Louis Jordan - Unique Soundies & Radio Broadcasts (1942-1947)

Here's something out of left field compared to what I usually post here. I've never posted music from the 1940s before. Generally speaking, I only have a limited appreciation of music before the rock and roll era (which began around 1955), but I'll make a big exception for Louis Jordan. I enjoy the "jump blues" style that he was the king of. In my opinion, it was the most rocking music prior to rock and roll, and it has lots of humor and period charm. I think he gets underappreciated these days compared to some other famous pre-rock and roll artists, but he was massively popular with black audiences in the 1940s, and with good reason.

I never posted any of his music prior to this, because everything I had from him was officially released, and I don't like to post that sort of thing unless I have a special reason. But recently I discovered that there's a bunch of his songs that STILL have never been officially released, and they're generally really good! 

The reason many of these recordings exist due to a strange, short-term phenomenon called "soundies." You can see the Wikipedia entry about that here:

Soundies - Wikipedia

Here's how I see it. When soundies began in 1940, television as we know it hadn't even been invented yet. Soundies were much like music videos of later decades, giving fans a rare chance to actually see as well as hear the musicians they loved. You put a dime into a machine and then were able to watch a visual performance of a song. Louis Jordan made more soundies than most, probably because he was so popular, plus he and his band had a lot of visual charisma that fit the format well. At the same time, albums hadn't caught on much yet (his first album wasn't released until 1946, despite him having many hits prior to that), so he could only release a limited number of songs as singles. Thus, many of the songs he performed as soundies were never otherwise recorded in the studio. 

I was able to find a collection of his soundie videos (through SoulseekQT) and converted them to mp3s. There are many more than what I've presented here, but I've only included songs that I believe aren't on any of his archival albums. In addition, about half of the songs are ones that he performed for various radio shows but again weren't recorded in the studio. (Technically, many of these songs have been released on album, but I believe those are dubious "grey market" releases that aren't officially sanctioned, so I don't count those.)

By the way, the soundies phenomenon ended in 1947, when the main company making them folded. I suspect that was due to a changing market after World War II (which ended in 1945), especially the sudden rise of television.

I think many of these songs are among his best. I particularly like the first one, "Old Man Mose." You can watch the soundie for that one and many of the others on YouTube. In that video, he gives an amusing parody performance of an evangelical preacher.

The only problem with these soundie recordings is that some of them are fairly rough. There were a couple of songs I excluded because they were too rough. There are three more I've only included as bonus tracks, due to sound quality issues. A couple more that I did include here, such as "Good Morning Heartache" are borderline. But the most of the songs sound surprisingly good for unreleased recordings going all the way back to the 1940s.

This album is 37 minutes long, not including the bonus tracks.

By the way, I've recently come across some other interesting and rare Louis Jordan music. Let me know if you're interested in me posting that here, since this type of music is different from what I usually post.

01 Old Man Mose (Louis Jordan)
02 Down, Down, Down (Louis Jordan)
03 Fuzzy Wuzzy (Louis Jordan)
04 Jordan Jive [Instrumental] (Louis Jordan)
05 If You Can't Smile and Say Yes [Please Don't Cry and Say No] (Louis Jordan)
06 Let Your Hair Down, Baby (Louis Jordan)
07 When I Grow Too Old to Dream (Louis Jordan)
08 Re-Bop [Instrumental] (Louis Jordan)
09 Baby, You're Just Too Darned Good to Be True (Louis Jordan)
10 Seventh Avenue (Louis Jordan)
11 Honey Child (Louis Jordan)
12 Tillie (Louis Jordan)
13 Sweatin' on Swing Street [Instrumental] (Louis Jordan)
14 Good Morning Heartache (Louis Jordan)
15 Wham, Sam [Dig Them Gams] (Louis Jordan)

Hold On (Louis Jordan)
In the Land of the Buffalo Nickel (Louis Jordan)
Long Legged Lizzie (Louis Jordan)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15262603/LouisJ_1942-1947_UnqueSoundiesRadioBroadcasts_atse.zip.html

I'm happy at how the cover art turned out. I based it on a poster for a 1946 movie called "Beware" that starred Louis Jordan. I cropped it, changed the text, and made other changes to get the best parts of the rectangular poster into a square space. I also added the record company logo and a couple other little touches to mimic the look of his earliest albums.