearing his grandfather's news reporter style hat, learnt the theory from his father, a music writer whose house breathed blues, gospel, country and soul music. At 13 he taught himself blues harp a la Sonny Boy Williamson II, at 16 he was busking with his guitar in Boston's Harvard Square. But it was on moving to Clarksdale, Mississippi aged 18 that he really put it into practice. Coached by drummer Sam Carr, a cohort of Frank Frost's and son of Robert Nighthawk, Reed thrilled the local juke joint circuit with songs unsuprisingly entrenched with the blues. Upping sticks again, this time to Chicago to study, he was taken under the wing of the Chess label blues and gospel shouter, the Reverend Mitty Collier, when he landed a job singing and playing organ and piano in her south side church. A year later, armed with everything Carr and Collier taught him, he headed back home to Boston and formed the seven-piece True Loves. Their first album, 2005's testifying "Eli 'Paperboy' Reed Sings Walkin' And Talkin' And Other Smash Hits" was recorded in a day. Its follow up is equally raw, immediate and roughed up, but in the interim Reed has finetuned his songwriting skills. Opener 'Stake Your Claim' shakes, shuffles and roars like a Sammy Cotton Okeh platter, the horn driven contemplation 'Am I Wasting My Time' marries Otis to Eddie Floyd and 'The Satisfier' is a good old fashioned jaw dropping soul vaunt. There are contrasting tender moments too; the stirring 'It's Easier' and '(Am I Just) Fooling Myself' smite with the intensity of O.V. Wright or James Carr ballad, 'I'll Roll With It' conjures the mood of the early Miracles and Marvin Gaye. When delivered with such honesty and genuineness being retro doesn't come into it. Good music is good music and this is impressive. - Mojo

Who: Eli "Paperboy" Reed, a Boston-via-Delta South soul singer who, with his band the True Loves, conquered both street corners and punk clubs with a mix of grooved-out rave-ups and slow-burning ballads.

Sounds Like: Your favorite Motown and Stax Records livened up for the Winehouse era. On his new album Roll With You, "Paperboy" delivers classic soul and horn-heavy R&B soaked with the blues of Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf. "Southern music is really where it's at for me and it's really defined my sound," Reed says.

Vital Stats:

• So where did he get the moniker "Paperboy?" "Ever see the movie Newsies?" asks Reed. "I lived in Mississippi for a while and in high school I had a newsboy hat that was my grandfather's. Everyone's got a nickname down there and people started calling me 'Paperboy' because of the hat."

• Reed's performing days started at age sixteen with a summer job playing in the street in Boston's Harvard Square. "I played guitar and harmonica, and my friend played drums and washboard," Reed remembers. "The money was good, and we only had to work for four hours a day."

• Reed has gained a reputation for his energetic live shows. "I had gotten a new blue sharkskin suit that I loved, and I was doing a ballad where I got down on one knee and suddenly the entire left pant leg ripped wide open," Reed says. "I was standing there with one pant leg. There were three songs left in the set, and there wasn't much I could do but finish the set. I rip a lot of pants."

Hear It Now: Eli "Paperboy" Reed and the True Loves' Roll With You is out April 29th. Until then, check out some of Reed's songs over at his MySpace page and watch the above video, featuring the band playing "(Doin' The) Boom Boom" live at this year's South By Southwest festival. - Rolling Stone.com

Boston is renowned for many things, but its soul/blues/R&B scene isn't one of them, but that's about to change with the advent of Eli "Paperboy" Reed and his backing band the True Loves. Reed and the Loves true love is '60s R&B in all its multi-faceted glory, and they flawlessly re-create the feel and sound of the times on their superb debut album Roll with You. Reed seems to have imbibed the greats of the day with his first breath, and their influences seep across his performances and his songwriting. "Am I Wasting My Time," for instance, is the best song Clarence Carter neither penned nor sung, but Reed makes you believe he did both. The title track "I'll Roll with You" evokes Sam Cooke at his most emotive, "Am I Wasting My Time" captures the soulful depths of Otis Redding, while Reed is even "The Satisfier" for devotees of James Brown. There are echoes of Motown girl groups, the excitement of duos like Sam & Dave and the Isley Brothers, and splashes of Stax stars galore. Reed is a veritable one-man revival show, belting out his songs with a fervor that's entirely authentic. The True Loves are his perfect match, as comfortable bounding through the kind of bouncy R&B that gave birth to rock, like "Won't Give Up Without a Fight," as they are with the funky "Satisfier." They strut through the exhilarating "(Doin' The) Boom Boom," and shine on such downtempo, haunting numbers as "She Walks" and "It's Easier," with every arrangement highlighting their skills. Neither the band nor the singer hit a single false or wrong note within this set. This sounds like a greatest hits set from the day, although every single song within is new, a classic album that every R&B/soul fan must have. - All Music

