The subsequent Capitol years found Steven Quincy Reeder Jr. changing many cities, many labels and many names.
From then (and that’s quite a lot ago…) a never-ending hunting on things related to him have haunted me in a daily basis. I mean, Voola was indeed Rock & Roll's answer to "Plan 9 from Outter Space"! And fuck, there are still things by him that’s never been re-issued. And I never really understand why to this day someone failed to gather S.Q.'s complete output in a box or a comp...?
Anyway, the key figure here was no other but the great Allen Toussaint. In 1962 Esquerita traveled with Joe Turner to New Orleans. The wild voodoo city of the South. The place where Little Richard cut thee best of his screamers. Quite quickly made the right connections there and have started gigging on the immortal now Dew Drop Inn. Joe Banashak of Minit Records heard about him, caught him in the act and signed him in a hurry. On March 2 of the same year, Voola entered the studio accompanied by a gang that included Toussaint's studio regulars, Allen himself and ....the goddess Irma Thomas! Don't know how much songs SQ cut at that session, i know for sure that one of his best works after leaving Capitol (and sadly manic rock & roll) recorded that same day and pressed on vinyl under the code Minit 45-648. What's on the two sides of this 45 spin are "Green Door" and "I Waited Too Long". The first's an insane re-assessment of a silly 1956 No.1 hit by Jim Lowe. The Second's a slow soul stringed ballad featuring on backing vocals no other than...Irma! Sure, Esquerita never again reached the heights of the Capitol era... But he had the unique talent to put the pomp on whatever his hands wanted to touch!
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