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PREMESSA: LA SUPERIORITA’ DELLA MUSICA SU VINILE E’ ANCOR OGGI SANCITA, NOTORIA ED EVIDENTE. NON TANTO DA UN PUNTO DI VISTA DI RESA, QUALITA’ E PULIZIA DEL SUONO, TANTOMENO DA QUELLO DEL RIMPIANTO RETROSPETTIVO E NOSTALGICO , MA SOPRATTUTTO DA QUELLO PIU’ PALPABILE ED INOPPUGNABILE DELL’ ESSENZA, DELL’ ANIMA E DELLA SUBLIMAZIONE CREATIVA. IL DISCO IN VINILE HA PULSAZIONE ARTISTICA, PASSIONE ARMONICA E SPLENDORE GRAFICO , E’ PIACEVOLE DA OSSERVARE E DA TENERE IN MANO, RISPLENDE, PROFUMA E VIBRA DI VITA, DI EMOZIONE E  DI SENSIBILITA’. E’ TUTTO QUELLO CHE NON E’ E NON POTRA’ MAI ESSERE IL CD, CHE AL CONTRARIO E’ SOLO UN OGGETTO MERAMENTE COMMERCIALE, POVERO, ARIDO, CINICO, STERILE ED ORWELLIANO,  UNA DEGENERAZIONE INDUSTRIALE SCHIZOFRENICA E NECROFILA, LA DESOLANTE SOLUZIONE FINALE DELL’ AVIDITA’ DEL MERCATO E DELL’ ARROGANZA DEI DISCOGRAFICI .

“BIG” JOE TURNER
great rhythm & blues oldies

Disco LP 33 giri , 1982,  frog, blues & rock project , BRP 2024, italia

Big Joe Turner – all’anagrafe Joseph Vernon Turner Jr. – (Kansas City, 18 maggio 1911 – Inglewood, 24 novembre 1985) è stato un cantante statunitense.

Carriera

Anche se giunse al grande successo solo negli anni ’50 con le sue pionieristiche registrazioni rock and roll, la carriera di Turner si articola dagli anni ’20 agli anni ’80.

Conosciuto come il boss del Blues e Big Joe Turner,
Turner nacque a Kansas City e scoprì il proprio amore per la musica
frequentando la chiesa. Il padre morì in un incidente ferroviario
quando Joe aveva solo quattro anni. Ben presto Turner cominciò a
cantare per strada e, all’età di 14 anni, lasciò la scuola per lavorare
nel mondo dei club
di Kansas City, dapprima come cuoco e poi come cantante-barista. Lavorò
in locali quali il Kingfish Club e il Sunset, dove si esibì con il
compagno pianista Pete Johnson.

La sua collaborazione con il pianista di boogie-woogie Pete Johnson si rivelò fruttuosa. I due andarono a New York nel 1936, dove si esibirono con Benny Goodman. Turner disse in seguito

.

Alla fine, nel 1938, Turner e Johnson furono scoperti dal talent scout John Hammond, che li invitò a prendere parte ad uno dei suoi concerti “From Spirituals to Swing“, al Carnegie Hall di New York. Questo concerto fu determinante per la presentazione del jazz e del blues ad un pubblico sempre più ampio.

Nel 1939 Turner, assieme ai musicisti Albert Ammons e Meade Lux Lewis, cominciò ad esibirsi nel club Cafè Society di New York, dove apparirono sullo stesso palco di Billie Holiday e della band di Frank Newton. Nel 1941 Turner si spostò a Los Angeles, dove si recitò in “Jump for Joy”, di Duke Ellington. La sua parte era quella di un poliziotto-cantante, in uno sketch chiamato “He’s on the Beat”. Nel 1945 aprì a Los Angeles il proprio locale, “The Blue Moon Club”.

Turner ha realizzato molte dischi, non solo con Pete Johnson, ma anche con i pianisti Art Tatum e Sammy Price e con vari gruppi jazz.

