Artist: Big Joe Turner Genre(s):
Blues
Discography:
Big, Bad and Blue Vol.3 Year: 1994
Tracks: 18
Big, Bad and Blue Vol.2 Year: 1994
Tracks: 19
Big, Bad and Blue Vol.1 Year: 1994
Tracks: 19
Bosses Of The Blues vol.1 Year: 1969
Tracks: 15
The Blues Boss Year: 1958
Tracks: 21
Big Joe Rides Again Year: 1956
Tracks: 10
Rhytm and Blues Years Year: 1951
Tracks: 28
Every Day In The Week Year: 1941
Tracks: 23
The premier blues bellower of the postwar era, Big Joe Turner's howl could rattle the very foundation of whatever gin joint he american ginseng within -- and that's without a microphone. Turner was a bouncy figure in the history of blues -- he effortlessly spanned boogie-woogie, chute blues, regular the kickoff undulation of rock music & roll, enjoying great winner in each genre.
Joseph Mallord William Turner, whose powerful body-build sure as shooting matched his vocal power, was a mathematical product of the swing, lawless Kansas City view. Even in his teens, the big-boned Turner looked entirely mature sufficiency to gain entranceway to various K.C. niteries. He concluded up simultaneously attention measure and singing the blues before hook up with boogie-woogie forte-piano superior Pete Johnson during the early '30s. Theirs was a partnership that would hold up for 13 years.
The pair initially traveled to New York at John Hammond's behest in 1936. On December 23, 1938, they appeared on the legendary Spirituals to Swing concert at Carnegie Hall on a billhook with Big Bill Broonzy, Sonny Terry, the Golden Gate Quartet, and Count Basie. Turner and Johnson performed "Low Down Dog" and "It's All Right, Baby" on the historic prove, kicking turned a boogie fury that landed them a long-running slot at the Cafe Society (along with piano giants Meade Lux Lewis and Albert Ammons).
As 1938 came to a close, Turner and Johnson waxed the thundering "Roll 'Em Pete" for Vocalion. It was a thrilling up-tempo number anchored by Johnson's bloody 88s, and Turner would re-record it many multiplication over the decades. Turner and Johnson waxed their seminal blues "Cherry red Red" the next year for Vocalion with trumpeter Hot Lips Page and a full combo in support. In 1940, the massive bellower affected over to Decca and cut "Piney Brown Blues" with Johnson wavelet the ivories. But non all of Turner's Decca sides teamed him with Johnson; Willie "The Lion" Smith attended him on the doleful "Regardless Love," patch Freddie Slack's Trio provided support for "Rocks in My Bed" in 1941.
Henry Hubert Turner ventured extinct to the West Coast during the state of war years, edifice quite a following piece ensconced on the L.A. circuit. In 1945, he sign-language on with National Records and cut some fine small jazz group platters under Herb Abramson's oversight. Turner remained with National through 1947, belting an lush "My Gal's a Jockey" that became his low national R&B smash. Contracts didn't stoppage him from waxing an improbably risqué two-way "Some the Clock" for the capably named Stag imprint (as Big Vernon!) in 1947. There were besides solid roger Sessions for Aladdin that year that included a risky vocal duel with unmatched of Turner's dealer rivals, Wynonie Harris, on the ribald two-way "Struggle of the Blues."
Few West Coast indie labels of the late '40s didn't tout at least one or 2 Turner titles in their catalogs. The bellower bounced from RPM to Down Beat/Swing Time to MGM (all those dates were anchored by Johnson's forte-piano) to Texas-based Freedom (which moved some of their masters to Specialty) to Imperial in 1950 (his New Orleans backing crew there included a young Fats Domino on forte-piano). But apart from the 1950 Freedom 78, "Inactive in the Dark," none of Turner's records were marketing peculiarly well. When Atlantic Records bosses Abramson and Ahmet Ertegun fortunately dropped by the Apollo Theater to check out Count Basie's dance orchestra one sidereal day, they ascertained that Turner had temporarily replaced Jimmy Rushing as the Basie band's frontman, and he was having a tough go of it. Atlantic picked up his booze by picking up his recording contract, and Turner's flower was about to embark on.
