Esquerita - All the Voola

I think it is time for a re-working of this post. There is a considerable amount of added material.

 Ahh, the sad story of Steven Q. Reeder, "but for chance there go I". One of the creative influences behind what makes Little Richard a star but when Richard uses Esquerita's style at The Dew Drop Inn and blows Bumps Blackwell's mind, he may have doomed his buddy to obscurity and an ugly death. Little Richard's New Orleans sessions are so huge and so national that when the guy who actually invented the whole schtick finally gets recorded he is dismissed by an understandably ignorant public as an imitator. No matter that he is a far superior pianist (I give Richard the clear singing edge), the world seemingly has room for only one. This post has been reworked to include all but a tiny handful of stray tracks - this is All The Voola.

Born in Greenville, S.C., in 1935, Steven Quincy Reeder began calling himself "Eskew" after his initials – S.Q. Later, of course, the name became Esquerita, then went back to Eskew. (Little Richard claimed his predecessor liked to point out how his nickname sounded like "excreta.") An early performing career with a gospel group known as the Heavenly Echoes soon led, in a roundabout fashion, to the singer's outrageous nightclub act.

" With his flamboyant makeup, sculpted pompadour, assaultive piano playing and glass-busting trills, Little Richard is invariably described as a rock 'n' roll nonpareil. But Richard himself has often acknowledged that his persona has a lot to do with one of the true unsung heroes of rock – a forgotten wildman who answered to the stage name Esquerita.

Appropriately enough, they met in a Greyhound bus station in Macon, Ga., late one night, when the only people around were the prowlers "trying to catch something – you know, have sex," as Richard Penniman explained in his biography 'The Life and Times of Little Richard.' Eskew Reeder, as the man was then known, had the biggest hands Richard had ever seen. He performed, apparently, with an evangelist named Sister Rosa and an undersized singer appropriately called Shorty. When Richard asked this brother from another planet if he would teach him how to pound the piano, Reeder happily obliged.  

People are largely unaware that when those iconic Specialty recordings were made in New Orleans, Richard was not a piano player. (Fats Domino is amongst those thought possible to have played on the sessions.) His piano teachers were Reeder and "..a guy named James (Booker)." There was some period when Reeder toured with Richard as his piano player. It has never been clear to me when that was, or how it was they both ended up in New Orleans at the same time, and why Reeder stayed behind.

Though Little Richard would later claim he gave Esquerita the idea for his gigantic bouffant, (other parts of the story would seem to belie this) that's the only mention of Richard's mentor in the biography. To this day, little is known of Esquerita, whose sole album, released in 1959, was mistakenly seen as little more than a Little Richard copycat job.


"Professor" Eskew Reeder was discovered playing a Greenville barroom called the Owl Club by Paul Peek, guitarist for Gene Vincent's rockabilly backing band, the Blue Caps. Peek introduced the free spirit with the rhinestone wraparound shades to talent scouts at Capitol Records, who had signed Gene Vincent as the label's answer to Elvis. Here was the label's answer to Little Richard.

Later, Reeder would scuffle his way through the '60s, reportedly gigging with the future Dr. John and a young Jimi Hendrix – and cutting a few sessions with a grateful Little Richard. He recorded some songs for Motown, never released. He began changing his stage name – Voola, the Magnificent Malochi – to no avail.

By the '70s, he was playing seedy gigs in back-alley gay bars in New York, billed as Fabulash. A decade after that, he was reduced to begging for change as a squeegee man. Esquerita died of complications from AIDS in New York in 1986, at age 52.

Sadly, his one Capitol album, despite a fantastic, iconic cover image of the singer with his wig piled high and a collection of raucous bawlers inside, came across as one too many Little Richards for the world to handle. Ironically, it was only when an unproven Richard had stretched out his Esquerita muscle on a previously lackluster session in New Orleans that he found his own voice as early rock 'n' roll's most thrilling loony tune.

The first part of this bonanza will take you to Blue Dragon who recently posted the first chapter of this musical story (click the blog name). The subsequent material, mostly recorded here in New Orleans, is in the normal place.