Eli "Paperboy" Reed (born 1982 as Eli Husock) is an American singer and songwriter. After graduating from Brookline [Massachusetts] High School in 2002 he moved to Clarksdale, Mississippi and immersed himself in the juke joint culture of the Deep South. After spending a year in Clarksdale he enrolled at The University of Chicago to study sociology. While in Chicago he hosted a radio show called "We Got More Soul" on the college station WHPK and played organ and piano in the South Side Chicago church of the famed Soul/Gospel singer Mitty Collier. After one year of study in Chicago he returned home to Boston to focus on music, recording his first album Sings Walkin' & Talkin' & Other Smash Hits!
The local success of that album and his frenzied live show brought him to the attention of Somerville, Massachusetts based record label, Q Division Records. He recorded his first album of original material, Roll With You, in late 2007 with Q Division producer Ed Valauskas at the helm. That album was released in 2008 and the next two years saw Reed garner a national and international following. His success overseas in particular sparked his signing to Virgin before later switching to their parent label Capitol Records in 2009.
Come And Get It!, Reed's major label debut, was produced by Mike Elizondo. Speaking in March 2010 to British soul writer Pete Lewis, Reed stated the album was strongly influenced musically by the late 1960s/early 1970s Chicago soul music recordings of artists such as Tyrone Davis and Mel & Tim.
Reed was nominated for Breakthrough Artist of the Year at the 2009 MOJO Awards.
Reed signed to Warner Bros. Records in late 2012 and released a 45 RPM single featuring a vinyl only version of a new song, "WooHoo", on Record Store Day (April 20) 2013. His fourth album released by Yep Roc Records was released in 2014, and My Way Home followed in 2016.
Reed's song "Your Sins Will Find You Out" was featured in Episode 4 of the first season of Preacher, and "Recess" appears in both The Way Way Back (2013)and Europa Report (2013).
On January 22, 2019, Reed announced the April 12 release of his latest album, entitled 99 Cent Dreams via Yep Roc Records. It was recorded at the Sam Phillips Recording studio in Memphis with acclaimed young producer Matt Ross-Spang (Margo Price, Jason Isbell) and background vocals from the Memphis vocal group The Masqueraders. The collection was chosen as a 'Favorite Blues Album' by AllMusic.