“Country and soul music have always been two parts of the same stream,” says Eli Paperboy Reed. “The influence flows in both directions.” Take a listen to Reed’s exceptional new LP, Down Every Road (Yep Roc), and you’ll hear exactly what he means. The record finds Reed reimagining a host of Merle Haggard tunes as classic soul rave-ups, tapping into all the hurt and heartache of the country legend’s catalog and channeling it into explosive, performances fueled by punchy horns and ecstatic vocals. Reed’s guitar playing here is more Pops Staples than Roy Nichols, and the production more FAME than Bakersfield, but he changes little in the way of melody and architecture, instead recasting the arrangements to present Haggard’s tunes in a new context, one that blurs the lines of genre, geography, and race to reveal the common, distinctly American threads tying them all together. Reed spent much of his teens and twenties immersing himself in the juke joint culture of Mississippi and playing organ in the Chicago church of gospel singer Mitty Collier. In 2005, he returned to the northeast and began turning heads with a series of albums that earned widespread acclaim, with NPR hailing his music as “inspired, raw and powerful” and Uncut lauding its “urgent, electric energy.” The records landed Reed major label deals, song placements in film and television, and festival dates around the world as he established himself as one of the most compelling and consistent soul men of his time.