Luke Jordan

Luke Jordan
They called him Lynchburg Luke

One of the many things not known about Lynchburg street performer Luke Jordan (1894-1954) is how he managed to get a recording stint with a major record label. One theory goes that he was referred to a label rep by a Richmond piano dealer; another that he simply hopped a freight to New York City unsolicited, as several white country artists had.

However he did it, the wry Jordan was the first Virginia folk-blues artist to record professionally, a shadowy songster who left behind a sparse but classic discography from two separate sessions for the Victor company in 1927 and 1929, period jewels like “Cocaine Blues,” “Pick Poor Robin Clean,” and “Church Bell Blues.”

Not really a bluesman, the World War I veteran’s tongue-in-cheek tuneage had more in common with minstrelsy and bawdy vaudeville. A synthesis of African-American and faux-black sources, the recordings sold well with both blacks and rural whites, and Jordan apparently sang for all of Lynchburg until the ‘40’s, when he lost his voice. There is believed to be but one surviving photo of the man they called Lynchburg Luke. Worse still, one of his four Victor 78s has never surfaced, lost to the ages.

Happily, time hasn’t forgotten Jordan and his musical contributions. Thanks to the James River Blues Society, there is now a marker in downtown Lynchburg honoring this pioneering Virginia song stylist.

— Don Harrison

Recommended on CD:
The Songster Tradition 1927-1935 (Document {Austria})

— Originally published in 64 Magazine, Jan.-Feb. 2001.