Huge fan of the late great Mike Jordan. He was an amazing, riveting entertainer, and simply one of a kind. The venue he played was the Pub Drinking Company and Spaghetti House...which became Rumples and is now called Bombshell Bar and Grill (Big A's is across the street). We weren’t friends, but we were acquaintances.

The first time I saw him, my girlfriend and I had wandered in off the street while he was playing one night in ’90 or ’91. The only seats available were right up against center stage, literally 3-4 feet from where he was sitting. We were uncomfortably close. Anyway, Mike finishes playing whatever he was playing, looks me straight in the eye and says into the mic: "How's my hair?" I was startled, but a half second later, the entire bar erupted in unison: "PERFECT!!!". He proceeded to pull out his harp and hop up onto the bar, dancing over beer mugs to one of his staples—a dog song called Blue. I was hooked, and darn near saw him every Friday or Saturday after that (oftentimes both) until his untimely death in ’92. He was filling the place to the gills so regularly that the bar owner bought the business next store and knocked out the wall to expand seating capacity. Mike was killed that first weekend of the opening of the “new room”.

I was there for his last show. There were 2 strange coincidences related to his death, which I’ve never forgotten. First, he referenced his own death two separate times during his final show (he mentioned that-should he die-his songs would all belong to his sister in Alaska, and then later mentioned that-should he die-he wanted his ashes scattered on the Old Monroe baseball diamond, at the SS position). Second, he was killed on his beloved Highway 79 (two lanes that twist and turn and bend) and the name of the driver who hit him head-on was named Robert Michael Jordan. Bizarre.

I bought his Through The Window album on eBay years ago, and have also managed to lay hands on a Rockamatics cassette, his Indian Summer cassette, an 11 song unmastered cassette called Love and Affection, and a live recording of ~20 songs from a show at the Spaghetti House. Even with these tapes, there are many many excellent songs that Mike wrote that I cannot locate, and their memory is barely alive but slipping away from the recesses of my memory. He had a song called Believin’ In The End that was just beautiful. 25 years after his death, I still miss him, and recognize him as one of the best entertainers I have ever seen.