A small island off of Manhattan, Hart Island, is the final resting place of more than one million people. Long the cemetery for unclaimed and unidentified bodies, the island holds many in mass and unmarked graves.
Various pandemics in the city’s history sent many bodies to Hart Island. Along those lines, combined with discrimination and society’s treatment of the poor, Hart Island became the final resting place for many impoverished people who died from AIDS.
Thus, after one of the parents of rock and roll known as Esquerita died of complications related to AIDS on October 23, 1986, city workers buried him in an unmarked grave on Hart Island. His body remains lost among others on the island to this day (just as many earlier blues musicians, such as Robert Johnson and Bessie Smith, were laid to rest in unmarked graves).
Esquerita was born Eskew Reeder, Jr. on November 20 in either 1935 or 1938 in South Carolina. He still went by his birth name when as a young gay black teenager in the early 1950s, he met Richard Penniman, who would soon become famous as the legendary Little Richard. Reeder taught Penniman his piano and singing style. The two would stay in touch throughout their lives.
Esquerita had a deeper voice than Little Richard. But the driving piano and the rock-and-roll whoops of ecstasy as well as the excitement in the music illustrate clear parellels.
Yet, despite similarities in styles that helped birth rock and roll, their lives diverged widely. Little Richard was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986, the same year Esquerita was buried in an unmarked grave in a potter’s field. Prior to that, in his later years, Esquerita worked as a parking lot attendant and was seen washing car windshields for tips in Brooklyn.
But Reeder, under the name Esqueriata and other names, made some great music during the early years of rock and roll. Like many other early rock and rollers, Esquerita’s music had its roots in gospel music. But he would develop his own style under the name Esquerita, often wearing makeup, sunglasses, wigs, and a high pompadour.
Starting in the 1950s and even going into the 1980s, he recorded and performed music, but never found the success or credit he deserved. One of his best-known songs from his early recordings is “Rockin’ the Joint,” where you can hear the Little Richard connection.
We encourage you to dig a little deeper into Esquerita’s catalog.
Unfortunately you cannot find his grave to pay your respects. But you can visit and enjoy the great music to hear the legacy left to us by Eskew Reeder, Jr., also known as Esquerita, S.Q. Reeder, Estrelita, Escorita, The Magnificent Malochi, and The Fabolash.
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