Jimmy Reed was already making history in 1958 when Vee-Jay Records of Chicago released his first album, I’m Jimmy Reed. Not only had Reed already had ten singles on the national rhythm & blues charts (six of which are included on this LP), but he had also cracked the Top 40 pop charts with Honest I Do. No Chicago bluesman had ever broken through to the pop and rock n roll audience the way Jimmy Reed did, and the tracks on this album exemplify his appeal, from the sweet sentiments of Honest I Do to the basic 12-bar blues of You Don’t Have to Go. Reed’s music was singable, playable, and danceable for the multitudes; untold numbers of youngsters, black and white, took up the harmonica or guitar after getting hooked on the Jimmy Reed beat, developed by Reed and his partner Eddie Taylor, who present on most of the songs here. Albert King is the drummer on some of the earliest sessions, and Reed even plays slide guitar on Boogie in the Dark.
