Depending on your age and preferred era of country music, you might think of Jerry Reed as the Snowman from the Smokey and the Bandit films, the most random Scooby-Doo special guest or the ...

Granted, most of these country songs didn’t take home a fancy trophy, but Jerry Reed’s, "She Got the Gold Mine and I Got the Shaft" was nominated for a CMA in 1982 and a Grammy in 1983.

But Jerry Reed was more than an actor in these cornball movies. Originally from Atlanta, Reed moved to Nashville in the early '60s to write songs and work as a session guitarist.

The lyrics to “Guitar Man” really mirror the professional journey of Jerry Reed. It was his first song that reached the country charts and put the young singer on the map. Reed was discovered ...