Paul Edward Peek, Jr. (June 23, 1937 – April 3, 2001) was an early
rockabilly
Rockabilly is one of the earliest styles of rock and roll music. It dates back to the early 1950s in the United States, especially the Southern United States, South. As a genre it blends the sound of Western music (North America), Western music ...
pioneer. Peek was born in High Point, North Carolina, and was raised in Greenville, South Carolina. Paul learned to play the guitar, steel guitar, and bass while he was 12 years old. When he was 14 he played in several local country bands. He graduated from Greenville Senior High School in 1955 and performed on steel guitar with Claude Casey and the Sagedusters on WFBC-TV in 1955 on a weekly TV show. In 1956 Paul was recruited as an early member of
Gene Vincent
Vincent Eugene Craddock (February 11, 1935 – October 12, 1971), known as Gene Vincent, was an American musician who pioneered the styles of rockabilly and rock and roll. His 1956 top ten hit with his backing band the Blue Caps, " Be-Bop-a-Lula ...
& The Blue Caps, sometimes stealing the limelight. As a member of the Blue Caps, Peek was one of the first rock artists to appear in the movies, appearing in ''
The Girl Can't Help It
''The Girl Can't Help It'' is a 1956 American musical comedy film starring Jayne Mansfield in the titular role, Tom Ewell, Edmond O'Brien, Henry Jones, and Julie London. The picture was produced and directed by Frank Tashlin, with a screenplay ...
'' (1956).
Peek had the distinction of being the first artist to record for
National Recording Corporation
National Recording Corporation was an American record label, established in Atlanta in 1958.
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* List of record labels
* National Recording Corporation artists
National may refer to:
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* Nation or country
** Nationality †...
out of Atlanta. In 1958, NRC 001 ("Sweet Skinny Jenny"/"The Rock-A-Round") was recorded at WGST Radio Station. In 1958 Paul recorded a novelty song, "Olds-Mo-William", and performed the song on Dick Clark's Saturday Night "Beech Nut" National TV Show. Because of distribution problems with NRC Records, the recording died before it could become a national hit. He also appeared on New York City's "The Big Beat" with host Alan Freed. Musicians who appeared on Peek's NRC singles included
Joe South
Joe South (born Joseph Alfred Souter; February 28, 1940 – September 5, 2012) was an American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and record producer. Best known for his songwriting, South won the Grammy Award for Song of the Year in 1970 for " Ga ...
,
Jerry Reed
Jerry Reed Hubbard (March 20, 1937 – September 1, 2008) was an American singer, guitarist, composer, and songwriter as well as an actor who appeared in more than a dozen films. His signature songs included " Guitar Man", " U.S. Male", "A Thi ...
,
Ray Stevens
Harold Ray Ragsdale (born January 24, 1939), known professionally as Ray Stevens, is an American country and pop singer-songwriter and comedian, known for his Grammy-winning recordings "Everything Is Beautiful" and "Misty", as well as novelty ...
, and
Sonny James
Jimmie Hugh Loden (May 1, 1928February 22, 2016), known professionally as Sonny James, was an American country music singer and songwriter best known for his 1957 hit, " Young Love", topping both of the early versions of today's ''Billboard'' ...
. Eskew Reeder, Jr, also known as
Esquerita
Eskew Reeder, Jr. (November 20, 1935 or 1938 – October 23, 1986), usually known by the stage name Esquerita, and occasionally as S.Q. Reeder or The Magnificent Malochi, was an American R&B singer, songwriter and pianist, known for his frenet ...
, was a co-writer and piano player on this first single. Reeder, a fellow Carolinian, was instrumental in developing the style popularized by
Little Richard
Richard Wayne Penniman (December 5, 1932 – May 9, 2020), known professionally as Little Richard, was an American musician, singer, and songwriter. He was an influential figure in popular music and culture for seven decades. Described as the " ...
. Esquerita's wild recordings for
Capitol Records
Capitol Records, LLC (known legally as Capitol Records, Inc. until 2007) is an American record label distributed by Universal Music Group through its Capitol Music Group imprint. It was founded as the first West Coast-based record label of note ...
are collector's items. The flip side of "Olds-Mo-William", "I'm Not Your Fool Anymore," has a fine vocal group backing up Paul, the members of which are unknown.
Peek's NRC recordings were bootlegged in Europe for years, and have now been re-released on CD by NRC. Although Peek recorded for several major labels, some of his most memorable recordings are the NRC singles, "Olds-Mo-William" and "The Rock-A-Round". Peek's biggest sellers were "Brother-In-Law (He's A Moocher)", (1961) produced by Joe South on Fairlane Records (distributed by
King
King is the title given to a male monarch in a variety of contexts. The female equivalent is queen, which title is also given to the consort of a king.
*In the context of prehistory, antiquity and contemporary indigenous peoples, the tit ...
), reaching No. 84 on the Billboard Hot 100, and "Pin The Tail On The Donkey" (1966), another Joe South Production on CBS Records reaching No. 91 on the chart.
In early 1964, local Minneapolis band
Gregory Dee & The Avanties
Gregory may refer to:
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*Gregory, Queensland, a town in the Shire of ...
had a big regional hit with a version of "Olds-Mo-William".
Although his national recording career waned, Peek continued to play music professionally, establishing a stage persona that made him a wildly popular nightclub performer in Atlanta, GA for decades. His Atlanta bands included some of the city's finest sidemen, including local guitar virtuoso Kenneth Watkins. In the early 1980s, he and Dickie Harrell, Bobby Jones,
Bubba Facenda, and Johnny Meeks, all former Blue Caps, made the first of several appearances at rockabilly festivals in England. The Blue Caps' popularity was, and is, alive and well in Europe. It was only after his health began to decline that Paul Peek gave up performing publicly.
Peek died from
cirrhosis
Cirrhosis, also known as liver cirrhosis or hepatic cirrhosis, and end-stage liver disease, is the impaired liver function caused by the formation of scar tissue known as fibrosis due to damage caused by liver disease. Damage causes tissue repai ...
in
Lithonia, Georgia
Lithonia (, ; AAVE: ) is a city in eastern DeKalb County, Georgia, United States. The city's population was 2,662 at the 2020 census. Lithonia is in the Atlanta metropolitan area.
"Lithonia" means "city/town of stone". Lithonia is in the heart ...
, on April 3, 2001, at the age of 63.
In 2012,
the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (RRHOF), sometimes simply referred to as the Rock Hall, is a museum and hall of fame located in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, United States, on the shore of Lake Erie. The museum documents the history of rock music an ...
inducted Peek as a member of the Blue Caps by a special committee, aimed at correcting the previous mistake of not including the Blue Caps with Gene Vincent.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Peek, Paul
1937 births
2001 deaths
American rockabilly musicians
National Recording Corporation artists
20th-century American musicians