War’s Lonnie Jordan revisited

Lonnie Jordan is still kickin’ it with War after nearly 60 years (courtesy Piero Gunti)

I can tell you three things for sure about Lonnie Jordan, singer, keyboardist and front man for the band “War”:

• He is a damn fine musician.

• He is remarkably fit for a 78-year-old.

• He is a delight to interview — congenial, clever and concise with his observations.

“War,” one of the quintessential bands of American music in the 1970s, returns to Chinook Winds Casino and Resort for an 8 p.m. concert on July 18. (“War” will have another Oregon appearance this summer, at Indian Head Casino in Warm Springs on Aug. 15.) The band staged a spirited, stimulating and splendid performance at Chinook Winds almost exactly two years earlier. Prior to that show, Lonnie and I had a lengthy conversation, which I wrote about here.

As we began another interview this week, I mentioned War’s previous visit to Lincoln City. It was clear that Lonnie hadn’t forgotten. In his cool, vibrant voice, out came the refrain (with a sort of 2026 twist) from one of War’s hit songs, “All Day Music”:

“Down at the beach,

a party in town,

making love or just messing around.

To soothe your mind, yeah.”

Then a laugh.

Lonnie was in a playful mood. I started by asking if he was calling from his home in Los Angeles.

“Calling from a cell,” he said. “I’m in jail in Los Angeles right now. I got busted last night.”

Pause.

“Nah, I’m just kidding. Don’t listen to me half the time.”

Jordan has to be one of the most youthful septuagenarians in the entertainment business. The last remaining original member of the band that became War in 1969 — he joined up in 1963 when they called themselves “the Creators” — maintains an active lifestyle and a vegan diet.

War’s portfolio includes sales of more than 50 million albums and 20 gold, platinum and multi-platinum singles. Among their dozen top-40 singles are “Spill the Wine,” “Why Can’t We Be Friends,” “Low Rider,” “Cisco Kid” and “The World is a Ghetto.” Three of their albums reached No. 1 on the R&B charts.

Nearly six decades after War’s beginning, the current seven-member iteration remains a popular item in venues not just across the country but around the world.

Our conversation:

Q: How was your recent European tour?

A: Great. We did only four or five shows over two weeks — we were off for a few days in between. We started in the UK, then we went to Belgium and Amsterdam and some other place I can’t remember. Every place is starting to look the same to me. When you’re 78, that happens (laughs). People are a little different, because the younger ones are different than the older ones from my era. It was a great experience. My favorite place was Utrecht, Belgium. We played in a big festival.

Q: Did your wife Teresa make the trip?

A: Of course. She loves to travel, and she has friends in those parts of the world.

Q: Any idea how many countries in which War has performed through the years?

A: It is a very high number. Unfortunately, my memory bank is pretty much overloaded with so many memories. I’ll have to clean out some of it.

Q: Kind of like a computer?

A: Exactly. It has become a computer.

Q: Is there any place you haven’t performed that you aspire to play?

A: That’s a good question. We are running out of (new) places to play. We have not played parts of Africa yet, or Brazil. I would love to go there. We have done Russia. We haven’t done Austria. There are a couple of other places we haven’t covered yet. Back in the early days, in the 70s, we had some issues about going into some countries because of the name of our band and the way we looked and dressed. With some of the countries, there was a bit of racism toward a mixed (race) band. We had big Afros and bellbottoms. We did not look like a band. We looked more like rebels. Some of those countries did not take that lightly.

Q: What was it like playing in Russia?

A: It was strange. When we entered the country, we were welcomed with a red carpet. Exiting was not as welcoming. They were happy for us to leave, and we were happy to leave, too. We couldn’t wait to kiss the ground when we landed in New York.

Q: Do you still enjoy travel?

A: Oh yeah, I love traveling. I love coming back home, too. So both.

Q: You live in LA. Are your band members spread out?

A: We are spread out through California. I am the only one who lives close to the center of Los Angeles.

Q: Most of your group has been together for awhile. Do you still practice, or do you know each other and the songs so well, that it’s not really necessary anymore?

