The emergence of the Jordan Brothers from their local fame and intense musical interest in Frackville, Pennsylvania, can be traced to the night of January 22, 1956, when they appeared on Ted Mack’s Original Amateur Hour. That night, the Jordan Brothers, born Giordano—Joe, 15, Frank, 14., and Robert, 13—had to rely for support on phone calls and post cards mailed to Radio City Station, Box 191, Geritol [the sponsor, an elixir for the aged!] New York City. When they lost, they blamed the small community of Frackville as too small to support their local boys, even though a newspaper in nearby city of Reading printed the information to spread the word and even gave the address for sending the postcards.
Maybe they were right. The winner that night, Vito Vitale, was never heard from again, while the Jordan Brothers not only had a multi-release career of songs they wrote and sang, but they even had a book-length biography written by Maxim W. Furek, called The Jordan Brothers: A Musical Biography of Rock’s Fortunate Sons.
Their seven Jamie releases started with “Send Me Your Picture,” recorded by their dad Angelo at Reco Arts studio in Philadelphia and then peddled to numerous labels, starting with RCA. All passed until they got to Jamie, which got the Jordan Brothers onto American Bandstand and Dick Clark’s Cavalcade of Stars. The group also recorded in Phoenix to share some of the magic of the group around Duane Eddy, all the time only nudging into national popularity.
