Country Star Singer, Actor, Guitarist Jerry Reed, the famous Good Ol’ Boy from car chase movies like “Smokey and the Bandit,” has died of complications from emphysema at 71.
Reed had a string of hits in the 1970s and early 1980s, that included “Amos Moses,” “When You’re Hot, You’re Hot,” “East Bound and Down,” “She Got the Goldmine (I Got the Shaft)” and “The Bird.”
Chet Atkins and Jerry Reed
In the mid-1970s, he starred in movies such as “Smokey and the Bandit” with Burt Reynolds, usually as a good ol’ boy. But he was an ornery heavy in “Gator,” directed by Reynolds, and a hateful coach in 1998’s “The Waterboy,” starring Adam Sandler.
Reed and Kris Kristofferson paved the way for Nashville music personalities to make inroads into films. Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson and Kenny Rogers (TV movies) followed their lead.
Most people don’t know that Jerry was actually a Smokin Hot Guitarist, (he preferred Gibson Les Paul’s) with a distinctive style and influenced a lot of country and rock and roll players.