A: I’m sorry, what is that?

Q: Oh, I mean, do you have practice sessions?

A: I’m still sorry. What is practice? I’ll have to look that up.

Jordan says he loves performing live “to see the people’s smiles” (courtesy Regime Music Group)

Q: You’re putting me on again.

A: (laughs) No, our rehearsals are when we play on stage, just like when we recorded our records back in the day. Everything was improvised. It’s not like we don’t know the songs. We just play.

Q: Do you ever throw new songs into the material for your shows? Do you sometime do covers of other artists that you admire?

A: We don’t do any covers. We have enough music of our own to take up maybe five shows, two hours a night. Within our music, we always seem to make enough mistakes so we can make that mistake again during the song as we are playing it. In doing that mistake, we can create a new rhythm on the song.

Q: Your fans want you to play all of your hits during a concert. Do you get tired of playing them?

A: No, because we play it different every time. Sometimes we let the people sing it. When we try to sing it, they seem to sing the songs with us without us asking them. Especially over in Europe. They even sing the atomizer real loud. For instance, in “Low Rider,” they sing “dot dot dot dot dot dot dot!” I’m thinking, ‘What?’ ”

Q: What is it about performing live that turns you on?

A: The people’s smiles and the inspiration they give me as we bounce back and forth with each other. They give me “pow-er” to play. It makes me so happy. They give me a new endorphin. It kicks in, and I am on Cloud Nine. It’s like I go where no man has gone before.

Q: Besides being a singer and keyboardist, you are a songwriter. You wrote or co-wrote most of War’s hits?

A: All of them have been co-written. We always shared the song-writing. We were all the primary song-writers, and we shared vocals. I enjoyed writing with the guys back in the day. We never sat down and took out a piece of paper and wrote down songs or notes to play. We jammed. We were one of the first jam bands — get on a sound stage and not rehearse, but just jam. If you didn’t turn on the tape, you would lose it. That’s how we wrote our songs. We shared the writing. Thank God for our “Rock and Roll Hall of Fans.” They sing those songs along with us, and then we start creating new songs within that song.

Members of War have always shared song-writing duties (courtesy Regime Music Group)

Q: When did the lyrics come in then — later, or as you were playing the song?

A: Sometimes we would add as we go. We would create a theme and later on take that theme and come up with some lyrics as we would turn the tape on. We would keep playing the tape over and over until we came up with more lyric ideas.

Q: What kind of music do you listen to today?

A: I love all genres of music, from old rock ’n roll, to country, to country western, to Latin, to Calypso. Classical music, jazz, smooth jazz — I love it all. It all has its place for me.

Q: What do you do with your spare time these days? What are your interests?

A: I sit down at my piano and play jazz, and some classical music. I love hiking with my wife. And she loves coming home and creating some vegan dishes for us to consume and keep our health going. We pretty much concentrate on our health a lot. That’s a good thing.

Q: Teresa is your personal chef. You told me that you eat a lot of your food from the garden in your yard at home.

A: That’s right. We plant and harvest our vegetables. Untainted foods, from the ground to the table.

Q: You’re in such good shape. You’re 5-11. What do you weigh?

A: Are you trying to check out my memory again? (Laughs) I’m 5-11 and 145. I feel good, like James Brown sang. My natural weight is 145. If I wasn’t a vegan, then I would be 165 or more, but my normal size is where I am at right now, and I feel really good. It’s not because I’ve lost weight; it’s because I’ve lost waist. I’m not having issues in my tissues, and that’s the bottom line. Preventative medicine is food from our garden.

Q: You have had an incredible career. What are you most proud of among your accomplishments?

A: I never really sat down and considered any accomplishments until our fans reminded me of them. I am still trying to figure out how our music — like “Low Rider,” “Why Can’t We Be Friends,” “Spill the Wine” — how in the world any of that music was played on the radio back in the day, and it is still being played on some stations. I count my blessings. But as far as my accomplishments, I don’t really look at it like that. I just love my “Rock and Roll Hall of Fans.” My accomplishment is to have those fans.

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