His music career started as a teenager, when he dropped out of high school and joined the gospel group Heavenly Echoes based in New York City.

At that time, Peek was a member of the rockabilly group The Blue Caps, led by manic performer Gene Vincent.

The ensuing years found Reeder cutting several singles with various backing musicians in studios in Nashville, Dallas, New Orleans and Detroit.

Capitol Records released the LP Esquerita in 1959, his only album in the traditional sense (that is, not a compilation of earlier singles, or re-issues).

Musicians he recorded with during this era included Jimi Hendrix, Dr. John, Allen Toussaint, and The Jordanaires (Elvis Presley's backup singers).

Esquerita started the 1970s in a positive way, contributing “Dew Drop Inn” and a co-write on “Freedom Blues”, to Little Richard's acclaimed comeback album for Reprise Records, The Rill Thing.

Shortly after this, he began to fade from the music scene, but Linda Hopkins released a song written by Reeder called "Seven Days and Seven Nights" in 1973.

According to an interview with Billy Miller and Miriam Linna in the ReSearch book Incredibly Strange Music, Reeder occasionally performed at African-American gay clubs under the name Fabulash during the 1970s.

On October 17, 1984, Esquerita made an appearance with Little Richard, at the Red Parrott disco, in Manhattan, New York, at the Crown Publishing book launch for the biography written by BBC's Charles “Dr.

On March 13, 2012, it was announced that Norton Records was releasing a new single and new album by Esquerita entitled Sinner Man: The Lost Session.

However, early Little Richard recordings made at WGST Radio Station in Atlanta do not show the style that was to make him famous.

Mick Jones (of The Clash) wrote and recorded a song called "Esquerita" with his band Big Audio Dynamite, which appeared on the group's Tighten Up Vol.

[8] The Adam Ant and Marco Pirroni song "Miss Thing", from their 1985 album Vive Le Rock, was about Esquerita.