Molti sono i grandi successi firmati da Turner fino agli anni ’60: “Chains of Love”, “Sweet Sixteen” ed la hit del 1954, “Shake, Rattle and Roll”, canzone che non solo lo rese molto popolare, ma cambiò anche la definizione di musica popolare.

Negli anni ’60 e ’70
Turner abbandonò la musica popolare, per tornare alle proprie origini
di cantante jazz. In questi anni lavorò anche con il pianista tedesco Axel Zwingenberger.

Negli anni Turner ebbe numerosi riconoscimenti ufficiali : dall’Esquire magazine award come voce maschile nel 1945, al Melody Maker award come migliore “nuova” voce nel 1956, al British Jazz Journal award come miglior voce maschile nel 1965.

Nel 1983, solo due anni prima della sua morte, Turner fu incluso nella Blues Hall of Fame.

Morì di infarto a Inglewood, in California, nel novembre del 1985, a settantaquattro anni. Fu incluso nella Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nel 1987.

• Interprete: Joe Turner
• Etichetta: Frog
• Catalogo: BRP 2024
• Data di pubblicazione: 1982

• Supporto:vinile 33 giri
• Tipo audio: stereo
• Dimensioni: 30 cm.
• Facciate: 2

                                                                     Track Listing

1.     Honey Hush

2.     Chains Of Love

3.     Roll ‘Em Hawk

4.     Piney Brown Blues

5.     Cherry Red

6.     Nothin’ From Nothin’ Blues

7.     Shake, Rattle & Roll

8.     Corrine Corrina

9.     T V Mama

10. Wee Baby Blues

11. Squeeze Me, Baby

 
Walk
into any record store looking for a Big Joe Turner
album and you just might find it anywhere. Joe
has been called the “Boss of the Blues” and the “World’s Greatest
Blues Shouter,” but he is also considered a major part of early Rock ‘n’
Roll. He is a respected name in the world of Jazz, too. In 1945, Joe
won Esquire Magazine’s Silver Award for
Male Vocalist in an All-American Band. Britain’s Melody
Maker Magazine selected him Best New Male Singer in 1956, and
in 1965, he won the Critic’s Poll in Britain’s Jazz
Journal for Top Male Singer. He was also awarded an Outstanding Achievement
Award from Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley for Best Blues Record. Joe
did not change his style to go along with what was happening at the time; he
just had an incredibly unique voice that worked in Rock, Jazz, R&B and Blues.
Fans in all these genres loved to hear Big Joe Turner
sing!

    The Big Joe Turner
story begins in Kansas City, Missouri on May 18, 1911. Joe
was four years old when an unfortunate train accident killed his father. He
spent most of his youth living with his mother, grandmother and sister. He took
to music early, singing in the Church choir and on the street corners with his
friends. Joe was bigger than the rest of the
kids his age and while still in his mid-teens, he was able to sneak into some
of the clubs. Later, he even put on a pencil mustache and wore his father’s
hat to sneak into a club to see the bands play.

    Kansas City’s Jazz sound was more closely related to
Blues than the Jazz sounds of other cities. It had those eight and 12-bar Blues
elements. It was uptempo and usually had a swing beat. It was easy to dance
to and this added to its popularity. In many ways, this was what early Rock
‘n’ Roll sounded like — but Rock ‘n’ Roll wouldn’t happen for another 25
years!

    Joe was still a teenager
when he became a bartender at the Sunset Cafe.
Young Pete Johnson played piano there. Joe
served drinks and sang along while Pete played.
The crowd loved Joe’s singing and Pete
invited Joe to join him up front, and a musical
bond was formed. Joe encouraged Pete
to play uptempo, and the results were very well received. Joe
sang uptempo Blues over the boogie-woogie sounds of Pete’s
piano.

