Jimmy Reed is a blues musician from Dunleith, Mississippi, born in 1925 and active in electric blues and rhythm and blues. He works as a singer, guitarist, harmonica player and songwriter, and his recordings help bring his style of blues to a mainstream audience.

Early life and career

Reed learns harmonica and guitar from Eddie Taylor, a close friend, after growing up in the Dunleith area. He spends several years busking and performing locally before moving to Chicago in 1943. He is then drafted into the US Navy during the Second World War. After his discharge in 1945, he returns to Mississippi briefly, marries his girlfriend Mary “Mama” Reed, and then moves to Gary, Indiana, where he works at an Armour & Co. meat packing plant.

Recording career

By the 1950s, Reed establishes himself as a popular performer in and around Gary. He plays with the Gary Kings alongside John Brim and also performs on the street with Willie Joe Duncan. He fails to secure a recording contract with Chess Records, but signs to Vee-Jay Records through Brim’s drummer, Albert King. At Vee-Jay he begins recording again with Eddie Taylor and releases “You Don’t Have to Go”, his first hit record, followed by a long run of hits.

Reed’s sound is marked by a distinctive voice, piercing harmonica playing and hypnotic guitar patterns, which become one of the most recognisable sounds in blues during the 1950s and 1960s. He is a major figure in electric blues and has a significant influence on later rock and roll musicians, including Elvis Presley, Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top and the Rolling Stones.

Personal life and later career

Mary “Mama” Reed appears as an uncredited background singer on many of his songs, including “Baby What You Want Me to Do”, “Big Boss Man” and “Bright Lights, Big City”. Reed continues to work despite serious personal difficulties, including alcoholism, and his wife sometimes helps him remember lyrics while recording. In 1957 he develops epilepsy, though it is not correctly diagnosed for a long time because it is mistaken for delirium tremens.

When Vee-Jay Records closes, his manager signs him to the new ABC-Bluesway label, but he does not score another hit there. In 1968 he tours Europe with the American Folk Blues Festival.

Legacy

Reed dies in Oakland, California in 1976 from respiratory failure and is buried in Lincoln Cemetery in Worth, Illinois. He is inducted posthumously into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991. His songs remain widely covered and cited, and recordings such as “Big Boss Man” and “Bright Lights, Big City” are listed among the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.

Influence and covers

The Rolling Stones include several Reed songs in early set lists, including “Ain’t That Lovin’ You Baby”, “The Sun Is Shining”, “Bright Lights, Big City” and “Shame, Shame, Shame”; their 1964 single B-side “Little by Little” is a pastiche of “Shame, Shame, Shame”, and their first album includes “Honest I Do”. The Yardbirds record “Like Jimmy Reed Again” in his honour. Them cover “Bright Lights, Big City” and “Baby, What You Want Me to Do”. The Grateful Dead perform “Big Boss Man” regularly and also play “Baby What You Want Me to Do”. Elvis Presley records several Reed songs, including “Big Boss Man” and performances of “Baby, What You Want Me to Do”. Other artists associated with his songs include Wishbone Ash, Etta James, Hot Tuna, Johnny and Edgar Winter, Bill Cosby, Steve Miller Band, Neil Young, Billy Childish and Thee Headcoats, Omar Kent Dykes and Jimmie Vaughan.