Following the release of his new album “Getting There”, the Brooklyn-based, by way of Boston soulman is on tour and made a stop at the Brooklyn Bowl backed by a ten-piece band. Soul Bag was there to tell you about it.

Opened in 2009 by the promoter and publisher Peter Shapiro, known for his work with the Grateful Dead, the Brooklyn Bowl is an atypical music venue that combines bowling and live music. The clatter of the balls crashing into pins while artists perform adds a unique touch to this ultimately very American form of entertainment.

In front of a sparse crowd due to the nor’easter forecast, singer Zaniah, who is featured on the track “Love You More” on Eli’s latest record, makes her entrance for a twenty-minute-ish set of radiant R&B before ending with a homage to Dolly Parton, singing “I Will Always Love You,” setting the tone for the upcoming Eli “Paperboy” Reed’s set.

Eli takes the stage, sharp-dressed in the finest soul tradition, suit and sunglasses, and launches into a fired-up version of Cut Ya Down, backed by his ten-piece band, horn section, B3 organ and backing singers included. The lineup featured Jonny Lam, who also plays on the album, on guitar and pedal steel, as well as singers Brandi Thompson Ulian and Cherette White. We would have loved, as Eli mentions, to see Swamp Dogg, producer and one of the musicians on the album, there. It doesn’t stop Reed from performing his songs to perfection: Am I Wasting My Time, Asking For a Friend, Getting There, One Man’s Trash (Is Another Man’s Treasure) or Like We Used, with its pedal steel blending country and soul under a palpable Hi Records influence. Later, Zaniah came back on stage for the duet “Love You More.”

The atmosphere gradually warms up, the band is solid, and Eli seems to be happy to be there. He is stirring up the crowd (“Is everybody enjoying themselves as much as I am?”), telling stories about the making of the songs. With emotion, he tells us about his show at Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry a few days earlier and performs “Somewhere Between” by Merle Haggard, one of his favorite singers, in a version that could definitely be sung by Joe Tex. This is exactly what we’re talking about with Eli. Raised on country from a young age, it was quite natural for him to continue the legacy of what Ray Charles, Arthur Alexander, or, well, Swamp Dogg were doing in the sixties and seventies, when country and soul were two sides of the same coin, that of American popular music, honest and unpretentious.

Text and photos : Arthur Chanoine-Degruelle