Reet Petite And Gone Louis Jordan Let the Good Times Roll, With Clowning, Pride and "Caldonia" By Swamp Dogg
As though it was yesterday, I remember a seven-year old boy being escorted to the Groove Record Shop on High Street in Portsmouth, Virginia, by one of show business' most provoca- tive and gorgeous shake dancers, Flash Gordon, my make-be- lieve-aunt and family friend. It was 1949 and this trek involved the buying of my very first record, "Run Joe" by the man who had already etched his music indelibly on my mind, Louis Jordan.
From my first recollection while crawling across the floor, I was inundated with Louis Jordan belting out "(Come On Baby And) Knock Me A Kiss," "Five Guys Named Moe," "What's the Use of Getting Sober (When I'll Only Get Drunk Again)," "Stone Cold Dead in the Market" (a duet with Ella Fitzgerald), and, of course, "Caldonia (What Makes Your Big Fuckin' Head So Hard)."
Portsmouth was a great place to live if you were a Louis Jordan fanatic. Louis and his Tympany Five made frequent appearances at the Cotton Club (which was upstairs from Ziv's drugstore and across from the black-owned Safeway Taxi stand on Chestnut St.), Grogan Hall on London St., and just six miles across the Elizabeth River by ferry at the Palace Royal, on Church St. in Norfolk. I was too young to fre- quent these dancehalls and clubs, but I was blessed with the curse of segregation. There weren't but two hotels in Portsmouth and Norfolk where blacks could stay, the black-owned Omicron, and Bonnie McEachen's Plaza. Because of this, many acts were room-and-boarded in private homes, of which my aunt's house at 843 Duke St. was one of the favorites. Louis Jordan would stay at the Plaza, but members of his band like Dallas Bartley (bass) and Eddie Roane (trumpet) would be on Duke St., thus occasioning a better-than-fair chance meeting with Mr. "Beware" himself, which I had several times when he came by in what seemed to be a block-long 1941 stretch Chrysler station-wagon to retrieve them for rehearsals and shows. On one such occa- sion, I met his piano player, Bill "Honky Tonk" Doggett, seven or eight years before he catapulted to stardom playing organ for King Records.
Freakin' with the Deacon
The Cancerian from Brinkley, Arkansas, was a taskmaster. He did not tolerate sloppy attire, lateness, absenteeism, or half-hearted performances...ask Johnny Otis. No, he never fired Otis, but the young musician witnessed quite a few bandmates getting chewed out, thrown out or both.
When Jordan reached his twelfth birthday, he ran away from home and toured with the Silas Green Review and the Ma & Pa Rainey Rabbit Foot Minstrels. Minstrel shows later became the target of the colored bourgeois, who labeled these performers Uncle Toms, something Jordan took as a personal affront. In his words, "Clowning is an honorable tradi- tion."
Louis modeled his career after Cab Calloway, with the clowning, dancing and use of hip street vernacular. He sang black songs in a proud black manner that broadcast to everyone that he knew who he was and was not ashamed of same. "Ain't Nobody Here But Us Chickens," "Beans And Cornbread," "Fat Sam From Birmingham," "Saturday Night Fish Fry" and "Deacon Jones" -- with that lyric: "Who gets all the chicken breast and leaves all the gizzards for the rest/ Deacon Jones, yes yes yes...And when a sister's feeling blue, who's always there to woo/ Deacon Jones, oh yeah...And before any of the church money is spent, who takes out his usual ten per cent/ You guessed it...Deacon Jones" -- were some of his greatest ethnic performances, but they tran- scended race and made him a superstar with whites as well as blacks.
Jordan wasn't shy when it came to getting political with his lyrics. He sang about the futility and tragic ironies of World War II, in songs such as "G.I. Jive," "Ration Blues" (which poked fun at the stampbooks that were issued for food purchases), and "Inflation Blues," in which he appealed to the human side of F.D.R. to cut the price of sugar, make butter available for every American table, and stop the dollar from shrinking. The song contains the classic "I know what you're doing to the country" line "When you started rationing, you really played the game/ But prices are going up and my check remains the same."
Ella's Beaut, Chick's Boot
Louis Jordan impressed and influenced many musicians. One of them was Bill Haley, who said that Jordan's music provid- ed him with the prototype he needed for his C&W group to evolve into an R&B aggregation. Ironically, or quite possibly by design, all of Haley's hits were picked and produced by Milt Gabler, the same man who produced Jordan's hits.
