LANCASTER — Frank Jordan received many accolades during his 35 years as an rock’n’roll entertainer, but none quite as dramatic as the one on Wednesday at the American Music Theatre.
The packed house jumped to its feet as Jordan concluded his performance of “Gimme Some Lovin” at the Jordan Brothers’ induction into the Central Pennsylvania Music Association (CPMA) Hall of Fame.
“What an exciting night,” Jordan said. “I can’t believe it after all these years.”
Yet, even as applause echoed through the cavernous theater, the 82-year-old saxophonist harbored a sense of longing.
“I feel so bad that my brothers couldn’t be there to enjoy it,” said Jordan, the last surviving member of Frackville’s ‘Fab Four.’ “They deserved it.”
Brandon Valentine, CPMA president, presented a Hall of Fame plaque with an engraving of the Jordan Brothers — Bobby, Lew, Joe and Frank — looking as they had more than six decades ago when they appeared on American Bandstand and toured with Dick Clark’s “Caravan of Stars.”
The induction ceremony was attended by members of the Jordan Brothers’ families.
A text block on the Hall of Fame plaque recounted highlights of the band, which was formed in the mid-1950s in Frackville.
“They achieved high regional popularity in Schuylkill and surrounding counties and Philadelphia,” it read in part.
The group’s first national exposure was on Ted Mack’s Original Amateur Hour on ABC-TV on Jan. 22, 1956. They recorded their first record, “Send Me Your Picture/Oh Lolly,” on the self-produced Jordan label at Reco-Arts Studio in Philadelphia.
It led to a two-year recording contract with Jamie Records in 1958, and a 49-day tour with the “Caravan of Stars” in the U.S. and Canada in 1959. The tour included rock’n’roll headliners Bobby Rydell, Paul Anka and Annette Funicello.
“When Annette took the stage in Baltimore, 30,000 people chanted “MIC-KEY MOUSE,” Frank Jordan recalled, citing reference to her role as a Mouseketeer on Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse Club.
Between 1957 and 1984, the Jordan Brothers recorded 24 singles on 15 different labels. The band’s biggest hit, “Gimme Some Lovin,” was released a month before the Spencer Davis Group released its Top 10 single on Fontana records.
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Hometown boys
While acknowledging the Jordan Brothers could have gone on the road, it was the band’s local appeal that Frank Jordan was most proud of during an interview the day after the Hall of Fame induction.
As teenagers, the band first appeared at The Spot and The Globe in Minersville, he recalled, followed by a former supermarket at Renninger’s Farmers Market in Orwigsburg, in the late 1950s.
As its reputation grew, the band began drawing people from the Reading area.
It was at “The Lake,” a roller-skating rink at Willow Lake swimming pool near Schuylkill Haven, that the Jordan Brothers band came into its own, recalled Frank, who managed the group for about 16 years.
The band also drew large crowds at Lakeside Park ballroom; The Alley, near Schuylkill Haven, 83 Rollerama and the Hamburg Field House in the 1960s.
Leanna Light, who was a 15-year-old sophomore at Hamburg High School when she attended her first Jordan Brothers dance in 1963, recalls hearing the band playing the Kingsmen’s “Louie Louie” at 83 Rollerama in Berks County.
The sound still rings in her ears 63 years later.
“That place was filled,” recalled Light, who said cars in the parking lot had license plates from New Jersey, New York and Delaware.
“They could play the songs exactly as they sounded on the records,” said Light, 76, a retired secretary who has a collection of the band’s 45-RPM discs. “I never heard another group that had the talent the Jordan Brothers had.”
Jerry Enders said the dance floor shook when the band played “The Jordan Brothers Theme” to kick off dances in The Lake.
“They had a beat and rhythm that inspired you to dance,” said Enders, owner of Jerry’s Northeast Auto Sales in Pottsville. “You got goosebumps when you heard that music, and you knew you were going to dance for three hours.”
At Jerry’s Classic Cars & Collectibles Museum, Enders has a collection of Jordan Brothers memorabilia, including the band’s theme in a vintage 1970s jukebox.
Brothers four
Growing up in Frackville, the Jordan brothers were taught music by members of The Mansion Four, a local band that played old standards in the mid-1950s.
At the time, few radio stations played rock’n’roll and the only place teenagers could hear this new music sweeping the nation was on records.
“We were a copy band,” Frank Jordan says. “We copied all the brand new songs coming out on 45-RPMs.”
It was a case of being in the right place at the right time, he says, as Elvis Presley and the Everly Brothers topped the charts.
“We just jumped on it,” he said. “It was our music and our generation.”
The cohesiveness of being brothers contributed to the band’s success. They were always together and could practice and perform without the complications other bands faced.
Bobby Jordan, drummer, died in 1993. Joe Jordan, lead singer, died of complications from COVID-19 at age 79 in 2021. Lew Jordan, lead guitarist, passed at age 74 in 2022.
“My brothers were always there,” recalled Frank, a former deejay with WPPA and T-102 radio. “It’s what made us the band we were.”