Dixie Boy Jordan

Dixie Boy Jordan (born September 5, 1906 in Union County , Mississippi ; real name Walter Aaron Jordan , † November 21, 1987 in Wichita Falls , Texas ) was an American country musician . Jordan had an extensive career on radio during the 1940s and 1950s.

Life

Childhood and youth

Jordan was born on a farm in Mississippi, the son of pastor and farm laborer Charles Jordan and his wife Nora. He suffered a polio attack at the age of three, but survived it thanks to his parents and learned to walk again. However, illnesses seemed to haunt him all his life: at the age of ten he was run over by a bicycle cart, later he suffered from malaria , cancer and other ailments. Jordan learned to play the guitar from his mother and she taught him old gospel and folk songs .

Career

Jordan quickly began playing on Barn Dances in his neighborhood , accompanying his uncle who was performing at Fiddler's Contests . With the minstrel show of a piano tuner , he began to travel around the country and learned his skills as an entertainer there. While roaming around with this show, Jordan also made his first appearance on the radio in Tulsa , Oklahoma . After the show closed, Jordan wandered around alone for a while, staying afloat as a musician. Then he played old Jimmie Rodgers songs he'd learned from Rodgers' records at a gas station .

During the Great Depression in the early 1930s, Jordan moved back to Mississippi, where he stayed for some time. After a few years, however, he went to St. Louis , Missouri , where he could be heard regularly on KMOX and played with the Ozark Mountain Boys . At that time he adopted the name "Dixie Boy". At the same time, Jordan met his wife Flora Reichert, whom he married in May 1935.

There followed a time in which Jordan moved from radio station to radio station, among other things he was in 1941 at WKY and later at KOMA in Oklahoma City , where he also joined the band Wiggins' Hollow Folks . During this time he became a member of the Bluff Creek Round Up on KOMA, but left the station to work at WHO in Des Moines , Iowa .

At Des Moines, he joined the Iowa Barn Dance Frolics ensemble and began hosting his own show, the Home Talent Show . Jordan visited other nearby cities in search of young talent, whom he then gave the opportunity to appear on his show. It was the most successful time of his career; Jordan was a regular on the radio and had many opportunities to perform live as the music scene in Des Moines was thriving. Ultimately, however, he left Iowa in the mid-1950s because WHO wanted to put a manager at his side.

Jordan therefore settled in Wichita Falls, Texas, in 1957. Shortly before, RCA Victor had offered him a contract. But there was no recording session because RCA and Jordan could not agree on the song material. The record company wanted mostly secular titles, while Jordan wanted to focus more on religious songs. But he found a broad audience again via radio and now also television. He continued his talent show on KWFT and also moderated the Western Barn Dance .

retreat

Jordan gave up his professional career in 1957. He stayed in Wichita Falls and continued to appear sporadically. Jordan used to say later that Elvis Presley "shook him" out of business. Dixie Boy Jordan died in Wichita Falls in 1987.

Web links

• Dixie Boy Jordan on Hillbilly-Music.com (English)