Eli 'Paperboy' Reed and the True Loves
Put on Roll With You, the new album from Boston-based soul band Eli 'Paperboy' Reed and The True Loves, and chances are you'll immediately feel the urge to either dance or cry.
Indeed, Roll With You is a vital, gospel-tinged mix of sweaty, up-tempo numbers and aching, lovelorn ballads - all originals - that connect instantly thanks to the passion of this young performer and his equally young band. The True Loves may employ classic soul stylings - such as anguished vocals and a raucous horn section - but they make the music their own by performing it with the youthful abandon that only a group of seven talented guys in their 20s can muster. The fact that it's soul music, and not, say, punk rock is merely incidental.
For Reed, a 24-year-old native of Brookline, MA, playing soul music is simply a matter of having good taste. A walking encyclopaedia of the genre's history, Reed grew up listening to his music critic father's collection of gospel, blues, country, soul, and R&B records and eventually taught himself to play guitar, piano, and harmonica.
Then, at age 18, he got a first-hand education when he moved to Clarksdale, MS, one of the birthplaces of the blues, in the North Mississippi Delta, where he sang and played guitar with various soul, R&B, and blues bands at local clubs, and received informal lessons in performing from legendary blues drummer Sam Carr.
After spending nine months in Mississippi, Reed enrolled at the University of Chicago and got himself a gig singing and playing piano on the city's South Side at a church run by former Chess Records' soul singer-turned-minister Mitty Collier, using the $50 a week he earned to buy records for his college radio show.
In 2004, after a year of school, Reed returned to Boston and began to assemble the True Loves, which has undergone several line-up changes in the last three years, but now features Mike Montgomery (bass), Ryan Spraker (guitar), Paul Jones (tenor sax), Ben Jaffe (tenor sax), Patriq Moody (trumpet), and Andy Bauer (drums). Reed self-released an album of soul covers and originals, entitled Eli "Paperboy" Reed Sings Walkin' And Talkin' and the band played out all over the Northeast, earning glowing praise from the local press.
Through it all, Eli 'Paperboy' Reed and the True Loves have proved that soul music is a social leveller that cuts across age, race, and musical taste barriers. Of course it also helps that Reed is an electrifying showman who puts his heart into every song with a depth of feeling that would do his musical forefathers proud. Get ready to roll at Southbound.