My First Review on the Brand-New SonicBoomers.com

Eli “Paperboy” Reed & the True Loves
Roll With You

If somebody played you “Stake Your Claim,” the perfectly titled opening cut on Eli “Paperboy” Reed’s new album Roll With You without any context, and you heard a gritty voiced singer testifying in front of a pile-driving rhythm section and a bodaciously wailing horn section, you’d automatically assume this steamy soul stew was cut in Memphis or Muscle Shoals 40 years ago. There’s no way it could be the work of a 24-year-old, baby-faced Jewish kid from Boston and his equally young and white seven-piece soul revue, the True Loves, could it? But then, you probably had the same reaction the first time you heard the uncannily soulful English singer Amy Winehouse fronting Brooklyn funkateers the Dap-Kings last year, or more recently, when encountering by chance the 21-year-old Welsh newcomer Duffy riding the “Gimme Some Lovin’”-style groove of her song “Mercy.” If Winehouse opened the door, Reed and his finger-lickin’-good combo kick it wide open, channeling their collective obsessiveness of southern... [To read the rest, Go to SonicBoomers.com.]