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Apr-28 6:30 PM | Bud Light World Music Stage

BIO

Lonnie Jordan was born on November 21, 1948 in San Diego, California, but his family moved to Compton soon afterwards. "I had three brothers," Jordan recalls. "My oldest brother Ray is playing these days with Vernon Garrett and R&B oldies groups. As teenagers, we pretended we had a vocal group and did songs by Little Anthony and The Imperials and Stevie Wonder. I was the youngest, so I was the lead singer with my brothers as background singers. We had lots of girl cousins and they were our audience - and our hecklers. "I started pounding on the piano when I was about six," Jordan says. "I could play by ear and took some lessons from a church lady who played for the congregation. After a couple of months I played an arpeggio like I'd heard her do on Sundays. She smacked my hand and I ran out of there and never went back. I mostly taught myself, but before she hit me, I did a recital of "Londonderry Air" ("Oh Danny Boy"). I made one mistake and started shaking. That caused me to have terrible stage fright, which I didn't get over until my late 40s. I still have that moment of fear before I strike the first note, but once I hit it I'm cool." Jordan delved into Ray Charles, Jimmy Smith, Erroll Garner, Bill Evans (before and after Miles), Earl Grant and Billy Preston. He loved Latin music and picked up vibes after listening to Cal Tjader. "I was in bands all through high school and got into trouble with girls, but I was more into music than girls. I was afraid to fall in love, cause that would take away time from playing music. "I felt like a professional, even before I graduated high school. I met Howard Scott in Compton. His piano player was in and out of jail, so he hired me and the band became The Creators. I had to get permits to play in clubs cause I was too young. We played R&B - Wilson Pickett, James Brown, Johnny Taylor and lot of ghetto blues, Memphis Slim, Lowell Fulsome, guys like that. We also dug pop and country - Patsy Cline, Elvis, The Everly Brothers. We played in country clubs backing up country singers and played Latin, Jazz and Gospel gigs. We finally started creating our own style. Since we all liked everything, we decided to be multi-cultural in our music." In 1968, the band was backing up Deacon Jones, a pro football player trying to launch a singing career. Meanwhile, Eric Burdon was looking for a backing band. "Eric sat in with us one night. It sounded so good, (his producer) Jerry Goldstein took us into the studio to cut some stuff." Those tracks never came out, but Eric Burdon hired them for a tour of Japan and the five-day Northridge Festival. "One night we were walking down an alley, all of us in our fatigues and boots and big Afros. Our manager said: 'You look like you just came off a battlefield - like you're ready to fight a war.' Someone suggested War as a band name and it sounded too radical. Then we thought we'd wage war with melody, rhythm and harmony as our weapons and the songs as our ammunition. We spoke out against racism, hunger, gangs and crime and fused rock, jazz, Latin and R&B, as well as being one of the first integrated bands in the business." And the rest, as they say, is history. Fifty Million records later "We're still doing our thing and bringing multi-cultural audiences to our concerts, all ages, all races. Fans of hip hop, alternative rock, Latin music, jazz. We go out with everyone from Steve Miller to Ice Cube