Jerry Reed was everywhere in the ’70s. He was on every variety show. He was in movies. He did duets. He popped up. He was a major star, and – better than a star – a CHARACTER. I miss CHARACTERS. Like, I miss Jack Nicholson being a regular presence at awards shows, irreverent, playful, reminding us all to not take this shit too seriously. Jerry Reed was like that.
And dazzlingly gifted. Crazy. The original “Guitar Man”.
Let’s talk about his songwriting too. He was the ultimate MAN, right? But he had this wary sardonic awareness of the sometimes SILLY behavior of men, which he lampooned in his songs – which people blind to irony would probably take as endorsements. Like “U.S. Male”, which Elvis did. Like, that song is not a celebration of the qualities on display by the speaker/singer. It’s sarcastic. It’s a lampoon of the dummy-dumb boring macho male. Elvis, who had a sharp sense of irony, clearly knew this in his version. His asides are hysterical: “That’s m-a-l-e, son.” The lyrics are clearly tongue in cheek.
It takes a free man to laugh at the ridiculous foibles men – especially randy wild men, of which Jerry Reed was one – get themselves into. No wonder he and Burt Reynolds got on like gangbusters. Roosters of a feather, ya know what I mean?
Here he is back in 1969, doing his “A Thing Called Love” (which Elvis also covered a couple years later on his “country” album).
Watch him do a duet with Dolly Parton switching up the lyrics to his hilarious “She Got the Goldman (I Got the Shaft)”. And I suggest you watch it now, because the clip is continuously flagged for copyright reasons on YouTube and it disappears. Then someone uploads it again. Wash, rinse, repeat.
Their chemistry sizzles. I wish we had more of it. They are two outrageous flirts and it just works so well together.
I never get sick of watching all the duets Chet Atkins and Reed did in the ’70s/’80s. Masters. Like here they are, doing a Bob Dylan song.
This clip is short but legendary.
Or this: I love how they just stand back and appreciate each other, and also how they are clearly trying to one-up each other. Or, impress each other, like “Get a load of this.”
Their whole album together is great.
He wrote classic songs which became monster hits. They’re rowdy, but grounded by his exhilarating playing. You can tell it’s him, whether or not you know it’s him. “Alabama Wild Man.” The Grammy-winning “When You’re Hot, You’re Hot”. Country-western was wild in the 70s. The theme song for Smokey and the Bandit, “East Bound and Down”.
I mean, let’s not ignore Smokey and the Bandit
The man was a star. He was a character and a star.
I love the story of him coming in to American Sound to accompany Elvis on a couple of the tracks Elvis was recording in those groundbreaking sessions in 1969. Chips Moman wanted Jerry Reed for the sessions, but nobody could find Reed. He was MIA. Where the hell was he? Someone finally found him fishing in a swamp or something. I mean, you can’t make this shit up. “Jerry, we’ve been looking for you for a week. Elvis needs you.” I picture Reed being discovered like this:
When Elvis calls, you leave the swamp. Jerry came into the studio like a legitimate swamp monster, just wild-eyed and READY. The two men shook hands, blah blah, and … Jerry Reed said something like “He’s better-looking than any woman I’ve ever seen.” Again, with the freedom of him. He wasn’t COOL. He was HOT. There are early takes of some of the songs Elvis did when you can hear Jerry pushing Elvis on – !! – encouraging him to go deeper, wilder, with comments thrown out like “Hell, yeah, Elvis.” It’s amazing.
I’m just cherry-picking the clips coming up on YouTube because they’re all fantastic. Here he is on the Porter Wagoner show, doing a medley of Chuck Berry songs, and that’s I suppose as good a place as any to end my birthday tribute to this mega-talented man who gave the world so much fun and so much great music.
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