It's hard for us who aren't the right generation to understand what a radical thing it was for Elvis Presley to play what he did back in the 1950s. It had nothing to do with how much or how he moved his hips and everything to do with the skin colour of the musicians that influenced him. Sure he was playing a lot of country music but that beat was pure Blues.
One of the major influences on Elvis and all the other young white musicians who were keen to experiment was Jimmy Reed. He was born down South but like so many others migrated up North and got work in and around Chicago. After two years of working in a foundry in Gary, Indiana though, he was able to quit and become a full time musician.
What made Jimmy Reed so attractive to young musicians were his big, chunky, sound and steady rhythms. Like Big Bill Brozney, he often sang unaccompanied save for his own guitar keeping time and harmonica blowing solos. Listen to any Rolling Stones song from the early '60s and you can almost hear Jimmy Reed playing along. They weren't the only ones as Van Morrison and The Grateful Dead both showed his influence in their earliest recordings.
Unfortunately, he didn't survive as long as some of his contemporaries did, dieing of an epileptic seizure in 1976 at the age of 51 and has missed out on the accolades heaped on the first generation of Blues artists recently.
Thankfully, there are those who still remember how important he was, and a group of them under the direction of Omar Kent Dykes (of Omar And The Howlers fame) and Jimmie Vaughan have put together a disc honouring both the memory and the music of Jimmy Reed.
On The Jimmy Reed Highway, released earlier this year on the German label Ruf Records is a collection of rollicking tunes that Jimmy either penned, or performed, plus a couple written in his honour. Right from the opening song the disc's title track "On The Jimmy Reed Highway" written by Omar, you know you're in for one hell of a ride.
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