Acknowledging Jerry Reed today

[DagerRande]

I already posted this on FaceBook but I just wanted to acknowledge Jerry. He would have been 78 today.
Thanks to Chet, he came to Nashville as more than just another musician and guitar player. He blew people
away with his energy and musical originality. I consider him to have been a musical genius. I always enjoyed the surprises
in his songs, and I was pretty good at anticipating!

Though he was never formally trained, his ideas are studied and analyzed at the Berklee School of Music in Boston, thanks to Rick Peckham. This is ironic, since Jerry claimed never to be a very good guitarist, but rather just a "guitar thinker".
When I mention his name to people, they either never heard of him or, after some head scratching, remember
him as the truck driver in "Smokey and the Bandit". Jerry's ideas have greatly influenced many of my arrangements.

R.I.P. Jerry....3-20-37 to 9-1-08

[bill park]

Nice post, thanks Rande.

And thanks also to guys like Rick Peckham, Craig Dobbins, Darrell Toney, Richard Smith, Phil Hunt, Audie Wykle, and others who keep Jerry's music alive through teaching and performing.

[DagerRande]

In Jerry's case, it's more than just "keeping it alive", because for the majority people aware of Jerry, there was nothing to "keep alive" because they never knew what a great musician and guitarist he was in the first place. I have a close friend who only learned of Jerry's guitar ability when he read my FB post. This was more of an "educational mission" to enlighten people as to the massive musical talent that we lost.

[awykle]

Thanks Bill for including me in such excellent company! Coming from a great player like you, it means a lot!