Jerry Reed's The Man with the Golden Thumb
I have a knack for finding records at thrift stores, digging through the dust and crinkled cellophane and finding that one elusive gem. I chalk it up to the persistence of the hunt that finds me going back week after week, month after month, while some would just buy the damn thing on eBay. After digging through the Mantovani, Mitch Miller, interminable copies of Carole King's Tapestry , I had begun to give up hope that I would find something halfway decent. Then, I pulled a Jerry Reed record that I was unfamiliar with, The Man with the Golden Thumb . I've long been a fan of Reed's humorous songs and his criminally underrated guitar work, but I had no idea how good this record would be. The title track has shown up on Greatest Hits collections, and is just another in a number of good novelty songs about guitar players that stem back to Reed's early hits, such as "Guitar Man," which made it to number 53 on the country charts in 1967 before Elvis Presley too...