Guitarist par excellence Jerry Reed dies at 71

[Bake]

http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/200809021113/TUNEIN/80902039

Rest in peace, son. You were one helluva fine picker!

Bake

[regularguy]

1. Man that sucks. What a great player he was!

Here's an incredible video of him and Chet:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ni8KBhnebwE

RIP

[johnnie]

2. Oh shit!

That dude could play. RIP Jerry :(

[Iggo]

3. He was a guit player.

RIP

[libnnc]

4. I sat in his lap in Raleigh, NC--1978.

I was 8 years old. My mom and I were at a Cancer Society workshop in Raleigh. I think we were in the hotel restaurant and he approached us (he was trying to ask mom out I think :eyes:)

Really nice guy. He looked great.

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

5. Hate to hear it - Criminally, criminally underrated musician

No one could match him for cool attitude
All the real country musicians are leaving us and we're left with crap like Carrie Underwood and Leann Rimes
Here's one of his best clips:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ni8KBhnebwE

[Bake]

7. Criminally underrated is right!

Reed was a guitar player's guitar player!! And if I'm not mistaken, a lifetime inductee into the Guitar Player (Magazine) Hall of Fame - meaning he'd won so many times as Player of the Year, he couldn't win any more!

Bake

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

8. Cool bit from wikipedia

In 1967, Reed notched his first chart hit with "Guitar Man," which Elvis Presley soon covered. Presley had come to Nashville to record in 1967, and one of the songs he was working on was "Guitar Man," which Reed had written and recorded. "I was out on the Cumberland River fishing, and I got a call from Felton Jarvis (then Presley's producer). He said, 'Elvis is down here. We've been trying to cut 'Guitar Man' all day long. He wants it to sound like it sounded on your album.' I finally told him, 'Well, if you want it to sound like that, you're going have to get me in there to play guitar, because these guys (you're using in the studio) are straight pickers. I pick with my fingers and tune that guitar up all weird kind of ways.'"
So, Jarvis hired Reed to play on the session. "I hit that intro, and face lit up and here we went. Then after he got through that, he cut 'U.S. Male' at the same session. I was toppin' cotton, son."

[Archae]

6. Crap!

He was a heckuva actor, too.

I loved him in the first two "Smokey and the Bandit" movies.

[pokerfan]

9. Ah, man

that sucks.