Turner, (Big) Joe (actually, Joseph Vernon Turner Jr.

Turner, (Big) Joe(actually, Joseph Vernon Turner Jr.), American blues and R&B singer; b. Kansas City, Mo., May 18, 1911; d. Inglewood, Calif., Nov. 24, 1985. Blues shouter Joe Turner (sometimes called “Big Joe” to distinguish him from jazz pianist Joe Turner) was the leading voice of the rhythmic boogie-woogie music of the late 1930s and early 1940s. He then became one of the major R&B singers of the 1950s, with such hits as “Honey Hush,” “Chains of Love/⁷and “Shake, Rattle and Roll/^rwhich influenced early rock ’n’ roll musicians.

The son of Joseph Turner Sr. and Geòrgie Harrington Turner, Joe Turner sang on the streets of Kansas City as a child. After his father died when he was 15, he helped support his family by selling newspapers and selling drugs, then worked as a waiter and bartender in local clubs. By the age of 21 he was singing, and he formed a partnership with pianist Pete Johnson. The two worked briefly in N.Y. in 1936 and were brought back to the city by talent scout John Hammond, who featured them in his From Spirituals to Swing concert at Carnegie Hall in December 1938. Staying in N.Y., Turner signed to Vo-calion Records and began appearing with Johnson and pianists Albert Ammons and Mead Lux Lewis at the two Café Society nightclubs. He also toured nationally and appeared during the summer of 1941 in Duke Ellington’s Jump for Joyrevue in Los Angeles. By then he had moved to Decca Records, where he recorded with such jazz musicians as Benny Carter and Art Tatum.

Turner was based on the West Coast during the second half of the 1940s. Recording for National Records, he reached the Top Ten of the R&B chart with “S.K. Blues—Part I” (music and lyrics by Saunders King) in March 1945 and with “My Gal’s a Jockey” in August 1946. He married Luella “Lou Willie” Brown in 1945, and she became his manager; the marriage ended around 1965. Also in 1945, he and Johnson opened the Blue Room Club in Los Angeles. From 1947 he had brief associations with several record companies, and he returned to the R&B Top Ten with “Still in the Dark” on Freedom Records in March 1950.

Turner signed to Atlantic Records in 1951, and at his first session in April cut “Chains of Love” (music by Harry “Van” Walls, lyrics by Atlantic Records president Ahmet Ertegun), which neared the top of the R&B charts and reportedly sold a million copies. He followed

it with a string of Top Ten R&B hits over the next five years: “The Chill Is On” (music and lyrics by Joe Turner; December 1951); “Sweet Sixteen” (music and lyrics by Ahmet Ertegun; April 1952); “Don’t You Cry” (music and lyrics by Doc Pomus; August 1952); “Honey Hush” (music and lyrics by Joe Turner, though credited to Lou Willie Turner), which went to #1 in December 1953 and reportedly sold a million copies; “TV Mama” (music and lyrics by Joe Turner, though credited to Lou Willie Turner; January 1954); “Shake, Rattle and Roll” (music and lyrics by Jesse Stone under the pseudonym Charles Calhoun), which went to #1 in June 1954; “Well All Right” (November 1954); “Flip Flop and Fly” (music and lyrics by Jesse Stone under the pseudonym Charles Calhoun and Joe Turner, though credited to Lou Willie Turner; March 1955); “The Chicken and the Hawk (Up, Up and Away)” and “Morning, Noon and Night” (music and lyrics by Jesse Stone under the pseudonym Charles Calhoun; January 1956); “Corrine Corrina” (traditional, adapted music and lyrics by J. Mayo Williams and Bo Chatman, new lyrics by Mitchell Parish), which also reached the pop charts in May 1956; and “Lipstick, Powder and Paint” (music and lyrics by Jesse Stone; September 1956).

Turner appeared in the motion pictures Rhythm-and-Blues Revue (1955) and Shake, Rattle and Rock! (1956). His recordings continued to reach the charts until 1960. He toured extensively, appearing in Europe in 1958, 1965, and 1971 and becoming a fixture at major jazz festivals such as those held in Newport, R.I., and Monterey, Calif. In 1969 he married Pat Sims. In the early 1970s, based in Los Angeles, he recorded for the jazz label Pablo with Count Basie and others. In March 1974 he participated in the documentary The Last of the Blue Devils,about the Kansas City jazz scene.

Despite declining health, Turner continued to record and perform in the early 1980s. Blues Train,an album he made with the group Roomful of Blues, earned a 1983 Grammy Award nomination for Best Traditional Blues Recording. He earned two Grammy Award nominations for Best Traditional Blues Recording in 1985, for the albums Big Joe Turner with Knocky Parker and His House-rockersand Patcha, Patcha, All Night Long,a duet with Jimmy Witherspoon, but these accolades were made posthumously; he died in 1985 at 74 of a heart attack.

Discography

Have No Tear, Big Joe Turner is Here (1945); Kansas City Jazz (1953); Joe Turner and Pete Johnson (1955); Joe Turner (1957); Joe Turner and the Blues (1958); Rockin the Blues (1958); Big Joe Is Here (1959); Big Joe Rides Again (1959); Jumpin’ the Blues (1962); Best (1963); Careless Love (1963); Singing the Blues (1967); Texas Style (1971); Roll ’Em (1973); Nobody in Mind (1976); In the Evening (1976); Things That I Used to Do (1977); Great R&B Oldies (1981); Have No Fear, Joe Turner Is Here (ree. 1945-7; 1982); Kansas City Here I Come (1982); Roll Me Baby (1982); Life Ain’t Easy (1983); Rock This Joint (1984); Blues’II Make You Happy (1985); The Rhythm and Blues Years (1986); Greatest Hits (1987); Memorial Album (1987); Steppin Out (1988); Midnight Special (1987); I’ve Been to Kansas City Vol. 1 (1990); Stormy Monday (1991); Tell Me Pretty Baby (1992); Every Day in the Week (1993); Jumpin’ with Joe—The Complete Aladdin and Imperial Recordings (ree. late 1940s-early 1950s; rei. 1994); Shake, Rattle and Roll (1994); Early Big Joe; Turns On the Blues; Still The Boss of the Blues; The Very Best of Joe Turner—Live (2000); The Blues Boss—Live(2000). Pete Johnson: Boss of the Blues (1956). Dizzy Gillespie, Roy Eldridge, and others: Trumpet Kings Meet Joe Turner (ree. 1974; rei. 1975). Pee Wee Clayton: Everyday I Have the Blues (ree. 1975; rei. 1976). Knocky Parker and The Houserockers: Joe Turner (1984). BIG JOE TURNER AND COUNT BASIE: Flip, Flop and Fly (ree. 1972; rei. 1975); The Bosses (1975). BIG JOE TURNER AND ROOMFUL OF BLUES: Blues Train (1983). BIG JOE TURNER AND JIMMY WITHER- SPOON: Patcha, Vatcha, All Night Long (1986). BIG JOE TURNER AND T-BONE WALKER: Bosses of the Blues, Vol. 1 (1989).

—William Ruhlmann