>>>Which Louis Jordan tunes made the country charts during the 1940's?
>>>Apparently, there were three.
>
>>yep, at least in the top 40. "ration blues," #1 for three weeks; "deacon
>>jones," the b-side (#7); and is you is or is you ain't (ma' baby), #1 for 5
>>weeks. all charted in 1944. source: billboard. bill f-w
>
Welll...to be precise, these three songs made Billboard's "Most Played Juke
Box Folk Records" chart, in the year it was inaugarated, 1944. and to quote
from Joel Whitburn's "Top country singles 1944 -1988" -
"In 1944, after the unprecedented success of Al Dexter's 'Pistol Packin'
mama' the year before, Billboard began taking the music seriously enough to
start its first tabulation of best-selling 'folk' music. The magazine
wasn't too certain about what, exactly, constituted 'folk' music and
frequently included black hot string combos such as the Four Clefs in that
category."
Other RnB performers on the chart that first year included Nat King Cole
and Lucky Millinder, but by the following year's charts, RnB had pretty
much disappeared. The name of the chart was changed to Country & Western
in 1949.
None of which proves or disproves the popularity of black music with white
audiences at the time.
Allen Baekeland
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