"Usually when you're going twice the speed limit, the cops throw you in jail," Rusty Reed exclaims, his voice a little shaky from what was fast becoming a bad day.

Being a tremendous local harmonica talent, after all, does not make one exempt from the laws of man, never mind physics.

But the "RCs" were lenient this day, as country cops tend to be, and Reed is grateful. That would have been a grim reason to miss work.

Reed calls from Sandy Beach, about 45 minutes (or less, depending on how fast you go) out of E-ville, where he works as a pipeliner, a job he's carried on and off since he was 15.

His cell phone has its own agenda, pulling out like the tide, making for frantic "Hello, hellos.''

Nevertheless, our conversation turns out to be a good one. This is a nice 37-year-old guy who loves music, his wife and his two kids. He has no resentment for the rare spots of hard labour on his family's behalf. "That's why I work: just 'cause I love my children. People have said I play with a lot of heart and that's where I get it from.

"I follow Nostradamus and the world's supposed to end on Sept. 9. It won't, but this is no time to be a kid in the world, anyway, and I let some of that out through my mouth."

Oddly, Reed started out on the skins, learning for 12 years. "I transposed a lot of rudimentary things I learned as a drummer, even though the drums are a bass clef and the harp's a treble clef. It helped me learn the harp."

And Reed is good. He does play from the heart. His new record - Here on Earth officially will be unveiled at the Sidetrack Cafe on Wednesday night - is a good way to learn that firsthand.

"I like the fact that it touches down on all different styles," he answers when posed the hard question of how to critique his own work.

Besides a couple liner note things, Reed is utterly happy with the disc.

"I was driving to the studio one day to do some other work and I thought, 'We've all been hanging around for 15 years, this talented group of musicians, so why shouldn't I lay it down (what we do)?' I'm really impressed with it."

In the mix is his wife, Carol Anne, who he jokingly calls Ma Reed, after blues harpist Jimmy Reed's wife. The first Ma Reed would sing backup just to keep her drunk husband's forgotten notes on track.

Reed has no such problems. "I met my wife when I was playing with Colin James at the Thunderdome. She was a cocktail waitress at Ike & Iggy's and was singing so loud she was drowning out the band. I knew she was the one," Reed laughs, from where he says he's sitting on a pile of dirt beside the pipeline.

Another question: If he could keep a harp out of anyone's mouth, who would it be? "Bob Dylan and Neil Young. They're great singer-songwriters, but on the harp ... oi! And I'd like to give Alanis Morrissette a lesson or two."

Like Jimmy Reed, Rusty can play the straight blues tunes, but he tries to advance the music at the same time.

"It's a style that came out of the (American) South as opposed to something I lived through. It's getting more progressive. The old days will never be back, but there are some great sounds coming out."

Case in point: Englishman Long John Baldry, who Reed played with for Baldry's Right to Sing the Blues sessions in Edmonton. They met at the folk fest some years back at a Saturday Night Blues Jam, Reed backing Baldry on the harp.

"That was an honour.

"It's nice to have my own project now."

That being the Sidetrack gig. Hopefully, then, Reed will make it to the show, having learned the inherent lesson from his speeding ticket.

"Oh, what's that?" he laughs.