Alabama Wild Man

[Moonbeam_Starlight]

Hey, I'm just sayin'.

[Fenris]

1. A totally underrated talent!

:thumbsup:

[JohnKleeb]

2. heh who is he?

[flamingyouth]

3. Read and learn, my son

http://www.alabamawildman.com/

[ForrestGump]

4. If you've ever heard Elvis' hit "Guitar Man" (the 1967 original or the

1980 version with new backing track), you've heard Jerry Reed's playing. It was Jerry Reed's song and Elvis loved it so much that he managed to get Jerry into the studio to play guitar on his version, as well as on some other songs at that session and in 1968 (when he did his version of Jerry's "US Male"). Elvis' A&R man tracked Jerry down -- he was fishing in the Columbia River -- and Jerry showed up at Nashville RCA studio B wearing stinky fishing clothes. Elvis did four Jerry Reed songs (I think) and Jerry played on two of them, as well as four others. I wish he'd worked more with Elvis -- they were a great team

You've also heard him if you know the "Eastbound and Down" theme from the Smokey and the Bandit movie, or the title song to 1976's Gator ("Everything is okey-dokey in the Okeefenokee.." -- I love that line). He had lots of hits, especially in the late '60s and '70s, and wrote lots for other people. He was the trucker in Smokey and the Bandit and has proven himself an excellent actor in other properties -- he was the commander of Danny Glover's unit in Bat 21, a film that he helped bring about (he was Exceutive Producer). He should act more -- he's very good. He should play more, too!

In the '50s and '60s Nashville had an A-list group of session musicians (people like Harold Bradley and Grady Martin -- the guys who backed Elvis from 1958 to 1968) and LA had its hot session players (people like James Burton and Tommy Tescedero); Jerry Reed led the charge in Nashville for a new generation of session aces and was THE hot lead guitarist in Nashville in the late '60s. Some of the traditionalists couldn't handle him -- his style or his personality (same thing happened to Elvis in the '50s) -- but that Georgia boy could play. His sensibilities fit in more with the 'outlaw' crowd of the '70s, outside the Nashville Establishment, and he worked with some of those dudes a fair bit. Most of his songs you'll hear played don't feature a lot of guitar work, but he really is an excellent lead guitarist, on acoustic or electric. His songs tend to be 'story' songs, like most of Chuck Berry's, but Jerry Reed's as underrated as Chuckie is overrated.

He also had an '80s hit, "She Got the Gold Mine," that I think too many could relate to:

She got the goldmine
I got the shaft
Well, they split it right down the middle
And they give her the better half