A look at Big Joe Turner

One of my favorite blues singers -- although that probably puts too much of a label on him -- was the very great blues shouter Big Joe Turner. In the course of one joyous musical lifetime, Big Joe shouted the blues, R&B, rock 'n' roll, jazz, and whatever you call all of of those styles rolled into one one great ball of American classical music.

I'm not sure when I first the big man's big voice over my tiny teen radio -- it might well have been something Bossman Porky Chedwick played, since that's the only place I heard great music when BlueNotes was just a pup. Maybe it was one of his early Atlantic sides, like "Chains of Love" or "Sweet Sixteen." Joe's voice was his instrument, and as much as his contemporaries tried, they couldn't match the rolling thunder of his vocals, born deep within that 300-pound body and honed in years of singing behind the bars of Kansas City clubs without a mike.

Whatever I heard, most fans in the pop audience probably first heard Joe's first big hit in 1954, "Shake, Rattle and Roll." Just as his version hit, Bill Haley, a converted Western swing singer, covered the song, and became more associated with it in pop music circles. Haley's version also scrubbed the original lyrics clean of most of the language that might offend mass (or white) audiences, but that also gave it the earthy, raunchy quality that made it pure and original rock 'n' roll (although I always thought of it as a classic R&B song).

In the interest of history, here are some of the original "Shake, Rattle and Roll"  lyrics and their whitebread counterparts (this wasn't unique to this song; it hapened a lot to early black crossover music -- see "Dance With Me Henry"). From Wikipedia:

Turner's song (by Jesse Stone) had started with the lines "Get out of that bed and wash your face and hands, / Get out in the kitchen; make some noise with the pots and pans". In Haley's version, the song began with "Get out in that kitchen and rattle those pots and pans / Roll my breakfast 'cause I'm a hungry man". The line, "I can look at you 'n' tell you ain't no child no more" was changed in Haley's version to "I can look at you and tell you don't love me no more". The line "I believe to my soul you the devil in nylon hose" was changed to "I believe you've been doin' me wrong, and now I know". Haley retained the line about the "one eyed cat, peepin' in a seafood store." Haley was blind in one eye.

But back to Big Joe's career. After his fling with popular music, Turner returned to his roots toward the end of his career, singing with jazz combos, bands and at festivals around the world. Some of my favorite Big Joe sides came from his late albums with Pablo and other labels, and my faves may have been  Pablo's 1974 "The Trumpet Kings," with Dizzy Gillespie, Roy Eldridge, Harry Edison, and Clark Terry and 1973's "The Bosses," with Count Basie. Turner sounds relaxed and his big voice still rumbles, but ow flavored with the grit of age and musical wisdom.

But probably my fondest memories of Big Joe are visual ones (I never saw him perfrom) from the classic musical film, "The Last of the Blue Devils," filmed at a 1974 Kansas City musicians reunion and released in 1980. It featured Count Basie, Jay McShann, and, of course, Turner. Joe walks with difficulty and sits through his songs, but his voice rumbles with authority and the passion of the blues that resonated throughout his career. 

Turner died in 1985. He was a major figure from the world of black music who helped shape the sound of American popular music in the 1950s and '60s. One of my favorite stroies about him (I"m sure I read it somewhere) was how, in the wide open days of Kansas City, Joe tended bar and sang with the band at the same time, in shows that lasted all night. Often, in the wee hours before dawn, Joe would get hungry for a giant breakfast, and as the band riffed without him, would cross the street for a sumptuous meal, return to the bar and pick up the song just where he left off. I don't know if it's true, but it sounds just like that blues to me.

Here are a couple of videos of Big Joe that offer an idea of the ease and power of his music.

This is a 1966 performance of the seminal "Shake, Rattle and Roll," with what sounds like the original lyrics:ee

This is "Wee Baby Blues," a classic 1965 version of what Big Joe Turner did best, in front of a combo that brings out the best in everybody. It doesn't get any better.

Oh yeah. That unusual photo at the top is Turner at home in Chicago in 1941.It was taken as part of a U.S. Farm Security Administration project by by Russell Lee, and comes from the Library of Congress. I thought it was a lot of fun -- much better than a traditional performance photo.