Jerry Jordan did not ask for a “Phone Call from God,” but it happened anyway.
He recorded the “call” – a comedy skit – at Don Caldwell Studio in Lubbock, turned it into a Billboard hit in 1975, using it to propel himself back to his first career choice. Painting.
In the call, which you can hear in this YouTube clip, Jordan plays a character trying to convince the Lord he’s attending church and living right – only to be held accountable with the track record of his life. Silly excuses are met with divine sternness – providing the comic tension.
Having spent his money on everything but tithing, Jordan’s character learns his expensive new boat will not float on a lake of fire.
He first heard the make-believe call from a pastor when he was young, recalling, “I didn’t think it was funny at all.”
Born in Lubbock in 1944, Jordan grew up between Ropes and Meadow on a farm.
As a boy, Jordan especially found no humor in the act when his mother had to put on a youth program at a church in Brownfield.
“My mother said, ‘I want you to do that in my young people’s program this coming Saturday night,’” Jordan said.
“I said, ‘I don’t want to do that.’ She said, ‘I didn’t ask you what you wanna do. I said, you’re going to do it,’” Jordan recalled of the dialog.
It did not go well.
“They stared at me like I was a heathen,” Jordan said.
Later he and his brother, Harweda, were singers for a revival in Great Bend, Kansas. His brother imposed on him to do it, but this time the crowd thought it was funny.
“I got this little pink phone out of the nursery. … I probably should have kept that prop. It was just stupidly fun,” Jordan said.
Jordan performed about a minute of the call on October 9 on stage in the Lubbock Memorial Civic Center Theater to accept his induction into the West Texas Walk of Fame, honoring his career of painting landscapes and Pueblo culture.
From farm to paint brush
The journey for a West Texas farm boy to be honored alongside artist James Johnson, documentarian Hector Galan, and music group Flatland Cavalry began in about 1957.
Jordan’s family visited his grandparents in Oklahoma, he recalled.
“I asked my mom, ‘Would you get me a paint-by-number set to do at night?’ There was no television or stuff to do,” Jordan said.
“My grandmother – having never gone to a museum or a gallery probably – thought this was the prettiest thing she’d ever seen,” Jordan said.
The leftover paint became his first endeavor.
His mom supported him and dad did not say, “Get your butt on that farm and forget about that stuff.”
“He had a really wise perspective on it. And he said, ‘If that’s what you want to do, let’s do it,’” Jordan said.
A few years later, Jordan’s family went to see his other set of grandparents in Paris, Texas. On the way to a nearby park, along a dirt road, Jordan saw something.
“I look over there, and there’s this art studio. There’s a painting in the window. I want to come see what that is. It’s a bluebonnet painting,” Jordan said.
That was the studio of W.R. Thrasher – with 35 paintings ready for market. Jordan was “smitten.”
“I was working at the First National Bank in Brownfield. I intended to be the president of that bank. … Forget the bank, sheesh,” Jordan said.
He set up his own studio.
“I sold $4,000 worth of painting my senior year in 1963,” Jordan said.
“Then it got harder and harder, but also I needed to get better at it. What really happened is I got turned down by the Baker Company here in Lubbock,” Jordan said of the furniture store.
“I got so discouraged, … three months later, sold my studio, my house, everything in it and moved to Tennessee.” Jordan said. He would sing gospel with his brother to pay the rent. That turned into nine years and during that time he recorded “Phone Call from God.”
In 1978 he wanted to paint again, Jordan said. A Walk of Fame press release said he settled in Taos, New Mexico in 1986.
Fast forward to the bank
In 1994, Terry Key was setting up a branch of Lubbock National Bank at 4006 82nd Street.
“The project was near completion when I received a phone call one afternoon from the job supervisor informing me that an individual driving a Rider truck was in the parking lot,” Key said.
It was Jordan’s brother, Harweda.
“This individual claimed the truck was full of original oil paintings for our new bank. The driver also told the supervisor ‘I want to speak to the person who wrote the checks,’” Key told the audience at the Walk of Fame event.
“Upon my arrival, I saw original oil paintings spread across the freshly paved parking lot … I quickly realized that there was little modesty in his sales pitch. After viewing the paintings, I really quickly realized the quality of the work. The bank purchased six paintings,” Key said.
“Through the years, the bank received many positive comments, several offers to buy the paintings, and visitors to the building who wanted to see and experience Jerry’s work,” Key said.
Reacting to Key’s support, Jordan said. “It meant something that somebody bought a painting that had stature.”
Struggling to learn
Jordan struggled in school, never could never figure out spelling, he said for example.
“Having had failed 3rd and 7th grade, we went to Brownfield my 8th year,” Jordan said.
The school principal asked if he would like a summer tutor.
“I said, well, absolutely,” Jordan recalled.
It worked out.
“I graduated with a B+ and an A-, having had only Fs until I was 14,” Jordan said.
But the pain left a mark.
“So that drive – I will never ever set myself up to fail like that and feel that trauma, ever – and the result of that is persistent determination. I will not fail. I cannot stop. I will not quit,” Jordan said.
“That’s really why I got the award.”
Jordan had an art sale in 2023 in Santa Fe – selling $900,000 worth of paintings, he said.
I could tell you a tale, sleeping in the truck stops in your car in the winter and all those kinds of things.
Jerry jordan
Role of faith
His career had challenges, much like school. Early after switching from painting to singing, he was living more than a thousand miles away from Brownfield and struggling to pay rent.
“I could tell you a tale, sleeping in the truck stops in your car in the winter and all those kinds of things,” Jordan said.
“I happened to think of a scripture. Christ said, ‘I saw you, Nathaniel, under the fig tree,’” Jordan said.
He believes his award in the Walk of Fame is the Lord telling him, “I saw you.”
“I have an award tonight with my name in it, the Walk of Fame. … We all have our new names written in heaven on Heaven’s Walk of Fame,” he told the audience.
But too often people relate to God like the character in his comedy skit.
“Lord, I gave $58. … So, we’re at a dollar a week. What else you want?” Jordan said.
Dedicated to the art
If Jordan hadn’t hit a bump in the road in West Texas, he would never have been singing with his brother in Nashville. His recording of “Phone Call from God” would not have happened. And he would not have been in a position to return to painting.
He loves Lubbock and remembers thinking 19th Street was far enough south.
You begin to smell the aroma of pinyon that they’re burning the fireplaces with. And that is intoxicating.
jerry jordan
He asked himself at the time, “They don’t need that! What are they doing that for?”
And he loved his grandparents’ property in Oklahoma. But when he moved Taos, it was something special.
“You begin to smell the aroma of pinyon that they’re burning the fireplaces with. And that is intoxicating,” Jordan said.
Key, in his introduction of Jordan, said, “This experience not only developed a friendship with the Native American community, but also taught Jerry how to accurately convey their culture and its work.”
Jordan’s website described his work as appealing to the stunning landscapes and Pueblo culture.
“It has a very abstract quality – bent toward contemporary expression. You take a realistic scene and try to enhance it,” Jordan said.
But freedom to paint what he wants is vital to him.
“To follow a career in fine art, I was told you really got to decide on one genre. You need to paint one thing. And that seemed weird to me,” Jordan said.
His favorite painting?
“I actually have one in my studio that was sold in 1993. And I bought it back seven years ago. It’s an eight-foot seascape of Carmel, called Carmel Majesty in California. Probably my favorite,” Jordan said.
