Eli Paperboy Reed Meets High & Mighty Brass Band Available Now

Listen/Share: “As I Live and Breathe”
 
For his latest recording, Eli Paperboy Reed, who “invokes the stylish and muscular R&B of Otis Redding and Sam Cooke with convincing suavity” (New York Times) joined forces with fellow Brooklynites High & Mighty Brass Band for Eli Paperboy Reed Meets High & Mighty Brass Band, an album featuring 11 re-imagined tracks of Reed’s best known songs. Originally released for Record Store Day 2018, the album is now available at all digital service providers and on CD and LP.
 
From the first time that Reed joined High & Mighty on stage it was clear that the combination was special. Reed’s powerful wailing over the top of a 10-piece brass band complete with tuba, two drummers, trombones and trumpets was a sound that had never been heard before. After several high-profile shows together in Brooklyn, NY and Las Vegas, NV, it became abundantly clear that The Paperboy and The Brass Band needed to meet in the recording studio.
 
Over the course of three days in July of 2017, they recorded 11 tracks live on reel-to-reel tape. The selections include radical brass-band re-arrangements of Reed’s soul classics -- “Come and Get It,” “WooHoo,” “Take My Love With You” -- and covers, including Beyonce’s “Love on Top” and a brand-new Reed composition written specifically for the album, “As I Live and Breathe.”
 
From humble musical beginnings growing up outside of Boston, Reed moved to Clarksdale, Mississippi when he was 18, and cut his teeth playing and singing in juke joints all over the Delta. From there he took the well-trod path to Chicago, where he spent a year as minister of music with Southside church of Soul legend Mitty Collier. Soon after returning to Boston in 2008, he released his first full-length studio album, Roll With You. Come and Get It (2010) and Nights Like This (2014) followed, with Reed and his band impressing audiences on five continents. In 2016, he returned to the studio for his Yep Roc debut, My Way Home.

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