Classic soul music, despite its earthy roots in arduously tended crop fields and lawdy-lawdy Pentecostal churches, and despite its often heart-crushing emotion, is, above anything else, pop music.

It may make you wanna kick your heels up, to throw your hands up, to throw your head back - to "shout!," as the Isley Brothers showed us so well, but it also sells. Look at the soul-singing chart-toppers these days: Amy Winehouse of tabloid fame, Duffy and Lil Wayne (a genius of hip hop, a soul-music progression).

Lesser-known champions of the genre include British singer-guitarist James Hunter, whose polished style deftly incorporates Latin rhythms, and Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, convincing mid-sixties funk revivalists from Brooklyn.

Now comes Eli (Paperboy) Reed, a Boston-based soul-seeker whom Mojo and Rolling Stone magazines are raving about. The 24-year-old Reed, who is Nick Lowe-approved (and the greatest singer ever named Eli), understands the enduring appeal of the music at its best. "Great arrangements and singers and songs and horns," he explains from the road. "It's such well-put-together and well-crafted music that you can't avoid it coming up again and again. It's become a part of the American lexicon."