Jimmy Reed's wife prompted his lyrics, and the Rolling Stones learned his songs
Jimmy Reed's laid-back electric blues crossed from the R&B charts onto the pop Hot 100 in the late 1950s, and one critic calls him perhaps the most influential bluesman of all. Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones recorded his songs, while his wife Mama Reed quietly sang backing and prompted him with forgotten words.
Mathis James Reed was born in Dunleith, Mississippi, in 1925 and learned harmonica and guitar from his friend Eddie Taylor. After years of street performing he moved to Chicago in 1943, was drafted into the Navy for the Second World War, and after his discharge in 1945 married Mary, who became known as Mama Reed. He then worked at an Armour meat-packing plant in Gary, Indiana.
By the 1950s he was playing with the Gary Kings and on the street. Chess Records turned him down, but through Albert King, then a drummer in John Brim's band, he signed with Vee-Jay, reunited with Eddie Taylor and scored his first hit with You Don't Have to Go. A long run followed, including Honest I Do in 1957 and Big Boss Man and Bright Lights, Big City in 1961, on several of which Mama Reed sang uncredited.
Heavy drinking dogged him, and his wife sometimes had to help him recall lyrics in the studio. In 1957 he developed epilepsy, which for years both he and his doctors mistook for alcohol withdrawal. After Vee-Jay folded he moved to the ABC-Bluesway label but never had another hit, though he toured Europe with the American Folk Blues Festival in 1968. He died of respiratory failure in Oakland in 1976, eight days before turning 51, The Blues Hall of Fame inducted him in 1980, and in 1991 he took his place in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
His simple, accessible style travelled far. The Rolling Stones filled early set lists with his songs, put Honest I Do on their 1964 debut album, and played The Sun Is Shining at Altamont in 1969. The Yardbirds, the Animals and Van Morrison's group Them all covered him, Elvis had a 1967 hit with Big Boss Man, and in 2020 Bob Dylan released Goodbye Jimmy Reed.
Source: Jimmy Reed
