From an early age, Abrams began playing the guitar and piano. He was in several early bands; among them Heavy Impact – in which he played both guitar and keyboards alongside Joe Wells (guitar), Lemar Washington (guitar), Marston “Buffy” Freeman (bass guitar), Ronald Simmons (drums), Harry Jones (trumpet), and Barbara Mills (saxophone). In 1976, he formed Conservative Manor, 94 East (the band featuring Prince on lead guitar).

He became popular on the New York underground scene via radio and club play, and had his first major hit in 1984 with “Music Is the Answer”, on the independent label Streetwise. Other hits in the mid 1980s included “Leave the Message Behind the Door”, “Trapped” (a top ten hit in Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, and the UK), “The Truth”, “Speculation”, “I’m Not Gonna Let You”, and “Over and Over”, establishing Abrams as a solo artist, initially in Europe and later in the US.

In 1985, he signed to Steven Machat’s label and production company, AMI. Machat, who was collaborating and working with a British producer, Richard James Burgess, hired Burgess to produce Abrams’ self-titled debut album. Machat then arranged for MCA Records to sign Abrams for worldwide releases. Burgess produced the songs “Trapped”, “I’m Not Gonna Let You”, and “Table for Two”.

“Trapped” reached the top five in the UK Singles Chart and topped the US Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart in 1985, followed by his self-titled album, which spent two weeks at number one the following year. An electronic remix of “Trapped” was later released in 1995 by Boards of Canada, under the pseudonym Hell Interface. A new version of “Trapped” (“Trapped 2006”) was released in the UK.

“I’m Not Gonna Let” also spent a week at number one in the dance chart, in 1986. The album peaked at number 75 on the US Billboard Top 200 and Number 13 on the US Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart. Although Abrams had no American pop hits during his career, he had a number of entries on the US Hot Dance Club Play chart in the 1980s and 1990s, including four entries that hit number one. In 1987, he had his fourth number-one US dance hit with “How Soon We Forget”, the same year that he released his second album, You and Me Equals Us.

On January 9, 2007, Abrams released the single “Just When You Thought”, the third single on his own record label, Colonel Records, after “Heartbreaker” and “Let Us All Be Friends”. Also in 2007, Abrams released “Never Be”, “Just Like Mathematics”, and “True Stories”. In June 2008, his single, “Only a Few”, was issued.

A crowdfunding campaign was launched in 2015, via GoFundMe, in order to help Abrams, as he was homeless, suffering from diabetes, and in poor health. Marshall Jefferson, who had begun his own effort to crowdfund an album, encouraged others to donate to Abrams instead, stating:

On June 25, 2019, The New York Times Magazine listed Colonel Abrams among hundreds of artists whose material was reportedly destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.