BRINKLEY, Ark.—Is you is or is you ain’t a Louie Jordan fan?

The famed 1940s vocalist, band leader and saxophonist from Arkansas gave the world a “jumpin’ jive” sound that influenced Ray Charles, B.B. King, Chuck Berry, James Brown and others. Jordan’s mix of jazz and blues, playful lyrics and strong rhythms excited audiences and made him among the first black performers to have crossover appeal with whites.

Called the “King of Rhythm and Blues,” Jordan was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987 and celebrated in the Broadway hit “Five Guys Named Moe.”

In this centennial year of Jordan’s birth, July 8, 1908, the U.S. Postal Service plans next month to issue a postage stamp in his honor, one of five in the service’s Vintage Black Cinema series.

Fans in Jordan’s home state of Arkansas pay tribute to him at festivals, museums and on the radio. A documentary about his life, “Is you is... The Louie Jordan Story,” is due out this fall. Still, music lovers say appreciation of Jordan’s cultural contributions to the world is underwhelming.

“Maybe it’s too much historical excavation for people,” says Little Rock musician Stephen Koch, who features Jordan’s music regularly on his “Arkansongs” radio program that airs on National Public Radio affiliates. “Maybe it’s too far gone.”

In the place Jordan knew best, his hometown, he is part of the blurry past as residents deal with the region’s present-day poverty and unemployment. Jordan’s boyhood home is rotting and falling down, and weeds and tall grass surround the building. A homemade sign reads: “Historical Site Boyhood Home of The Legendary Musician Louis Jordan.”

The city has condemned the property, and the mayor is waiting for the city council to appropriate the $2,000 or so needed to tear the house down. The owner, who lives in Ohio, insists he will sell it.

“There’s really nothing left to restore,” Mayor Barbara Skouras says. “One good snow storm or wind storm, ... that’s going to be the end of it.”

Brinkley is in one of the poorest regions in the country and many of its 4,000 residents live on government assistance. City promoters say that rather than advertise as Louis Jordan’s birthplace, they do better to draw people to the prairielands for hunting, fishing, birdwatching and the search for the elusive ivory-billed woodpecker.

Ask a young employee at a local Western Sizzlin’ if she knows who Jordan is and she draws a blank; same reaction from a hotel clerk at the America’s Best Value Inn. Only band students at Brinkley schools, those studying jazz and blues, learn about Jordan, who was 66 when he died Feb. 4, 1975, in Los Angeles.