Ray Charles and Louis Jordan

You already know Ray Charles (and if you don’t read this), but Louis Jordan is a little more obscure for most people. Aside from being a major influence on Ray Charles, along with Nat King Cole, Charles Brown and Art Tatum, Louis is also the father of rock and roll, playing the style — sometimes called ‘jump blues’ at the time — as far back as the 1940s. Here is one of Jordan’s bluesier tunes as performed by Louis and then Ray, plus a little ‘Saturday Night Fish Fry,’ which has been dubbed the first rock and roll song, and a hit the Louis Jordan band was wailing on when Elvis was still in grade school.