At Turner's first Atlantic date in April of 1951, he imparted a gorgeously bored reading to the moving vapors ballad "Chains of Love" (co-penned by Ertegun and pianist Harry Van Walls) that restored him to the uppermost reaches of the R&B charts. From in that location, the hits came in droves: "Chill Is On," "Gratifying Sixteen" (yea, the same downbeat blue devils B.B. King's ordinarily associated with; Turner did it first), and "Don't You Cry" were all done in New York, and all hit large.
Food turner had no problem whatever adapting his stupendous pipes to whatsoever regional context he was in. In 1953, he abbreviate his first gear R&B chart-topper, the storming rocking chair "Honey Hush" (afterwards covered by Johnny Burnette and Jerry Lee Lewis), in New Orleans, with trombonist Pluma Davis and tenor saxman Lee Allen in uproarious support. Before the yr was through, he stopped up cancelled in Chicago to record with playground slide guitarist Elmore James' substantially rougher-edged jazz group and hit once again with the lewd "T.V. Mama."
Prolific Atlantic house writer Jesse Stone was the source of Turner's biggest demolish of all, "Shake, Rattle and Roll," which proved his second chart-topper in 1954. With the Atlantic braintrust reportedly chiming in on the refrain behind Turner's rumble lead, the song sported sufficiency pop possibilities to merit a substantially cleaned-up get over by Bill Haley & the Comets (and a subsequent version by Elvis Presley that came a fate closer to the original leering purport).
Short, at the age of 43, Turner was a rock principal. His jumping follow-ups -- "Well All Right," "Flip Flop and Fly," "Hide and Seek," "Morning, Noon and Night," "The Chicken and the Hawk" -- all mined the same blast groove as "Shake, Rattle and Roll," with crisp backing from New York's top sitting aces and typically superb production by Ertegun and Jerry Wexler.
Turner sour up on a couple episodes of the groundbreaking ceremony TV programme
Showtime at the Apollo during the mid-'50s, overlooking center stage with a joyous interpretation of "Shake, Rattle and Roll" in figurehead of saxman Paul "Hucklebuck" Williams' dance orchestra. Nor was the silver medal screen immune to his considerable charms: Turner mimed a couple of numbers pool in the 1957 film
Rock Rattle & Rock (Fats Domino and Mike "Mannix" Connors as well asterisked in the flick).
Updating the prewar number "Corrine Corrina" was an inspired notion that provided Turner with another massive marketer in 1956. But afterwards the bilateral hit "Rock a While"/"Lipstick Powder and Paint" later that year, his Atlantic yield fleetly faded from commercial acceptance. Atlantic's transcription strategy wisely mired recording Turner in a jazzier context for the adult-oriented album food market; to that death, a Kansas City-styled countersink (with his sometime mate Johnson at the pianissimo faeces) was laid down in 1956 and cadaver a linchpin of his legacy.
Henry Hubert Turner stayed on at Atlantic into 1959, only nonentity bought his violin-enriched remake of "Chains of Love" (on the other hand, a revival of "Love Hush" with King Curtis blowing a scorching sax break from the same session was a gemstone in its own right-hand). The '60s didn't bring forth as well much of lasting substance for the shouter -- he in reality cut an record album with longtime admirer Haley and his in vogue batch of Comets in Mexico City in 1966!
Only by the tail end of the decade, Turner's essential contributions to vapours history were offset to have proper recognition; he cut LPs for BluesWay and Blues Time. During the '70s and '80s, Turner recorded prolifically for Norman Granz's jazz-oriented Pablo tag. These were super-relaxed impromptu roger Huntington Sessions that oft paired the allegedly illiterate screecher with respective jazz luminaries in what amounted to loosely run for jam roger Huntington Sessions. Turner contentedly roared the familiar lyrics of one or some other of his hits, then sat back patch somebody took a drawn-out solo. Other famed album projects included a 1983 quislingism with Roomful of Blues,
Vapors Train, for Muse. Although health problems and the size of it of his whopping frame forced him to sit down during his latter-day performances, Turner continued to circuit until short before his death in 1985. They called him the Boss of the Blues, and the denomination was truly a fitting one: when Turner yelled a lyric, you were in spades at his beck and call.
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