It’s not a great secret, but the spicy story of Eskew Reeder Jr., better known to the world as Esquerita, still requires a periodic retelling, the tale relating to newcomers that Richard Wayne Penniman aka Little Richard wasn’t the only wildly flamboyant piano rocker to inhabit the supposedly squaresville decade of the 1950s. But if that was the only reason to keep Esquerita’s name alive he would’ve been forgotten long ago. Fact is the man rocked with reckless abandon and his stuff holds up gloriously.
The life of the man known as Esquerita holds quite a few chapters, all of them interesting if too many fraught with darkness, desperation and (worst of all) an unhappy ending to ever translate into a big screen biopic, for the feel-good stuff all happens early and there’s no late in life redemption. The chronicle of this South Carolina native hits its highpoint with his one real chance for commercial success, the opportunity coming amidst the wild atmosphere of the decade from whence rock ‘n’ roll was born (or if you prefer was finally bequeathed with a name).
Due to the influence of Gene Vincent, Esquerita ended up signed to Capitol Records, where the label obviously hoped to repeat the same pattern of copycat success against Little Richard that they’d scored via Vincent’s Blue Caps in reaction to the retail juggernaut that was Elvis Presley. Obviously Esquerita came nowhere close to scoring a hit single, though Capitol can’t be said to have given up on him without trying. They even released a self-titled LP in 1959 and tossed on an exclamation point after this manic maestro’s name in hopes of stirring up some excitement in the marketplace. No dice sadly; the man was destined to be a solid if enduring underground figure.
Esquerita continued to haunt recording studios until the end of the ‘60s, mellowing his style and even using a different moniker (The Magnificent Malochi) in hopes of changing his chart fortunes, but by the next decade he’d been absorbed into the undiluted rawness of the old New York City subculture. When he was discovered playing a weekly gig at the nightclub Tramps by future members of the A-Bones Billy Miller and Miriam Linna, he was described as having suffered numerous hard life knockdowns, only to find himself back on the bandstand every Monday night.
Drugs and the need for money to procure them seemed to be Esquerita’s undoing. He’d spent time in prison on more than one occasion, and he became something of a thorn in the side to even those predisposed to lend a helping hand. Apparently the R&B great Big Joe Turner took to calling him “Give me money, give me money Esquerita.” And as previously stated the man’s life lacks any emotional uplift at its conclusion, our subject dying of AIDS in 1985.
But postmortem Esquerita’s legacy has had some diligent caretakers, their endeavors helping to focus attention upon his considerable accomplishments instead of just lingering over the tough circumstances of the guy’s life. Earlier this year Norton Records, the label founded by Miller and Linna in aid of all sorts of marginalized musical hooliganism released Sinner Man: The Lost Session, a fine nugget of subterranean retrieval from 1966. It’s a fine addition to Esquerita’s catalog, but it’s far from the place to begin with this worthy talent.
While the Esquerita! LP is an essential acquisition it’s also not the tip-top starting point either. No, by the time that album was recorded he’d been tamed slightly by the professionalism of Capitol, though obviously not so much as to have a detrimental effect upon the vitality of his essence; it was after all the material on which his reputation was based for decades.
Indeed, Esquerita! was the very stuff that inspired to Miller and Linna to attempt a recovery project upon the baseline insanity that got him signed to a big Gotham company like Capitol in the first place. Well, in their sleuthing and snooping the pair succeeded like champions, issuing the LP Vintage Voola way back in 1987 as the second Norton release, the first being Haze’s House Party by the late great West Virginia rockabilly lunatic Hasil Adkins (just to give the unfamiliar a clearer picture of the left of center lack of subtlety that Norton has specialized in over the years).
And Vintage Voola is the exact place where Esquerita newbies should commence their investigation into the output of this truly fabulous early rock ‘n’ roll obscurity. It compiles the seven acetates made in Dallas at Sellers’ Recording in ’58 that led to his Capitol contract and tosses in Blue Cap guitarist Paul Peek’s solo single for the NRC label for good measure. Those two tracks, “Sweet Skinny Jenny” and “The Rock Around,” feature Esquerita at the piano bench and the latter even gives him a co-writing credit.