    In 1936, John Hammond
came to town to see the Count Basie Band and
stopped by the Sunset Cafe. He was so impressed
with Joe’s singing that he invited him to come
to New York for a set of dates with the Basie Band.
Never having sung with a big band behind him, Joe
declined the offer, but he let Hammond know
he would love to go to New York with Pete to
play together sometime. That summer, Hammond
brought them to New York where they played a few months at The
Famous Door.

    Hammond invited them
back to New York two years later for a guest appearance on Benny
Goodman’s radio show, “Carmel Caravan.” He also invited them
to be a part of his famous first “Spirituals to Swing” concert in
December of that year. They were well received and a week later they were in
Vocalion studios cutting their first sides,
“Roll ‘Em Pete” and “Goin’ Away Blues.”

    In January, Hammond
got Joe and Pete
into the Café Society. The club had two
other boogie-woogie piano players and sometimes all three would play while Joe
shouted out his recent singles. Club patrons couldn’t wait to get copies of
these records.

    They went back into the studio in June 1939 to record
again, this time with a backup band led by Oran “Hot
Lips” Page. They cut three sides, including the now classic “Cherry
Red” and another without “Hot Lips”
Page’s band. This side had Albert Ammons,
Meade Lux Lewis, and, along with Joe
and Pete, was appropriately called “Café
Society Blues.”

    Pete and Joe
also played out-of-town dates. At times, they played or recorded separately
or with others. Both were in great demand. Pete
sang with the Harry James Band in Chicago in
1939 and recorded with the Varsity Seven for
the Varsity label. The Varsity
Seven sported two sax players, Benny Carter
and Coleman Hawkins, who were two of the best.

    In 1940, Joe and Pete
were signed to Decca. “Hot
Lips” Page’s band was used during the first sessions, resulting
in four sides — two were released as a single. The A side, “Piney
Brown Blues,” sold over 400,000 copies and Joe’s
voice reached a wide audience and grew in popularity. Over the next few years,
Decca recorded Joe
with a number of other backup players, including the Freddie
Slack Trio, Willie Smith, and Art
Tatum.

    Joe went to Hollywood
in 1941 as part of Duke Ellington’s “Jump
For Joy” Revue. They played up and down the West Coast. He lived there
for the next four years. He toured with Meade Lux
Lewis as part of the Willie Bryant Show
in 1942. They played mostly in theaters. They appeared on NBC Radio, which was
broadcast across the country. Afterward, Joe
and Meade Lux Lewis worked at the Swanee
Inn in Hollywood.

    1944 found Joe, Pete
and Albert Ammons touring America, and when
the wartime recording ban was lifted, they recorded for Decca
and for National in New York. The following
year, National recorded “Johnson And Turner
Blues,” and this one song alone may have been responsible for Joe’s
being given the Silver Award from Esquire
Magazine as Male Vocalist in an All-American Jazz Band. The Gold Award
went to Louis Armstrong.

    During his two years at National,
Joe recorded 11 singles, but only “My Gal’s A Jockey” received any
significant sales. His popularity seemed to be dropping off. He recorded for
many small labels from 1947 to 1949, including Stag
in San Francisco, Deetone and Swingtime
in Los Angeles and Freedom in Houston. He sang
on an incredible side with Wynonie Harris in
1947 called “Battle Of The Blues (Part 1)”. It was recorded in a live
setting and was not released until two years later, but it is a definite classic
of the time.

    In 1949, Joe toured
the South where he lived for a short time in New Orleans. The Freedom
single “Still In The Dark” hit the national charts, but fell quickly
because of poor distribution and promotion. The following year’s recordings
on Imperial did not sell much at all. Joe
went North playing small clubs. He played some dates with Lowell
Fulson and Pee Wee Crayton, both up-and-coming
Blues guitarists.

