Eli "Paperboy" Reed, a Boston-via-Delta South soul singer who conquered both street corners and punk clubs with a mix of grooved-out rave-ups and slow-burning ballads. Sounds like your favorite Motown and Stax Records livened up for the Winehouse era.

Eli “Paperboy” Reed is a survivor. He’s been making Soul-inspired music since before it was cool and tearing up stages all over the world with his heart-stopping falsetto screams for close to a decade. From humble beginnings outside of Boston, at 18 Reed moved to Clarksdale, Mississippi and cut his teeth playing in juke joints all over the Delta.

From there he took the well-trod path to Chicago where he spent a year as minister of music in a Southside church. Soon after returning to Boston, he was bit by the songwriting bug and released his first full length, “Roll with You” in 2008. The world began listening. Soon there were calls coming in from everywhere; television shows in the UK, festivals in Australia, and a jaw-dropping schedule of national and international tour dates.

Major label deals were signed and his star kept rising, now with the help of song placements in major movies, television shows and commercials. The albums “Come and Get it” (Capitol) and “Nights Like This” (Warner Brothers) went on to do more than $2.5 million in total licensing, while Reed and his crack band continued to wow audiences on five continents.

Now, after some much-needed time off from the road, Reed has returned to the studio and crafted a new album that is at once back-to-basics and startlingly current. “My Way Home” represents a return to the sonic character that Reed’s career began with, but it does more than that: It captures the essence of his sound. A sound that, over everything else, prizes feeling, energy, and, yes, Soul.

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