The old saying about being a hard act to follow must have originally applied to Jordan's "live" stage performances, because just about every great act of his day -- from Peggy Lee to Lionel Hampton to the Mills Brothers -- refused to close a show if Jordan was the act in front of them.
Not only was he loved for his music, he was loved for him- self. Women would not leave him alone, and "no" was not in his vocabulary when it came to them. As a result of jealous and possessive women, he lost one eye early in life and sported a number of razor cuts on his face, bestowed on him by his second wife of three, who became enraged at the sight of lipstick on his lips when he arrived home one night. The story goes that she waited until he got into bed, turned out the light and closed his eyes, then she commenced to locate him in the dark with a swinging straight-edge. Louis felt the breeze of the swing, jumped out of bed bleeding, and ran for his life and a divorce lawyer, in that order.
His irresistible charm is the reason he was fired form Chick Webb's band. Stock documentation has it that Louis joined Webb's outfit in 1936, and left in '38 to form his own group. The truth is that he did join Webb in 1936, who happened to have a strict no-fraternizing rule when it came to band members and his female vocalists, a rule Louis completely ignored. Like most women who met him, Webb's singer Ella Fitzgerald was smitten upon her first encounter. Louis reciprocated the feelings...but only when they were traveling. Once they arrived in a town, he took off after the local beauties and ignored Ella. This type of behavior caused problems, and instigated intra-band tiffs on a regular basis. When Webb booted Jordan, he then formed the Louis Jordan Elks Rendezvous Band, the forerunner of the Tympany Five.
My life and music are still based on many things I learned from Louis Jordan. Play a strong song, sing a lyric that's relevant and hits home, then temper it with humor so it'll be palatable, keep 'em dancing, take the chance when the chance comes, and, most of all, believe in yourself. That was Jordan.
At least once a month I pull out a Jordan recording and introduce someone else to the man. Sometimes when I listen I dance. Other times I have a perpetual smile on my face...and there are times I cry because he brings back some of the greatest memories of my childhood when the bulk of my family was young, living and loving me. My Aunt Libby holding me in her arms and dancing off "Open The Door, Richard"... the weekend parties that looked as though the U.S.S. Missouri had docked in our living room. The sailors, my father Chief Petty Officer Jerry Williams included, the women, the food, the liquor, the gambling, the dancing and laughing as Jordan sang the very political "Reconversion Blues," "Let The Good Times Roll," and "If You're So Smart How Come You Ain't Rich." He was part of my family, the invisible guardian who sat with me sometimes when I was alone, filling the room with his voice that boomed out of our big Motorola combina- tion radio-record player. The compartment at the bottom held all of his Decca black and blue-label 78's, which I used to pull out and stare at and imagine myself inside the record performing with him. I can still smell the shellac on those heavy monster discs...that's what Jordan did, has done, and still does for me.
What we see on MTV was pioneered by Jordan. The first music video was produced in the Forties by Jordan with his manager Berl Adams, to introduce his recording of "Caldonia." They convinced BMI to underwite this venture, based on the pair's being able to contract theaters across the country to show the musical short between features. They called these little films "soundies" and they became a great promotional tool for Louis and later a multitude of artists. Jordan's "soundies" included "Fuzzy Wuzzy," "Old Man Mose," "Down Down Down" and "Five Guys Named Moe" -- the inspiration for the long-running London musical of the same name. (Ten of these shorts are collected on Louis Jordan And The Tympany Five, BMG Video, 1992.)
Although Jordan appeared in musical cameos in over 20 films, including Miss Bobby Sox and Follow The Boys, he had a full-length motion-picture starring career -- in Reet Petite And Gone, Look Out, Sister, Beware and Caldonia. Unfortu- nately, these classics aren't all available, but there are people trying to secure the prints and rights to eventually make them available. I happen to have seen them, and I would love to have them run on every VCR in the world. Until you see them, please take my word: they're great!
Louis Jordan succumbed to a heart attack at the age of 66 in 1975, ending the illustrious career of the world's greatest performer, musician, songwriter, father of video recording, movie star, and my hero.
Sounds All Reet: Let The Good Times Roll: The Anthology 1938-1953 (MCA).