Vintage Voola

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Vintage Voola album cover
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EDITOR'S PICK

Total Tracks: 11   Total Length: 27:41

eMusic Review 0

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Dan Epstein

eMusic Contributor

04.22.11
The sound of Little Richard doing a live remote from the moon.
2006 | Label: Norton Records / The Orchard

A one-eyed, six-and-a-half-foot transvestite who taught Little Richard how to play piano (and copied Richard's mile-high pompadour in return), the late Esquerita was simply too “out there” for mass consumption during the Eisenhower era. Which, of course, made him the perfect artist for Norton Records — in fact, his grinning, wig-hatted visage has, over the years, become virtually synonymous with the label. The highlights of this short-but-sweet collection include “Rockin'in the Joint,” “Oh Baby” and “The Rock-A-Round,” all of which sound like Little Richard doing a live remote from the moon.

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great forgotten pioneer of r&r

mr. mark

His name was pronounced Escue Reeder,which was his real name. The flamboyant, openly gay piano pounder was Little Richard's mentor.

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Distilled garage rock sweat

duojet

This is raw, earnest and somehow flamboyant at the same time. The recordings are wonderfully low-fi to match gravelly vocals, raunchy piano and aggressive guitars. Somewhere in the encyclopedia of musical idioms, there is a picture of Esquerita Next to the entry for "down and dirty". You ARE downloading, this aren't you? Because no matter how much I hype this, I can't do it justice.

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this is the shiznit

Dvoodoo

Those in the know indeed know Esquerita was a big pompadoured piano playing influence on Lil "Geico Ad" Richard who was one of rock n roll's most original wild men. Grab some of these archival tracks, that are rare and expensive to locate via vinyl or CD...

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Originally issued as a vinyl album, this compact disc reissue adds some new tracks and wild, eye-boggling color photos to the original package. The seven original demo acetates Esquerita cut in Dallas at Sellers’ Recording in 1958 are still aboard, sounding raw and wonderful as ever, fleshed out with his contribution to Paul Peek’s lone NRC single, “Sweet Skinny Jenny” and “The Rock-A-Round,” which he helped co-author. Added to this is Esquerita’s late-’60s original version of “Dew Drop Inn” (later recorded by Little Richard) and a Little Richard interview where he waxes effusive about the artist who influenced him so greatly. Although a bit short in the running time department, this nonetheless is the perfect companion piece to any solid collection of his Capitol sides from 1958. – Cub Koda

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