Eli Paperboy Reed + The Harlem Gospel Travelers

Hailed as “the king of rhythm & soul” by Mojo, Eli Paperboy Reed made his way from Brookline, MA, to Clarksdale, MS, as a teenager, honing his chops while immersing himself in the juke joint culture of the Delta. After a stint playing with famed gospel singer Mitty Collier on the south side of Chicago in his early twenties, Reed returned to the Boston area and began turning heads with a series of albums that earned widespread acclaim, with NPR hailing the music as “inspired, raw and powerful” and Uncut lauding its “urgent, electric energy.” The records landed Reed multiple major label deals, scores of song placements in film and tv, and festival dates around the world as he established himself as one of the most compelling and consistent soul men of the modern era.

On his latest collection, Getting There, Reed explores a more grown-up kind of love, contemplating what it takes for two people to go the distance through good times and bad. Produced by legendary R&B iconoclast Swamp Dogg, the album is a joyful dose of timeless soul and roots music, but it’s also a deeply mature work of lyrical craftsmanship, one that reckons with the vagaries of love in the long term as it illuminates the myriad throughlines connecting soul, gospel, and R&B music with folk, country, and rock and roll. Add it all up and you’ve got an infectious take on the work that follows the fireworks, an ode to the extraordinary endurance of the ordinary, everyday love that makes the world go around.

The Harlem Gospel Travelers are not actually from Harlem. They came to Harlem, however, from far-flung corners of the five boroughs of New York City, and it was in Harlem, that legendary center of African-American culture, that they found their voices. As students of of the music-education program Gospel For teens, Thomas Gatling, Asher Bethune, Stephen Pedley and George Marage spent many hours on the subway or the bus to ultimately end up at an unassuming brownstone on W. 126th St. They walked through the red door at the parlor level and inside they found a world of music. Gospel music.