Louis Jordan

Though you may not know the man, you probably know his music. Arkansas-born Louis Jordan's songs like &quote;Baby, It's Cold Outside,&quote; &quote;Caldonia&quote; and &quote;Ain't Nobody Here But Us Chickens&quote; can still be heard today, decades since Jordan ruled the charts. In his five-decade career, Jordan influenced American popular music, film and more and inspired the likes of James Brown, B.B. King, Chuck Berry and Ray Charles. Known as the &quote;King of the Jukeboxes,&quote; he and his combo played a hybrid of jazz, swing, blues and comedy music during the big band era that became the start of R&B. In a stunning narrative portrait of Louis Jordan, author Stephen Koch contextualizes the great, forgotten musician among his musical peers, those he influenced and the musical present.