Songbook

Jordan, Louis: selected sides, Soundies, and short and feature film songs, 1941-1950

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1946

Ain’t That Just Like a Woman (Claude Demetrius, Fleecie Moore*) — recorded on 23 January 1946 and issued on Decca 23669, b/w “If It’s Love You Want, Baby That’s Me”

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Choo Choo Ch’ Boogie (Denver Darling, Milt Gabler, Vaughn Horton)

From Wikipedia:

“Choo Choo Ch’ Boogie”…was first recorded in January 1946 by Louis Jordan & His Tympany Five. It topped the R&B charts for 18 weeks from August 1946, a record only equalled by one other hit, “The Honeydripper”. The record was one of Jordan’s biggest ever hits with both black and white audiences, peaking at number seven on the national chart and provided an important link between blues and country music, foreshadowing the development of “rock and roll” a few years later.

Although “Choo Choo Ch’Boogie” is now seen as epitomising the style known as jump blues, it was written by white songwriters whose background was in country and western music. The song is credited to Darling, Horton and Gabler. Denver Darling (1909-1981) was a hillbilly guitarist and songwriter, as was his occasional songwriting partner Vaughn Horton (1911-1988). Horton’s first writing success was with “Mockin’ Bird Hill”, and as well as working with Darling on such songs as “Address Unknown”, a 1939 hit for The Ink Spots, also worked with Gene Autry. His other writing successes included “Dixie Cannonball” and “Muleskinner’s Blues”. The third credited songwriter was Milt Gabler (1911-2001), then the vice-president of Decca Records and Louis Jordan’s record producer. A few years later, still at Decca, Gabler was also responsible for producing Bill Haley’s epoch-defining “Rock Around The Clock” (and Haley, in turn, recorded a version of “Choo Choo Ch’Boogie” for his album, Rock ‘n’ Roll Stage Show.

recorded on 23 January 1946; issued on Decca 23610 as the B-side of “That Chick’s Too Young to Fry”

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(below) live, undated

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Let the Good Times Roll (Sam Theard, Fleecie Moore*) – clip from the film Reet, Petite, and Gone (1947)

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Ain’t Nobody Here But Us Chickens (Alex Kramer, Joan Whitney) – 1946

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A faster 1956 version

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From the film Look Out Sister, dated 1947 at IMDb (where the title reads “Look-Out Sister,” probably quoting a poster), but 1946 at LouisJordan.com.

Look Out (Sister, Look Out) (Claude Demetrius, Louis Jordan, J. Mayo Williams)

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Beware, Brother, Beware (Morry Lasco, Fleecie Moore*, Dick Adams)

From the 1946 film Beware (aka Beware!)

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(below) recorded on 23 January 1946; issued in April 1946 on the 78 rpm single Decca 18818, b/w “Don’t Let the Sun Catch You Crying” (Joe Greene)

sources of catalog number and dates:

• 45worlds.com
• Discogs.com
• 78discography.com

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Salt Pork, West Virginia (William Tennyson Jr.)

1947

Reet, Petite, and Gone — complete film

Soundtrack numbers, performed by Louis Jordan and his Tympany Five unless otherwise noted:

• “Texas and Pacific” (Jack Wolf Fine)
• “All for the Love of Lil”
• “Tonight, Be Tender to Me” — Bea Griffith and Louis Jordan, with piano accompaniment
• “The Blues Ain’t Nothin'” — Pat Rainey (vocal), Mabel Lee (dance), with Louis Jordan and his Tympany Five
• “The Green Grass Grew all Around” (m. Harry Von Tilzer, w. William Jerome) arrangement by Louis Jordan
• “I’ve Changed Completely” — vocal: June Richmond
• “Wham, Sam! (Dig Them Gams)” (Louis Jordan)
• “I Know What You’re Puttin’ Down” (Louis Jordan)
• “Let The Good Times Roll” (Sam Theard**, Fleecie Moore)
• “Reet, Petite, and Gone” (Louis Jordan)
• “You Got Me Where You Want Me” — vocals: June Richmond and Louis Jordan
• “That Chick’s too Young to Fry” (Tommy Edwards, Jimmy Hilliard)
• “Ain’t That Just Like a Woman?” (Fleecie Moore, Claude Demetri) —  with unknown feature dancer
• “If It’s Love You Want, Baby, That’s Me” (Sid Robin) — with Bea Griffith (no vocal)

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From Reet, Petite & Gone:

• That Chick’s Too Young to Fry (Tommy Edwards and Jimmy Hilliard)

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Jordan made three feature films Beware (1946), Reet, Petite & Gone (1947) and Look Out Sister (1947). I haven’t looked for the first and third of these yet. Because the songs in the films were isolated scenes they have been extracted and are available as single videos or in collected works (see the Wild Realm Reviews link, above, for details). He also made numerous Soundies, film shorts featuring individual songs.

from the Wikipedia page on “Soundies“:

Soundies are three-minute American musical films, produced between 1940 and 1947, each displaying a song, dance, and/or band or orchestral number. Produced professionally on 35 mm black-and-white film, like theatrical motion pictures, they were printed on the more portable and economical 16 mm film.