    The big opportunity for Joe
to revitalize his career came when Jimmy Rushing
left the Count Basie Band and Joe
became the substitute. Ahmet and Nesuhi
Ertegun, of the recently formed Atlantic Records,
were interested in Joe, but did not know where
to find him. However, when the Basie Band played
the Apollo in New York, Ahmet
heard that Joe was called in to substitute,
so he went to the show. Ahmet hooked up with
Joe and as a result, he was signed to a one-year
contract with Atlantic. On April 19, 1951, he
recorded four sides. These sides were not marketed to the usual jazz audiences
as in the past. Atlantic Records took Joe
to the young, new audience of Rhythm and Blues.

    “Chain Of Love” was the first single Atlantic
released out of Joe’s first recordings. He
was backed by Van ‘Piano Man’ Walls and
His Orchestra. The single did incredibly! It stayed on the R&B charts
for 25 weeks and was #2 for four of those weeks. This created a demand for Joe
and he started to travel. He hit the road on a short tour with Helen
Humes and The Hal Singer Orchestra. After
that, for almost two months, he was part of Atlantic’s
“Cavalcade of Blues” tour traveling throughout Louisiana and Texas.

    Although “Chain Of Love” was still on the
charts, Atlantic released another side from
Joe’s first session as a follow-up. The lively
“The Chill Is On” peaked at #3 on the R&B charts. In the meantime,
material he had recorded earlier for other labels surfaced on the radio. Atlantic
reacted by getting Joe back into the studio
in January 1952, again with Van ‘Piano Man’ Walls.
“Sweet Sixteen” was the first single released from these sessions
and it stayed on the charts for some time. Joe
continued to play live that year, but he did not record again until September.
The single from the September session was one of the earliest songs written
by Doc Pomus, entitled “Don’t You Cry.”

    In the Spring of 1953, while playing in New Orleans,
Joe went into the studio and recorded a few
songs. “Honey Hush” was recorded during these sessions and may well
be one of the finest songs Joe ever sang. Joe
wrote this song as well as most of his pre-Atlantic
hits. The song went to #1 on the charts and stayed there for eight weeks. It
was knocked off by a song recorded at the same studio by Guitar
Slim and was entitled, “Things That I Used To Do.” Joe’s
next session was in Chicago in October, with a band that included Elmore
James on guitar.

    Rhythm and Blues music, at this time, was primarily
heard by Blacks. There was a definite color barrier just as there had been with
Blues music. Jazz managed to cross these barriers. Maybe this was because many
bands and orchestras were multiracial. There were large White audiences at clubs,
such as the Apollo, listening to Jazz. However, the exciting sounds of R&B
were not going to be kept from the adventurous teenagers of the 1950s. People
like Alan Freed, the disc jockey, soon gave
them big doses of it, but other contemporary radio stations still kept the color
barrier.

    Joe recorded in New
York in December 1953. The producer of that session gave him a gem of a song
that became one of the most popular songs ever — “Shake, Rattle, And
Roll.” Once again Joe had a #1 hit on
the R&B charts. It stayed on the charts for over six months. Just like many
hit songs on the R&B charts in the 1950s and into the 1960s, this song was
covered by a White performer and promoted to the young White audiences. It was
Bill Haley and The Comets who gave the world
“Shake, Rattle, And Roll.” Interestingly enough, Joe
and Bill ended up on a tour together and Joe
graciously let Haley do the song and he stayed
with his other hits. The two became friends and went fishing together on several
occasions.

    The hits continued over the next couple of years with
“Well All Right,” “Flip, Flop, And Fly,” “Hide And
Seek,” and “Morning, Noon, And Night.” All these featured the
great guitar work of Elmore James. Then there
was the remake of “Corrina, Corrina,” “The Chicken And The Hawk,”
and “Lipstick, Powder, And Paint.” Because of these hits, Alan
Freed continued including Joe on the
tour with his show. He also appeared in the movies “Harlem Rock And Roll”
and “Shake, Rattle, And Roll.”

