You Tube Gold: Louis Jordan In 1974

Posed portrait of Louis Jordan, with saxophone | Photo by Gilles Petard/Redferns

Just about a year from his death, his brilliance was undiminished

Louis Jordan is a mostly forgotten musician today but in his day, he was known as the King of the Jukebox because he kept cranking out wildly popular songs. His hit Caldonia was covered by people like Sugar Chile Robinson, Muddy Waters and Willie Nelson.

Rock and Roll pretty much ended his career in the States. He tried to adapt but the newer sound didn’t work for him so he spent a fair amount of time overseas. An ironic fact: he was Chuck Berry’s inspiration. If you flip the beat on a lot of Berry’s early hits like Maybellene or Johnny B. Goode, they could have been Jordan songs.

Additionally in the 1950s Jordan had health problems and in the ‘60s IRS problems.

His glory days were behind him by 1974 and he would die in 1975 of a heart attack. So that makes this performance really amazing: his voice never really aged nor did his playing.

When you listen to Bob Dylan or Joni Mitchell, their voices changed tremendously in their later years. It happened to Frank Sinatra too and Nelson, lately, hasn’t had the strength to really sing like he used to.

So it’s amazing to hear a guy near the end of his life, after decades of touring and some hard touring at that, who can still sing pretty much the way he did as a much younger man.

He hammed it up a lot on stage, but his voice was just about perfect. Listen to any of his duets with Ella Fitzgerald - he’s just as smooth as she was. Try this one for instance. Not many singers could go toe to toe with Fitzgerald.