The films were shown in a coin-operated “movie jukebox” named the Panoram, manufactured by the Mills Novelty Company of Chicago. Each Panoram housed a 16 mm RCA film projector, with eight Soundies films threaded in an endless-loop arrangement. A system of mirrors flashed the image from the lower half of the cabinet onto a front-facing screen in the top half. Each film cost 10 cents to play, with no choice of song; the patron saw whatever film was next in the queue. Panorams could be found in public amusement centers, nightclubs, taverns, restaurants, and factory lounges, and the films were changed weekly. The completed Soundies were generally made available within a few weeks of their filming, by the Soundies Distributing Corporation of America.

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Early in the Mornin’ (Dallas Bartley, Louis Jordan, Leo Hickman) — recorded on 23 April 1947 in NYC — Louis Jordan (as, voc, ldr); Wild Bill Davis (p, arr); Carl Hogan (eg); Dallas Bartley (b); Christopher Columbus [Joe Morris] (d); The Calypso Boys (maracas, claves); singles chart success: #3 hit on the Billboard R&B (Race) chart, 1947

• See also the feature page Early in the Mornin’

The disc in the video below is Decca [Swi] 30640. Player credits (adapted) and disc identification courtesy of the Eddie Johnson discography at hubcap.clemson.edu. Of the five sides listed for the session, Johnson is credited on all but this one. Tympany Five trumpeter Aaron Izenhall is also uncredited on this track. But a note in the same discography says,

Our basic information comes from Tom Lord’s Jazz Discography…Lord also opines that The Calypso Boys are actually Aaron Izenhall and Eddie Johnson.

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1949

Saturday Night Fish Fry — See the special feature, with lyrics, at the bottom of this page.

Beans and Cornbread (songwriter credits: N/A)

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incomplete

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1950

Blue Light Boogie (Parts 1&2) – written by Jessie Mae Robinson. The recording by Louis Jordan and His Tympany Five reached the #1 spot on the Billboard R&B chart, and remained there for seven weeks in September and October 1950.

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From the Louis Jordan biography by Bill Dahl at allmusic.com:

Effervescent saxophonist Louis Jordan was one of the chief architects and prime progenitors of the R&B idiom. His pioneering use of jumping shuffle rhythms in a small combo context was copied far and wide during the 1940s.

Jordan’s sensational hit-laden run with Decca Records contained a raft of seminal performances, featuring inevitably infectious backing by his band, the Tympany Five, and Jordan’s own searing alto sax and street corner jive-loaded sense of humor. Jordan was one of the first black entertainers to sell appreciably in the pop sector; his Decca duet mates included Bing Crosby, Louis Armstrong, and Ella Fitzgerald.

The son of a musician, Jordan spent time as a youth with the Rabbit Foot Minstrels and majored in music later on at Arkansas Baptist College. After moving with his family to Philadelphia in 1932, Jordan hooked up with pianist Clarence Williams. He joined the orchestra of drummer Chick Webb in 1936 and remained there until 1938. Having polished up his singing abilities with Webb’s outfit, Jordan was ready to strike out on his own.

The saxist’s first 78 for Decca in 1938, “Honey in the Bee Ball,” billed his combo as the Elks Rendezvous Band (after the Harlem nightspot that he frequently played at). From 1939 on, though, Jordan fronted the Tympany Five, a sturdy little aggregation often expanding over quintet status that featured some well-known musicians over the years: pianists Wild Bill Davis and Bill Doggett, guitarists Carl Hogan and Bill Jennings, bassist Dallas Bartley, and drummer Chris Columbus all passed through the ranks.

From 1942 to 1951, Jordan scored an astonishing 57 R&B chart hits (all on Decca), beginning with the humorous blues “I’m Gonna Leave You on the Outskirts of Town” and finishing with “Weak Minded Blues.” In between, he drew up what amounted to an easily followed blueprint for the development of R&B (and for that matter, rock & roll — the accessibly swinging shuffles of Bill Haley & the Comets were directly descended from Jordan; Haley often pointed to his Decca labelmate as profoundly influencing his approach). » Read more

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Saturday Night Fish Fry (E. Walsh, Louis Jordan)***

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Saturday Night Fish Fry was a big hit for Louis Jordan & His Typany Five, topping the R&B chart for 12 weeks in late 1949. It also reached #21 on the national chart, a rare accomplishment for a “race record” at that time (although the very popular Jordan had already hadearlier crossover hits). Jordan’s jump blues combo was one of the most successful acts of its time, and its loose and streamlined style of play was highly influential.

