The Vee-Jay singles of Jimmy Reed, with their great mixture of his nimble guitar work, distinctive Southern accent, interesting vocal model and ornamental harmonica, are certainly among the many most seductive R&B releases of their day.
Elsewhere, we notice that 1955’s “You Don’t Have To Go” marked the beginning of his remarkably productive run of R&B chart entries, which ran to twenty over the following 11 years. Right now we flip the highlight on one other spotlight amongst them, “Hush Hush,” which entered the countdown on October 24, 1960.
Recorded in the summertime of 1959, the sometimes slinky observe was a Reed unique, and was lined up by Vee-Jay as his third single of 1960 after certainly one of his signatures, “Baby What You Want Me To Do,” and “Found Love.” These 45s had reached No.10 and No.16 respectively on Billboard’s Scorching R&B Sides itemizing. “Found Love” was the title tune of the present album by the dapper bluesman from Dunleith, Mississippi, which additionally featured “Hush Hush.”
That album was marketed in a full-page Vee-Jay advert in Billboard’s August 22 version alongside new releases by such labelmates as Dee Clark, John Lee Hooker, Lee Morgan, the Staple Singers, and newcomer Wayne Shorter. “Fall Festival of Teen Delights,” ran the headline. “Pop, Jazz, Folk, Spirituals, Blues Albums.”
The brand new single, backed by “Going By The River (Part II),” entered the chart at No.24, as Brook Benton continued an epic nine-week run at No.1 with “Kiddio.” Different new entries that week included Jerry Butler’s splendid “He Will Break Your Heart” and, auspiciously, an 18-year-old Aretha Franklin, making her first-ever nationwide chart look along with her debut Columbia single “Today I Sing The Blues.”
“Hush Hush” climbed to No.18 for Reed, additionally making No.75 on the Scorching 100, certainly one of Reed’s dozen entries there. The tune later impressed covers by the likes of Luther Johnson in 1975 and Etta James in 2004, on her Grammy-winning Blues To The Bone album. Reed was solely 50 when he died in 1976, however he was rightly inducted into the Rock and Roll Corridor of Fame in 1991.
‘Jimmy Reed was a very big model for us’
Later British rockers with blues of their bones, like Keith Richards and Eric Clapton, had been at residence admiring his each transfer. “Jimmy Reed was a very big model for us,” wrote Richards in his autobiography, Life. “That was all the time two-guitar stuff. Virtually a research in monotony in some ways, until you bought in there. However then Jimmy Reed had one thing like twenty hits within the charts with principally the identical tune. He had two tempos.
Take heed to one of the best of Jimmy Reed on Apple Music and Spotify.
“But he understood the magic of repetition, of monotony, transforming itself to become this sort of hypnotic, trancelike thing. We were fascinated by it, Brian [Jones] and I. We would spend every spare moment trying to get down Jimmy Reed’s guitar sounds.”
Purchase or stream “Hush Hush” on Mr. Luck: The Full Vee-Jay Singles.
