Exile keyboardist Marlon Hargis applauds phenomenal six string slinger Jerry Reed

Founding Exile musician Marlon Hargis grants a comprehensive interview exploring the eclectic artistry of Country Music Hall of Fame Veterans Era inductee Jerry Reed. In this vintage circa 1971 still, the guitar wiz ecstatically smells the flowers on the Studio 41, CBS Television City, Los Angeles set of musical variety series “The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour,” a Top 20 ratings winner airing from 1969–1972 that helped launch the “You Took All the Ramblin’ Out of Me” songwriter’s career. Image Credit: CBS / Getty Images

Son, it was a long time coming for Jerry Reed. The three-time Grammy winner and comically antagonistic Coach Beaulieu in Adam Sandler’s The Waterboy was finally inducted into Nashville’s Country Music Hall of Fame on October 22, 2017, nigh on 10 years after his untimely passing from emphysema complications.

Straddling the Great Depression and the onslaught of World War II, Reed’s trajectory began in 1937 in Atlanta. Learning rudimentary chords at age seven on a beaten up, second hand acoustic guitar purchased by his perpetually cash-strapped cotton mill working mother, Reed was a failed rockabilly singer, Specialist 4 U.S. Army veteran, Nashville songwriter [e.g. Porter Wagoner’s “Misery Loves Company”], devoted Chet Atkins apprentice, and brief Elvis Presley session guitarist before he finally landed his first Top 20 single, the tongue-in-cheek Presley homage “Tupelo Mississippi Flash,” shortly before his 31st birthday.

Altogether, 37 Billboard Top 40 country singles — 27 of those vaulted into the Top 20 — accentuated the eclectic artist’s recording resume on RCA Victor through 1983. The funky swamp rocker “Amos Moses” and lawbreaking novelty contained in “When You’re Hot, You’re Hot” heavily fueled Reed’s crossover pop appeal.