Saturday Night Fish Fry was first recorded by Eddie Williams and His Brown Buddies, which featured the talk-singing vocals of Ellis Walsh. The act had recently had a #2 R&B hit with the song “Broken Hearted”, and “Fish Fry” was intended to be the band’s followup. However, the acetate for the Williams band version found its way to Louis Jordan’s agent, and as Williams later recalled, “They got theirs out there first.”

However, Jordan also reconfigured the song, taking a refrain that had been intermittent in Wiliams’ version– “And it was rockin’, it was rocking, you never seen such scuffling and shuffling ’til the break of dawn”– and refocusing it as the recording’s hook, singing it twice after every other verse. The Jordan band also dropped the shuffling rhythm of the Eddie Williams original, accelerating the pace into a raucous, rowdy jump boogie-woogie arrangement.

Saturday Night Fish Fry

by Ellis Walsh / Louis Jordan ***

Now if you’ve ever been down to New Orleans
Then you can understand just what I mean
All thru the week it’s quiet as a mouse
But on Saturday night they go from house to house
You don’t have to pay the usual admission
If you’re a cook, a waiter or a good musician
So if you happen to be just passin’ by
Stop in at the Saturday Night Fish Fry

It was rockin’, it was rockin’
You never seen such scufflin’
And shufflin’ ’till the break of dawn
It was rockin’, it was rockin’
You never seen such scufflin’
And shufflin’ ’till the break of dawn

Now my buddy and me was on the main stem
Foolin’ around just me and him
We thought we could use a little something to eat
So we stopped in at a house on Rampart Street
We knocked on the door and it opened up with ease
And a lush little Miss said, “Come in, please”
Before we could even bat an eye
We was right in the middle of a big fish fry

(repeat chorus)

Now the folks was havin’ the time of their life
And Sam was jivin’ Jimmie’s wife
Over in the corner was a beat up grand
Being played by a big fat piano man
Some of the chicks wore expensive frocks
Some of them had on bobbie socks
But everybody was nice and high
At this particular Saturday Night Fish Fry

(repeat chorus)

(Missing 4th section)

Now the women were screamin’ and jumpin’ and yellin’
The bottles was flyin’, and the fish was smellin’
And way above all the noise we made
Somebody hollered, “You better get outta here, this is a raid!”
I didn’t know we was breaking the law but
Somebody reached over and hit me on the jaw
Now they had us blocked off from front to back
And they was puttin’ ’em in the wagon like potatoes in a sack

(repeat chorus)

I knew I could get away if I had a chance
But I was shakin’ like I had the St. Vitus dance
So I tried to crawl in under a bath tab
When a policeman said, “Where are you goin’ there, bub?”
Now they got us out of there like a house on fire
And put us all in the black Maria
Now they might have missed a pitiful few
But they got both me and my buddy too

(repeat chorus)

Well we headed for jail in a dazed condition
They booked each one of us on suspicion
Now my chick came down and went my bail
And finally got me outta that rotten jail
Now if you ever want to get a fist in your eye
Just mention a Saturday Night Fish Fry
I don’t care how many fish in the sea
But don’t ever mention a fish to me

(repeat chorus)

THE FILMS (from LouisJordan.com)

• Starring Louis Jordan[feature films]
  • Caledonia (1945)
  • Look Out Sister (1946)
  • Reet, Petite and Gone (1947) (contains an apparently incorrect soundtrack song list)
  • Beware (1948)
• Soundies
  • All 17 Soundies
• [Feature] Film Appearances
  • After Seven (1929)
  • Follow The Boys (1944)
  • Meet Miss Bobby Socks (1944)
  • Swing Parade of 1946 (1946)
  • Tom & Jerry, “Solid Serenade” (1946)
• Documentaries
  • Louis Jordan and the Tympany Five

Film reviews:

• Wild Realm Reviews: Louis Jordan on film

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*Fleecie Moore was Jordan’s wife. Jordan evidently used the name as pseudonym to enable him to work with an alternate music publisher. Jordan later said, “Fleecie Moore’s name is on it, but she didn’t have anything to do with it. That was my wife at the time, and we put it in her name. She didn’t know nothin’ about no music at all. Her name is on this song and that song, and she’s still getting money.“^[1]  — information and quote from Wikipedia

** Samuel Allen Theard — IMDb indicates that the songwriting credit came under his stage name Spo-De-Odee

*** Though ASCAP’s ACE catalog and most other information sites credit only Jordan and Walsh (Ellis Lawrence), Heptunes gives the songwriting credits as Louis Jordan, Ellis Walsh and Al Carters.

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