Jerry Reed Announced as 2017 Veteran’s Inductee to the Country Music Hall of Fame
The Guitar Man, Jerry Reed, is the Veteran’s Era inductee to the Country Music Hall of Fame for 2017. This was the news announced Wednesday morning (4-5) from the Hall of Fame rotunda in Nashville by emcee Vince Gill.
Such a great ambassador for country music over the years, Jerry Reed was inducted for his stellar and influential work as both a performer, songwriter, and a musician. There weren’t many better guitar pickers back in the day than Jerry Reed, and his session work on some of country music’s most memorable recordings was a cornerstone of his career. Same could be said for Jerry Reed’s songwriting, which found its way into the liner notes of not only his own hit records and songs, but those of his peers in the over three decades Jerry Reed contributed to country music’s legacy. And as a performer, few could top the energy and enthusiasm Jerry Reed had for the music.
Born in Atlanta, GA, in 1937, Jerry Reed Hubbard started writing and singing music by high school, and by 18, had signed his first publishing deal. in 1959, Jerry Reed had his first charting single with his rendition of “Soldier’s Joy,” and after spending two years in the United States Army, he moved to Nashville in 1961 to start a career as a songwriter.
Jerry Reed had 26 Top 20 hits over his career, including the Top 5 singles “When You’re Hot, You’re Hot,” “Lord, Mr. Ford,” “East Bound and Down,” and “She Got The Goldmine (And I Got The Shaft).”
Jerry Reed was also an accomplished actor, playing roles in Smoky and the Bandit, the animated series Scooby-Doo, and many more movies, including as the coach in the 1998 comedy The Waterboy, introducing Jerry Reed to a new generation of fans. Beyond all of his other accomplishments, Jerry Reed was an incredible ambassador for country music through his work in film and television, and from the infectious joy he brought to country. At a time when Disco, funk, and other influences were dominating popular music, Jerry Reed was the man to integrate some of the cross-track influences into country to keep it fresh and relevant.
Jerry Reed was also the 1970 and 1971 CMA Instrumentalist of the Year.
Reed passed away in 2008 in Nashville due to complications with emphysema. His two daughters were in attendance on Wednesday to receive their father’s distinction.
“He never forgot where he came from and he just always appreciated it so much and he loved life and he loved people and he loved making music,” his daughter Seidina Hubbard said. “I want people to know that what they saw is what they got. Dad really was a good, hysterical man. I want them to know he had a very serious, beautiful side. He brought all of the beauty and happiness to the family.”
The other 2017 Hall of Fame Inductees were Alan Jackson in the Modern Era, and Don Schlitz in the Songwriting category. All the newest members will be formally inducted in a medallion ceremony later this year.
April 5, 2017 @ 8:42 am
Yaaaaaaaaaay!!!!!!! Whoooo hoooo! Excellent choice..I couldn’t be happier. Jerry was great…what a picker, songwriter and a personality to boot. Just played his Texas Bound and Flying album the other day on vinyl of course. About time he got some recogntion. And don’t forget about the Adam Sandler movie Waterboy! He played the rival football coach. Hilarious.
Okay Hall of Fame , who else you gonna put in? We’ve got some real catching up to do.
April 5, 2017 @ 8:46 am
Jerry Reed is, in my mind, THE most underrated musician there is.
And he was funny as hell in “Smokey and the Bandit.”
April 5, 2017 @ 9:17 am
Great choice, you can’t go wrong with the Snowman. Great music, great acting, what’s not to like. I always liked the scene in Smokey and the Bandit where he gets the shit beat out of him by them bikers and he evens it up running over their Harley’s in the old KW. I need one of them old CAT diesel hats.
April 5, 2017 @ 9:19 am
Great scene. When you see the smile crack on his face as he figures out his revenge, it’s priceless.
April 7, 2017 @ 6:29 pm
That scene and the one where he gets pulled over and he’s trying to stall the patrolman.
“You know how fast you where going?”
“No officer, how fast was I going?”
“96 mile an hour”
“96 mile an hour? I had no idea this rig would go that fast!”
I tell you what it gets hairy on a two lane road going that fast in a semi. Not that I would every exceed the speed limit like that….
April 6, 2017 @ 5:25 am
I can’t recall where, but a while back I saw what was supposedly that very CAT diesel hat for sale. It might have been part of an estate auction…
April 5, 2017 @ 9:18 am
He was funny in everything he did! Such a shame he wasn’t given this moment while he was still with us.
April 5, 2017 @ 9:56 am
“No, I’m not Hank Snow’s brother.”
