{"id":6573,"date":"2016-05-17T14:11:41","date_gmt":"2016-05-17T14:11:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lichen.csd.sc.edu\/sce\/entries\/esquerita\/"},"modified":"2022-07-26T18:49:43","modified_gmt":"2022-07-26T18:49:43","slug":"esquerita","status":"publish","type":"entry","link":"https:\/\/www.scencyclopedia.org\/sce\/entries\/esquerita\/","title":{"rendered":"Esquerita"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Musician. Born Eskew Reeder, Jr., in Greenville, Esquerita was among the wildest musical acts to grace the formative years of rock and roll. A self-taught pianist, Esquerita performed initially in a local Baptist church, but by his late teens he had become the house rock and roll act at Greenville\u2019s Owl Club, performing as \u201cProfessor Eskew Reeder.\u201d Paul Peek, rhythm guitarist to the recording star Gene Vincent, discovered Esquerita and brought him to the attention of Capitol Records. Esquerita recorded twenty-eight songs for the label in 1958, twelve of which were released the following year as an LP titled <em>Esquerita! <\/em>Sporting a six-inch pompadour, rhinestone sunglasses, and a raucous yet rhythmic piano-playing style, Esquerita produced debut recordings that have been hailed by <em>All Music Guide <\/em>as \u201csome of the most untamed and unabashed sides ever issued by a major label.\u201d Although his early recordings stand as classics among rock and roll aficionados, they did not bring Esquerita great success. Dropped by Capitol, he continued to record songs for minor labels throughout the 1960s, including a fledgling Motown label in 1963, most of which were never released. By the end of the decade he was recording under the moniker \u201cThe Magnificent Malochi.\u201d Little is known of his later activities, although some of his material was reissued in the 1970s and 1980s. He died in poverty in Harlem, New York, on October 23, 1986.<\/p>\n<p>Smith, Michael B. <em>Carolina Dreams: The Musical Legacy of Upstate South Carolina. <\/em>Beverly Hills, Calif.: Marshall Tucker Entertainment, 1997.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Musician. Born Eskew Reeder, Jr., in Greenville, Esquerita was among the wildest musical acts to grace the formative years of rock and roll. A self-taught pianist, Esquerita performed initially in a local Baptist church, but by his late teens he had become the house rock and roll act at Greenville\u2019s Owl Club, performing as \u201cProfessor [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":-1,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","class_list":["post-6573","entry","type-entry","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","ecms-a-z","ecms-art","ecms-civil-rights-era-1955-1969","ecms-e","ecms-encyclopedia","ecms-great-depression-1930-1938","ecms-greenville-county","ecms-popular-culture","ecms-post-war-america-1946-1954","ecms-the-modern-state-1970-present","ecms-world-war-ii-1939-1945"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Esquerita - South Carolina Encyclopedia<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scencyclopedia.org\/sce\/entries\/esquerita\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Esquerita - South Carolina Encyclopedia\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Musician. 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