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Home > Austin Music Source > Archives > 2008 > September > 02 > Entry
Redd Volkaert on Jerry Reed
“This is such sad news,” Austin’s Telecaster master Redd Volkaert said Tuesday, in response to the news that Jerry Reed had passed away at age 71 in Nashville. “His playing was so funky, so jacked up, yet so articulate,” Volkaert said of Reed, who became better known as an actor (“Smokey and the Bandit,” “The Waterboy”) than a guitar picker later in his career. “Nobody played like Jerry Reed,” said Volkaert, who would watch Reed’s appearances on “The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour” with a guitar in his lap. “You couldn’t really learn his stuff. He was like Django Reinhardt, with all those intricate patterns.”
Volkaert, whose new record “Reddhead” comes out Sept. 16, says he picked up the Fender Telecaster as a kid to emulate the Bakersfield guitars of Don Rich (Buck Owens) and Roy Nichols (Merle Haggard). Then later he heard what Reed could do with a Telecaster and it blew him away. “He was Chet Atkins on fire.” Reed’s snappy, chicken-pickin’ style on “Amos Moses” in 1971 still influences country rock guitarists. “Everybody wanted that sound,” Volkaert said.
Reminded that Atkins, considered the greatest fingerpicker in country music history, used to say that Reed was better, Volkaert said, “Even the greats have their heroes.”
Asked if he had a favorite Reed piece, Volkaert mentioned “Lightnin’ Rod,” which Reed played on a classical guitar. Check it out.
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By CB
September 3, 2008 6:00 PM | Link to this
RIP JReed. You were the best.