It may have been the barbecued goat he ate at fife-and-drum master Otha Turner's annual Labor Day picnic. Or the couple of times he played with hill-country blues rogue R.L. Burnside. Whatever the cause, Eli Reed done gone to the Delta and come back with a fancy nickname and a musical mission.
Anyone who's been to the Mississippi Delta knows what a special, often spooky place it can be. For musicians inclined toward the blues, it can become a place where, to paraphrase that most famous of blues songs, your mojo may indeed begin workin'.
No one of his generation knows the Delta's power to inspire better than the 24-year-old Reed, whose habit of wearing a newsboy's cap earned him the nickname "Paperboy" during a momentous nine months he spent living and playing music in Clarksdale, Mississippi. He'd moved south from his native Boston for a gig at a local radio station, a plan that suddenly changed when the station's owner lost his financial backing and Reed's job evaporated.
"So there I was. I had this apartment and a little bit of money, and I didn't know what there was as far as music, going on. I didn't think about it as, 'Oh, this is where I'm going to get my legs, my experience.' I just wanted to move out of the house, not go to college, and live on my own for a little while. I hadn't even established that I was a performer. I just wanted to kind of go."
A natural musician who sang and began playing harmonica as a kid- the poor child had a music critic for a father- Reed switched to tenor saxophone in time to play in the Brookline High School jazz band. By the time he'd landed in Clarksdale, he'd shifted again, this time to guitar (a '56 Gibson ES 225) and what had always been his truest love, singing. Asked by an acquaintance in that Delta burg if he wanted to play a club just for beer, he found himself onstage at Red's Lounge, leading a band for the first time. Nervous, he began calling out blues tunes he knew, and the crowd bought it. It was in this experience- which he now calls "really scary" and "very bizarre"- that "Paperboy" was born.
"I found out all of a sudden that there was this really thriving little juke-joint community- a middle-aged black community that was into chitlin'-circuit R&B and also, still, Howlin' Wolf and stuff like that", Reed says between sips of beer in a bar near where he now lives in Brooklyn. "I basically dove in headfirst, and never left the black community the whole time I was there."
IT wasn't long before he gravitated towards playing predominately black R&B and soul music. By the time he moved back north for a short-lived attempt at higher education, studying cultural anthropology at the University of Chicago, Reed was writing songs and planning a career in music. In summer 2004, he returned to Massachusetts and recorded his first record, Eli "Paperboy" Reed Sings Walkin' and Talkin' and other Smash Hits. Made up of covers and two original songs, including pressing. Encouraged, Reed began touring up and down the eastern seaboard, and Reed began touring up and down the eastern seaboard, and formed the first solid version of his seven-piece band, the True Loves. Soon after, he signed with Boston indie label Q Division, whose biggest acts to date have been the Gigolo Aunts, the Flying Nuns, and Crown Victoria the side project of Buffalo Tom frontman Bill Janovitz. Other than Reed, Q Division's current roster is oriented toward solo singer-songwriters. - Stereophile

One listen and you might think someone is trying to trick you with the picture of the clean-cut kid on the album cover, and for good reason. Eli "Paperboy" Reed (nicknamed for his classic hat) has a voice that evolves comparisons to soul greats such as Wilson Pickett, Otis Redding and Sam Cooke, but that voice did not get there on its own.
Upon graduating high school, Reed decided it was time for a real education and moved to Clarksdale, MS, the native soil of the blues. He gained invaluable experience entertaining tough Delta crowds and receiving some gratis lessons from legendary blues drummer, Sam Carr. After 9 months, Reed moved north to enroll at the University of Chicago, and got a gig playing piano at a South Side church ministered by former Chess soul singer Reverend Mitty Collier. A year later, he dropped the books, moved back home to Boston and started forming the True Loves.
I don't advocate dropping out of school. If I knew Roll With You would be the result however, I could be swayed. It revives a sound I once thought limited to my vinyl collection, not because it's a "vintage sound" but because it has an inimitable sincerity that defines good soul music. Reed's emotive voice expresses the heartbreak of a veteran soulman in "It's Easier" and "She Walks". His showmanship shines through in "I'm Gonna Get You Back" and "The Satisfier".
Certainly, there will be skeptics who can recall the golden years of soul, but by the end of this album, the "Boom Boom" will have you dancing like the "Boogaloo" never could.
-Danny Silva - Elmore Magazine

Boston hasn't been able to boast of a performer like Eli "Paperboy" Reed in a long time, perhaps ever, seeing as its scene is rooted more in classic rock than vintage soul. Reed's stormy delivery of knife-thrust R&B music means to assert the 20-something Brookline native as the real deal, and with that voice and scraggly yet confident band, it's hard to deny him his props. Reed goes for the jugular on his latest full-length, which, with love from the likes of Mojo magazine and Nick Lowe, promises to be his big break-out. It's the first recording that attempts to match Reed's '60s R&B style with equally classicist production techniques"and often, on songs like the shuffling rave-up "Take My Love With You" and the slow burning Otis Redding pastiche "(Am I Just) Fooling Myself", it succeeds with sweaty, authentic results. Reed summons the sympathy of Solomon Burke on "Am I Wasting My Time" and lets loose a nasty guitar solo in "Stake Your Claim", moments of ass-shaking groove that forgive some of the album's more redundant offerings. With Roll With You, Reed & the True Loves have our attention, and now all that's left to do is hold it. - popmatters.com

Thanks all the same, England, but we've got our own Amy Winehouse. And our version has twice her soul, with none of the crazy.

