Big Joe Turner, legendary blues shouter, died on 24th November 1985

Born Joseph Vernon Turner Jr. on May 18th 1911 in Kansas City, Big Joe Turner was a towering figure both physically and musically in the blues and R&B scene during the middle decades of the 20th century. He began as a singing barman in Kansas, developing an act with pianist Pete Johnson, a partnership which lasted on and off for 20 years or more. In 1938 John Hammond invited them to appear at one of his "From Spirituals to Swing" concerts at Carnegie Hall in New York, which gave Turner a major boost, and he began performing and recording regularly in New York and Los Angeles, where he appeared with Duke Ellington in 1941. During the '40s, working with a variety of orchestras, big bands, small groups and pianists, Turner was in the vanguard of the shift from big bands to jump blues and R&B, along the way making records which featured some of the finest, and occasionally risque, blues shouting. In 1951, when performing with the Count Basie Orchestra at Harlem's Apollo Theatre, he was spotted by Ahmet and Nesuhi Ertegun, who had recently launched the Atlantic label, and he signed to them, recording many blues and R&B standards like "Chains of Love", many of which were major R&B chart toppers. In 1954 he had a big hit with "Shake Rattle & Roll", which turned him into a pop attraction, and he followed it up a couple of years later with "Corrine Corrina". In the 60s he turned back towards jazz and blues, appearing on many of Norman Granz's festival bills around the world, continuing to perform into the 1980s. His longevity as a star can be measured by the fact that he won Top Vocalist awards in the '40s, '50s and '60s, and in 1983 was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame. He died in California in November 1985 at the age of 74. Legendary songwriter Doc Pomus said of Turner "Rock 'n' roll would never have happened without him". Acrobat has on catalogue a new 54-track 2-CD of his recordings from the ‘40s – for details click here