Louis Jordan

These sessions also produced Jordan's first big-selling record "I'm Gonna Move to the Outskirts of Town" originally recorded by Casey Bill Weldon in 1936 although again it did not make the charts. Their next recording date in March 1939 produced five sides including "Keep A-Knockin'" (originally recorded in the 1920s and later covered famously by Little Richard) "Sam Jones Done Snagged His Britches" and "Doug the Jitterbug". A productive songwriter he wrote or co-wrote many songs that became influential classics of 20th-century popular music.

These recordings presaged many of the styles of black popular music in the late 1940s 1950s and 1960s and exerted a huge influence on many leading performers in these genres. After Duke Ellington and Count Basie Louis Jordan was probably the most popular and successful African-American bandleader of his day. Jordan regularly topped the R&B "race" charts and was one of the first black recording artists to achieve a significant "crossover" in popularity into the mainstream (predominantly white) American audience scoring simultaneous Top Ten hits on the white pop charts on several occasions.