Got the Shaft Again

Or
When You're Not, You're Not
(Tip o’ the Cap to Don)

Or
Phantom of the Country Music Hall
(Still more kudos to Don)
Jerry Reed, country singer turned chicken-fried actor, has died of emphysema at age 71. Reed was basically a court jester with a gee-tar, scoring hits with such songs as “She Got the Goldmine (I Got the Shaft),” "When You're Hot, You're Hot," "If the Good Lord's Willing and the Creeks Don't Rise," and “Amos Moses,” which featured the line, “When Amos Moses was a boy his daddy would use him for alligator bait.” As his singing career wound down, Reed opted to become Burt Reynolds’ good luck charm in W.W. and the Dixie Dancekings, Gator and then as The Snowman, Cletus Snow, in the “Smokey and the Bandit” trilogy. Other notable roles as the rescue squad commander in Bat 21, the playbook-stealing football coach in Waterboy, as himself in The New Scooby-Doo Movies "The Phantom of the Country Music Hall" signing "Pretty Mary Sunlite,” as the original Scooby Gang tried to find his missing guitar, and Naomi Harper’s ex-husband on Mama’s Family. Reed also was a regular on the fishing show Bill Dance Outdoors, until Dance released a huge bigmouth bass that Reed had planned to have mounted. Reed became so enraged he chased Dance off the boat and then onto shore.