If someone were to ask you who sold the most blues records or who had the most charted blues singles during the 1950's and the early 1960's, most of you would be inclined to say B.B.King or Muddy Waters or Howlin' Wolf or Little Walter or maybe even Elmore James or Lightnin' Hopkins. If you submitted any of those names, you would be wrong. The correct answer would be a guitarist named Jimmy Reed from tiny Dunleith, MS.
Mathis James "Jimmy" Reed (September 6, 1925 – August 29, 1976) was an American blues musician and songwriter, notable for bringing his distinctive style of blues to mainstream audiences. Reed was a major player in the field of electric blues, as opposed to the more acoustic-based sound of many of his contemporaries. His lazy, slack-jawed singing, piercing harmonica and hypnotic guitar patterns were one of the blues' most easily identifiable sounds in the 1950s and 1960s, and had a significant impact on many rock and roll artists who followed, such as Elvis Presley,ZZ Top,The Grateful Dead, The Rolling Stones,Van Morrison ect ect.
In all, Reed charted 11 songs on the Billboard Top 100 Pop Charts and 14 songs on the R&B Charts. No other blues artists could or has ever matched