ALBUM REVIEW: Eli ‘Paperboy’ Reed Applies Soul Appeal to a Wide Range of Covers on ‘Hits and Misses’
Grant Britt
Posted On October 19, 2023
For the last two decades, Eli “Paperboy” Reed has been screamin’ like a lost soul trying to find his way home. The Brookline, Massachusetts, native started vocalizing like a ’60s soul demon after moving to Clarksdale, Mississippi, shortly after his high school graduation, honing his craft in the local juke joints.
Eli “Paperboy” Reed (photo by Ray Lego)
After relocating to Chicago for college, Reed spent more time getting an education in gospel performing in soul woman-turned evangelist Mitty Collier’s South Side church than in a classroom. Dropping out a year later, Reed returned to Boston to put his soul man persona on record with 2005’s Walkin’ and Talkin’ for My Baby and Other Smash Hits!. Roll With It in 2008 and 2010’s Come and Get It made Reed a major label attraction, but things fell apart when Warner Bros. dumped him in 2014. Reed went to work for his father at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research think tank, taking on leadership of a free after-school program in Harlem, Gospel for Teens. Schooling at-risk teens in gospel performance inspired Reed to do an all-gospel record on Yep Roc Records, My Way Home, in 2016. Since then, Reed’s output on the label has been similar to the classic soul greats, an aisle-straddling mix of sanctified gospel and earth-scorching soul.
On his latest outing, Hits and Misses: The Singles, Reed offers a collection of covers previously available only as 45s at his merch table, plus three originals, including “IDKWYCTD (I Came to Play),” featured in Disney’s streaming adaptation of the Marvel comic Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur.
To kick off the album, Reed comes out panther-screamin’ like Wilson Pickett walking on hot coals at Muscle Shoals. Reinventing Motörhead’s classic “Ace of Spades,” Lemmy’s anvil pounding, amphetamine-fueled clanker is transformed. With an intro that sounds like it’s gonna lead into Otis Redding’s “Fa Fa Fa (Sad Songs)”, the band whips up a horn-heavy metal/soul/funk concoction fronted by Reed impersonating a howling street preacher trying to exorcise his demonic side.
Everything he touches becomes barely recognizable, transforming Steely Dan’s “Do It Again” to a smoky late-night cabaret ’60s-era hipster finger-snapper with spooky undertones. To make it even stranger, Reed originally paired it on a 45 with a take on Latimore’s “Let’s Straighten It Out.” In contrast to Latimore’s rather restrained pleadings, Reed’s having a soul attack on his version, his heart about to jump out of his chest as he screams about his fiery version of reconciliation.
Messing with Jimmy Hughes’ 1964 classic “Steal Away” is a risky business, but Reed pulls it off smoothly, recording it in the same place with some of the same Muscle Shoals Swampers who were on the original, scorching the ceiling with his soulful emanations. He also cut “I Don’t Know What the World Is Coming To” while at FAME studios, leaving Bobby Womack’s 1975 disco version in the dirt while staying in the spirit of the 1972 version by Memphis’ The Soul Children recorded live at Wattstax. But here it’s done up the way The Staple Singers might have cut it back in the day, dripping with gospel funk and glorious soul.
Despite being titled Hits and Misses, there aren’t any losers here. The production and performance, coupled with the sheer raw power of Reed’s soulful vocals, make these songs jump and shout, suitable for rolling in the aisles or dancing in the streets.
Eli “Paperboy” Reed’s Hits and Misses: The Singles is out Oct. 20 on Yep Roc Records.
