Mp3 of the Week: Eli "Paperboy" Reed

Eli Reed: Soul Brother Number One

DOWNLOAD: Eli "Paperboy" Reed, "The Satisfier" [mp3]

Even after tough woodshedding at Delta Blues Ground Zero -- Clarksdale, Mississippi, playing juke joints and the like -- and then further work in Chicago, running a weekly radio show and playing in a Southside holiness church, Eli "Paperboy" Reed suffered his detractors (including some at this very newspaper). But the truth is in the grooves. The kid from Brookline, now 24, is getting ready to release his second album, Roll with You, due March 8 from Q Division. On "The Satisfier," you can hear the sound that's bulldozed skeptics: the grit-and-groove from Eli's backing band the True Loves — dirty guitar, in-the-pocket rhythm section, goosy organ, rocking call-and-response horns, and female backing vocals that out-Ronson Mark Ronson — plus Eli's own testifying vocals, which smash-and-grab some of the hallmarks of house-wrecking '50s soul, including James Brown's almighty, mic-destorying "Please Please Please" scream. If half the insane rumors we hear about Eli's music future are true, then we think we know who the next Amy Winehouse is gonna be. Download the mp3, then catch the band along with Grace Potter and the Nocturnals tonight (Thursday the 6th) at the Paradise.