While the Winehouse comparison makes an easy shorthand for what Boston's Eli "Paperboy" Reed does, there are big differences between the Brookline boy and his British, beehived female foil.

"There's less irony, less cynicism to what we do and people can latch on to that,” said Reed, whose debut, "Roll With You," is out today. "What I want to do at my core is make American music in the grand tradition. Plus, I'm American and I'm a guy. I'm not Amy.”


The baby-faced Reed - who opens for Nick Lowe at the Calvin Theater in Northampton on Thursday - has spent his 24 years obsessed with classic Black American music. It began with his father's wax stacks of gospel, blues and r & b and continued when Reed moved to blues mecca Clarksdale, Miss., after high school.

"At that time I was all about blues," he said from a Los Angeles tour stop. "What I got was education in r & b and chitlin’ circuit music. Clarksdale is a really tightknit community, people would roll down their windows and say, 'Who are you?' So it didn’t take long before I was playing with people in a practice space in the back of the Delta Blues Museum and around town."

After nine months in Clarksdale, Reed followed his muse north to the University of Chicago, where he landed a gig playing piano for ex-Chess Records’ artist and current minister Mitty Collier’s South Side congregation.

"I'm Jewish, so the whole thing wasn't a religious experience," he said. "It was more of a cultural, musical endeavor."

Everything Reed learned from Pop’s record collection and his travels informs "Roll With You."

The album is full of originals with the simmering lust and desperate ache of a '60s Stax act that are dressed by his seven-piece band, the True Loves, in Memphis horns, heavy Hammond organ and church harmonies. It’s like dropping the needle down on a scratchy, undiscovered Otis Redding side.

Boston's Q Division, which put out the record, is betting Reed's on the verge of breaking big. The label shelled out thousands to hire Shore Fire - of Bruce Springsteen and Robert Plant fame - to do Reed’s PR.

"We're on tour with a van with seven people and all of our equipment in eight seats," he said. "So I'm taking all these really good opportunities with a grain of salt."

Reed plans to pull an Otis Redding-at-Monterey-Pop this summer and flip rock fans to soul at a few major festivals. He starts his campaign at the WFNX Best Music Poll at the Bank of America Pavilion on May 10. - Boston Herald

"This is what my room looked like in high school," says Eli Reed. In the bedroom of his Allston apartment, there are press kit glossies of Little Man Willie, a Time magazine with Martin Luther King Jr., bottlecap folk art, a diddley bow, a signed Otis Rush 78 and wall-to-wall black-and-white clippings. Alphabetically-ordered 45s, more than 3,000 Reed estimates, are shelved in the corner and stacks are waiting to be filed.

Like most of his kind, Reed is a soul purist. Unlike most of his kind, he is 22 years old.
His 2004 debut, "Eli ŒPaperboy‚ Reed Sings Walkin‚ and Talkin'" consists of lost soul cuts and two originals - the 50s jag title track and organ-steeped dipper "Don't Let Me Down." A follow-up, consisting of mostly originals, is due this fall.

" Musically, I grew up in a bubble," says the Brookline native, owing much of his formative-year influences to his father. Family vacations were spent in Nashville, not Disneyland, and Merle Haggard and Ray Charles, not Nirvana and Dr. Dre, were his taste. "It wasn't that I disdained popular music, it just wasn't around," he says.

"That's the Delta"
His storied journey began in 2003, when he skipped college to move to Clarksdale, Miss., to work at the revamped WROX, home to Ike Turner and the first black DJ, Early Wright. "[The new owner] lost all his money and things fell apart. But that's the Delta," he quips.

Reed spent nine months down South after being taken on by Shine Turner, who ran the Delta Blues Education Program. He sat in with the house band at Red‚s Lounge and toured upper Delta jukejoints.

For a fish out of water, they liked how he swam. "There's a set repertoire of 100 or so songs, and I knew a good amount of them," he says of the regional hits and obscure R&B songs he had come to love.

" I learned a lot and people gave me sh-t. The audiences were tough, the musicians were tough. But it was good. I'd play six hours and get paid, like, nothing, but that's OK... I'd just buy more records."

Sunday schooling
After a quick stint in London playing for indie doll Holly Golightly, Reed upped to Chicago to try college. While hosting the University of Chicago radio‚s Sunday night blues show, he learned Chess Records soultress Mitty Collier lived nearby.

" I called her up and I told her I was a musician and she said they were just starting this new church," he recalls. "She came to my dorm and there was a piano there and we sang and played some gospel songs and she said, 'Sure, come and play in my church.'"

" The black church is the most accepting, loving institute. They were certainly demanding. But once they saw my intentions were true, they thought it was great."

He received $75 a week playing organ at the More Like Christ Christian Fellowship, Collier's tiny storefront church on the south side. "More money for me to buy records," he says.
- Boston Metro, May 23rd, 2006, by Selene Angier.