Big Joe Turner - Shake, Rattle and Roll - 1951: The Grandfather of Rock and Roll

[appalachiablue]

Last edited Sun Mar 13, 2022, 01:16 AM - Edit history (3)

- Rhino Atlantic. - Shake, Rattle and Roll · Joe Turner. Greatest Hits. 1951 Atlantic Recording Corporation.

- (Ed). Joseph Vernon "Big Joe" Turner Jr. (May 18, 1911 – Nov. 24, 1985) was an American blues shouter from Kansas City, MO. Songwriter Doc Pomus said, "Rock & roll would have never happened without him." Turner's greatest fame was due to his rock & roll recordings in the 1950s, esp. "Shake, Rattle & Roll", but his career endured from the 1920s into the 1980s. He was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1987.

During his career, Turner was part of the transition from big bands to jump blues to rhythm & blues to rock & roll. He was a master of traditional blues verses.

Turner had great success during 1954 with "Shake, Rattle & Roll", which greatly boosted his career, turning him into a teenage favorite. It also helped to transform popular music. In it Turner yells at his woman to- "get outta that bed, wash yo' face an' hands" & comments that she's "wearin' those dresses, the sun comes shinin' through! I can't believe my eyes, all that mess belongs to you." Bill Haley & His Comets cover with risqué lyrics partly omitted was a greater sales success, but many listeners sought Turner's version which introduced them to rhythm & blues.

Elvis Presley's "Shake, Rattle & Roll" version used Turner's lyrics with Haley's arrangement, but was not a successful single.

Turner won the Esquire magazine award for male vocalist in 1945, the Melody Maker award for best "new" vocalist of 1956, & the British Jazz Journal award as top male singer of 1965. Turner's career endured from the barrooms of Kansas City in the 1920s (when at the age of 12 he performed with a pencilled moustache & his father's hat) to European jazz festivals of the 1980s. In 1983, 2 years before his death, Turner was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame.

The NYT music critic Robert Palmer wrote of "his voice, pushing like a Count Basie solo, rich & grainy as a section of saxophones, which dominated the room with the sheer sumptuousness of its sound." In announcing Turner's death, the British music magazine NME, in its Dec. 1985 issue, described him as "the grandfather of rock and roll". The Blues Hall of Fame said Turner "was a king of the jump blues genre, a boogie woogie belter, progenitor of rhythm & blues & rock ‘n’ roll, & a respected performer in jazz circles... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Joe_Turner

[MichMan]

1. Love that album

[appalachiablue]

2. What a force and immense talent, Big Joe Turner