April 5, 2017 @ 9:57 am
Excellent news! If I’m ever in an especially irritable or morose mood, some Jerry Reed can be sure to bring me back into a better state of mind. Nobody did a trucking song better, and few could pick a guitar or put more raucous enthusiasm into their voice better than Reed.
April 5, 2017 @ 9:58 am
Er, I just typed Jimmy, and will smack myself in the head for that one.
April 5, 2017 @ 10:31 am
I got you…
April 5, 2017 @ 10:19 am
Jerry Reed finally gets admitted into the “goldmine” and is no longer getting the “shaft”! Excellent news!
April 5, 2017 @ 10:20 am
Lots of good it does him now should have done it when he was alive sob he could have enjoyed it
April 5, 2017 @ 10:58 am
So who should not have been inducted so that he could have gone in earlier? It’s not like he’s been passed over in favor of people like Billy “Crash” Craddock or Janie Fricke.
It’s unfortunate that he didn’t live to see his induction, but it’s far from a travesty of justice.
April 5, 2017 @ 6:15 pm
Well, I’d say that there were very few artists who SHOULD have made it in before Jerry Reed.
April 5, 2017 @ 10:59 am
Yep it’s too bad he isn’t still with us to enjoy the honor. Really wish the powers that be would think about these things when they restrict the number of nominees so dramatically. This is destined to happen again with someone I guarantee.
April 5, 2017 @ 11:11 am
Great news. One of the greats. I wish all of his records would be re-released. Its hard to find them anywhere.
April 5, 2017 @ 2:54 pm
Such is the case for so many artists of his era. The poison of country music’s reliance on radio is twofold: on one hand it obliges the genre far too much to the whims of the mainstream, and on the other it pretty much guarantees a litany of greatest hits packages for most older performers and not much else. I’ll be damned if it isn’t near-impossible to find some records by certain artists (Johnny Paycheck is my usual go-to for this point).
April 5, 2017 @ 2:59 pm
Yep, it’s pretty much always been a singles genre. Pop/rock used to be that way in the fifties/sixties but really changed into an album genre in the 1970s but country never fully did. Therefore individual country albums even by the greats are often lost to the dustbin of history.
April 5, 2017 @ 3:00 pm
Paycheck for sure. Coe and Jerry Reed are the same. There are some Russian sites out there that have taken old vinyl and turned them into MP3’s. They have a surprising catalog of Coe, Reed, and Paycheck.
April 5, 2017 @ 3:18 pm
DAC actually has it a bit better than the rest, ironically. His back catalogue on Columbia Records was actually released digitally a few years ago via official channels (as I recall, SCM ran an article about it). There’s also the Bear Family Records two-fers that feature two albums on one CD each, which is how I chose to collect those. His strange run of bargain bin records and re-recordings of hits for King Records in the ’90s are mostly out of print, but not unobtainable (and those are mostly covers and re-recordings, so their necessity is dubious at best). Only a few that he released are a pain in the butt to find. I think he also sells his x-rated albums via his website, but I wouldn’t know for sure about those as I’m uninterested. Really, the hardest Coe album to find is Requiem For A Harlequin, which is more of a spoken word experiment that he bills as the “first rap album” than country music. In my opinion it’s innately skippable, but very interesting nonetheless, and easily found on YouTube last I checked.
I’ve seen some of those sites you speak of and realized what they were doing when I saw a pre-outlaw Hank Jr. album for sale on one that isn’t available anywhere else. I’ve gotten vinyl conversions of all of Paycheck’s albums that I’m aware of, save one: The Last Outlaw from 1991. But as far as I know, that one was only ever released on cassette and sold at concerts in Branson, which really stinks. The title track with George Jones can usually be found online, but that’s about it.
April 5, 2017 @ 11:27 am
The induction announcement on the Hall of Fame website got the year of his death wrong (they wrote 2006). I’m sure they didn’t do it on purpose, but c’mon. You’d figure the CMA fact checkers would’ve at least given it the once-over before posting.
April 5, 2017 @ 3:08 pm
Yeah, even Wikipedia has it right…
April 5, 2017 @ 11:30 am
Really happy to hear this. Jerry knew how to make fun music that was also genuine and well made – nothing forced or manufactured about it. That list of top-five singles only scratches the surface. Good stuff.
April 5, 2017 @ 12:56 pm
Two of the albums that Jerry Reed did with Chet Atkins (Me and Jerry, Me and Chet) are among my favorite guitar picking albums.
April 5, 2017 @ 2:46 pm
When you’re hot, you’re hot.
