Eli Paperboy Reed the blues

ELI Paperboy Reed is heading to Australia to deliver an up-close-and-personal duo show at Byron Theatre on May 19.

Soul outfit The Meltdown’s frontman, Simon Burke, will join the Brooklyn-based Reed for an intimate performance of soul, blues and gospel.

With nine acclaimed albums, Reed has blazed a trail in soulful blues music for the last 20 years with his notoriously sweaty and searing live shows. Critics have attributed shades of Wilson Picket and a rougher Marvin Gaye to his work.

From the early 2000s in the juke joints of Clarksdale, Mississippi, where he moved after high school, to the southside Chicago church of legend Mitty Collier, Reed cut his teeth at the forefront of soul.

In 2005, while working as a flower van delivery driver in Boston, he busked for tips in Harvard Square.

His first album, the fledgling Sings Walkin’ and Talkin’, was recorded live to analogue tape in mono, with Reed scraping together the cash to press 300 CDs.

Reed’s first full band was an ensemble of avant-garde, jazz and modern gospel musicians behind his rough-and-ready guitar playing and soulful voice.

His first original album, Roll with You, released in 2008, changed the game. Television networks, festivals and huge tours beckoned, including a gig at SXSW, which precipitated a deal with Capital Records.

Songs from the subsequent Come and Get It were licensed for film, television and advertising campaigns. Nights Like This, released in 2014 with Warner Bros., followed this trend.

In a time-honoured journey for many artists, Reed parted company with his major label in 2015 and, as before, returned to his home base, now Brooklyn, to regroup.

Within six weeks, he had an album’s worth of material, which became the trajectory-changing My Way Home. The back-to-basics yet fresh recording began Reed’s relationship with the indie label Yep Roc Records, which remains today.

Like artists worldwide, the COVID lockdowns of 2020 inspired him – this time to revive a long-held dream of recording an album of Merle Haggard’s catalogue. Reed’s versions of classics like Workin’ Man Blues and Mama Tried brought an invitation to perform at the exalted Grand Ole Opry in Nashville.

This year heralds the 20th-anniversary reissue of Sings Walkin’ and Talkin’ on vinyl.

“It’s been 20 years since I’ve had a real job,” Reed said.

“Listening back to those songs and my 21-year-old self 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.”

For audiences keen to find out just exactly where that ended up, visit byroncentre.com.au .