That single is ground zero for Eskew Reeder, who’d already adopted his performing persona on the Owl Club stage in Greenville SC. Afterwards Vincent managed to get him signed to Capitol on the strength of the Dallas recordings that smartly precede the Peek 45 in Vintage Voola’s track order. Yes, strict chronology is sacrificed, but in the spirit of ‘50’s rock ’n’ roll’s alluring disreputability a non-scholarly approach makes total sense, as does the strategy of delivering an immediate musical wallop with the raw bluntness preserved on those acetates.
In addition, the recording quality of the Sellers’ material is quite rough, though with the exception of an audible cough and what sounds like someone bumping into the microphone on “I Got a Lot to Learn,” it all connects without distraction. After the seven Dallas cuts, the Peek songs sound absolutely polished in comparison, and it would’ve been a miscalculation to start with relative slickness and then jar the listener with a plunge into lower fidelity. But Vintage Voola is Esquerita’s show anyway, so the point is essentially moot.
The similarities between Reeder and Penniman become immediately clear on opener “Rockin’ the Joint,” but what’s just as quickly apparent is that the resemblances the two share are accented by qualities unique to each; in Esquerita’s case, he alternated those falsetto wails with a voice that was substantially more gutbucket than Richard. If the latter’s capabilities as a shouter could knock an unprepared listener onto the sawdust covered floor of a dance joint rocking in full-tilt grandeur, the voice on display throughout much of this LP could strip the paint from the body of a ’57 Dodge.
But the real fun of Vintage Voola isn’t in examining the connections between a well-ensconced icon and an undying underground figure; it comes instead in letting the uncut mayhem cascade over your consciousness like a regenerative elixir intended to eradicate any desire in your life for unnecessary finesse and subtext. This album’s nine gems are absolutely devoid of anything even vaguely approaching the highfalutin. Vincent Mosley’s guitar is impressive throughout the Dallas selections, but he’s particularly gnarled up on “Rockin’ the Joint,” his solo burning like a freshly itched rash emanating from a warm, dark place.
If “Oh Baby,” “Sarah Lee,” and “What Was Wrong” come closest to the ragged majesty of the early rock ‘n’ roll whatsis, then “This Thing Called Love,” “Please Come on Home,” and “I Got a Lot to Learn” tap into a vein that’s pumping a thick, potent potion of rich rhythm and blues. Any doubts over Esquerita’s ability to cut the mustard of time are kyboshed with ease by the sheer primal oomph of his selections, and it remains a curious reality that an era burdened with restrictiveness and conformity could produce such a deliciously transgressive character swaggering right out in plain sight (a situation that applies to Richard as well), the audaciousness of his persona insinuating what in retrospect almost feels like an open secret.
Vintage Voola’s running-time is ridiculously but suitably brief, the album dropped, flipped, and finished before the mind can even consider entertaining any foul notions over its jewel-like contents’ supposed limitations. This is a true party knocker pure and simple, meant to be slapped on the platter before unscrewing the cap on a bottle of cheap but heady fluids as bodies cavort and voices cajole across the expanse of an overcrowded room.
But it’s also much more than that. It’s also crystalline proof of how a document released nearly thirty years after its recording can help to vindicate a life dominated and prematurely ended by struggles and failure. And it’s further evidence that the established histories are rarely as inclusive and accurate as their makers claim.
It’s a reality that getting to the good stuff in musical terms often requires time spent digging, but it’s also true that the layers to be explored are nearly infinite. The sheer backlog of brilliant records greatly outnumbers the amount of hours available to adequately examine them. And the deeper you go the better the stuff can get. Deep is where Esquerita resides, and every time a needle spins on a copy of Vintage Voola a righteous blow is struck against the oppressiveness of homogeneity.
(RE)GRADED ON A CURVE:
A