April 5, 2017 @ 2:50 pm
What a great guitar player, and even a pretty good actor. Made a list of my top films by year to compare with some friends, and for 1977 most folks chose Star Wars. Like hell. Mine is and will always be the first Smokey and the Bandit, thank you very much. Very glad that Jerry Reed has finally made it in.
April 5, 2017 @ 3:04 pm
Smokey and the Bandit isn’t the best movie ever, but its my favorite movie ever. Also check out Jerry Reed in Gator, if you haven’t seen it. Gator is the sequel to White Lightning. White Lightning is a better movie, but Gator is entertaining and plus, it has Jerry Reed. Bo Hopkins plays Roy Boone in White Lightning, and if you squint, you’d swear it was Jerry Reed.
April 5, 2017 @ 3:07 pm
I’m aware of the film and have seen clips, though not the entirety of it. I’ll get around to it one of these days. I LOVE the “Gator” theme song he recorded for the film, though.
How do you personally feel about the second and third Smokey films?
April 5, 2017 @ 3:15 pm
Neither film is worth watching. II is barely tolerable. III is so horrible that its impossible to make it through five minutes. The big error was that II should have picked up exactly where the original left off, with Big/Little Enos’s double or nothing bet to go to Boston for clam chowder. Same cast, etc. No need to include Dom Deluise or an elephant…
April 5, 2017 @ 3:21 pm
I actually get a neutered kick out of the third film as the Buford T. Justice show featuring Jerry Reed. It’s complete nonsense, but I knew that going in and was actually surprised by the humor of some of the gags, even if it’s rather wrongheaded from the start. All told, I think I’d rather watch III than II on a regular day. It’s lack of balance and generally insipid execution of a half-baked idea make it more interesting to me than the re-heated leftovers of II.
April 5, 2017 @ 3:53 pm
I wasn’t able to suspend reality long enough to enjoy III.
April 5, 2017 @ 4:03 pm
To be fair, I laugh at the film more than I do with it. But (funny) point taken.
April 7, 2017 @ 6:21 pm
The only good thing about II is the Great American Truck Race in the opening scene. I’m not much of a NASCAR fan, but I could get in to semi truck racing. I already like watching them on the pulling track.
April 5, 2017 @ 8:14 pm
“Don’t let your foot off of that hammer son, them bears about to pour all over you like maple syrup”
April 5, 2017 @ 3:06 pm
Proving that the Hall of Fame’s head is firmly up it’s own ass ! This should’ve happened years ago ! Jerry will always be one of the alltime best !
April 5, 2017 @ 3:32 pm
This is great! He’s deserved this for a long time, he’s one of my favorites. I’m wondering if this means we could see DAC inducted any time soon. Also, this is random, but I somehow never noticed he was the coach in waterboy, I fell like I should go watch it again.
April 6, 2017 @ 11:41 am
No, it means that Jerry Reed will be inducted into the H-o-F this year.
It doesn’t mean that David Allan Coe will be getting in soon.
April 5, 2017 @ 5:37 pm
Jerry Reed rules. Great player, wacky, fun, funny as hell, devil-may-care. He’d have been the Steve McQueen of country music if McQueen had had a sense of humor. Reed knew he was good and knew he had the respect of top-shelf guitarists like Chet Atkins and Glen Campbell. Badass. He’s Georgia’s country version of Peter O’Toole: he would’ve ridden a buffalo onto a TV set if he could’ve found one ready to go.
Thank God for YouTube.
April 6, 2017 @ 4:48 am
Congratulations Guitar Man!
Neat story–Jerry is one of only 5 (or really 7) Certified Guitar Players–certified by Chet Atkins himself. Check it out, and Chet’s album CGP as well. (And I vote for Mark Knopfler as honorary number 8, BTW.)
And yes–posthumous inductions into the CMHoF happen far too frequently. It’s ridiculous and needs to change. Period.
April 6, 2017 @ 1:31 pm
Congrats to the late Jerry Reed and certainly becoming a posthumous inductee is impressive by an organization in recent years have the mentality “When you’re dead, you’re dead” (I didn’t even realize that was a Reed pun until I typed it LOL).
On the other hand, saddened though not surprised we have yet another year without a female artist getting inducted. Talented and popular as Reed was, there’s about a dozen female vocalists from his era (60s-80s) who were at least as big and influential and at least five whose careers were far greater. Jerry deserves this but so do quite a few others perhaps even moreso.
April 28, 2017 @ 4:04 am
Deserving I think… hell of a picker. 😀