    Atlantic’s Jerry
Wexler and Nesuhi Ertegun thought it
might be a good idea to hook Joe up with Pete
Johnson again. Pete played on “The
Boss Of The Blues” recording session and it is regarded as one of the finest
sets of songs to come out of the 1950s. Pete
was in poor health, but there was no evidence of this in his playing, which
was classic Pete all the way. To hear them
play “Low Down Dog” or “I Want A Little Girl” was heaven.
The two of them played The Newport Jazz Festival in 1958. Afterward, Joe
and Pete and Jazz At
The Philharmonic toured Europe and played at The World’s Fair in Brussels.

    During the late 1950s, Joe’s
popularity on the charts was beginning to taper off. His last real hit was “Jump
For Joy” which featured a young King Curtis
on sax. He did, however, hit the charts again in 1960 with a remake of “Honey
Hush.” Also in 1960, he recorded an album entitled, “Big Joe Rides
Again.” Jazz great Jim Hall played guitar
and Coleman Hawkins played sax to give this
album more of a Jazz club feel. Not long afterward, Atlantic
dropped Joe from the label. The 1960s were
getting a new cast of stars.

    Joe worked steadily
throughout this period because of his reputation in Jazz circles and with those
not interested in the new sounds. He played The Five-Four
Ballroom in Los Angeles, The Birdland
in New York, and various places in and around New Orleans. In 1964, Joe played
The Monterey Jazz Festival and in 1965 he went
back to Europe touring with The Humphrey Littleton Band.
This was followed with a 1966 tour with The American
Folk Blues Festival Caravan. Joe and
Pete were invited to play together at the 1967
Spirituals To Swing Show at Carnegie Hall. The
final years of the 1960s found Joe singing
his heart out with The Johnny Otis Show and in
1970 and 1971 he played at The Monterey Jazz Festival.
The 1970 Festival was filmed and was also released on record. Joe
also appeared with Johnny Otis on a PBS broadcast
in 1970. Joe recorded a few singles on Coral
in 1963 and 1964 and an album for Blues Time
in 1969, but that was about all he recorded during the 1960s. He was, however,
voted The Best Male Singer in 1965 by Melody
Maker magazine (UK) and Best Blues Record by Jazz
Journal (UK).

    Joe kept working and
recording during the 1970s, but his health dictated when and how much. His wife
died in 1972, and Joe remarried not long afterward,
to a woman named Pat. He toured Europe again in 1971 and made an album for the
French label Black and Blue. The following year
he returned to Europe, singing with The Count Basie
Orchestra. This led to many dates with Basie
over the next few years, as well as a recording with Basie
for Pablo. (Pablo
recorded Basie several more times over the
next few years, including an album with guitarist Pee
Wee Crayton). Joe was also in the documentary
“The Last Of The Blue Devils,” a film about Kansas City Jazz, and
in 1975, he played at another Boss Of The Blues Memorial Concert with T-Bone
Walker. He continued to play live whenever he could.

    His recorded work included an album with Della
Reese for Trojan Records in 1973, an
album for LMI in 1974, and for the Spivey
label in 1977, along with the Pablo output.
He also recorded material for the “Roots” soundtrack for Quincy
Jones in 1977.

    The 1980s came and Joe
kept going. His performance on an album in 1983 with Roomful
Of Blues as his backup band was a solid effort. It was produced by his old friend,
Doc Pomus, and featured the dazzling guitar
work of Ronnie Earl. His live performances
were sometimes hindered by his health and he was now confined to a wheelchair.
He had been on crutches most of the previous decade because of a stroke and
diabetes. Joe died on November 24, 1985. Pete
sang at Joe’s funeral and passed away himself
on March 23, 1986.

    There will never be another Big
Joe Turner, but we are lucky to have so much recorded material available
today. Over 50 percent of his output is available on compact disc. Considering
the number of recordings he made, this gives you an excellent opportunity to
experience this legendary singer. As Hans J. Mauerer
said in The Pete Johnson Story, “In
my opinion, Joe is the greatest singer (or shouter, if you prefer) of them all.”
Amen!