The 'flue

Stormy Monday Blues - Big Joe Turner
Joseph Vernon Turner, Jr., more commonly known as Big Joe Turner (6'2" and 300+lbs) was also known as The Boss of the Blues. Born in Kansas City, Turner first discovered his love of music through involvement in the church. Turner's father was killed in a train accident when Joe was only four-years-old. He began singing on street corners for money, leaving school at age fourteen to begin working in Kansas CIty's nightclub scene, first as a cook, and later as a singing bartender. KNown as The Singing Barman, Turner worked such venues as The Kingfish Club and The Sunset, where he and his piano playing partner Pete Johnson became resident performers. The Sunset was managed by Piney Brown and featured "separate but equal" facilities for white patrons. Turner would write "Piney Brown Blues" to honor Brown and sang this song throughout his career.

At the time Kansas City was a wide-open town run by "Boss" Tom Pendergast. Despite this, the clubs were subject to frequent raids by the police, but as Turner recounts, "The Boss man would have his bondsmen down at the police station before we got there. We'd walk in, sign our names and walk right out. Then we would cabaret until morning."

Turner and Johnson hit New York in 1936 and appeared on a bill with Benny Goodman, but things didn't work out. So they returned to Kansas City until they were "discovered" by talent scout John H. Hammond in 1938, who invited the boys back to New York CIty to appear in one of his "From Spirituals to Swing" concerts at Carnegie Hall, which were instrumental in introducing jazz and blues to a wider American audience.

From New York Turner made his way out to Los Angeles in 1941 where he performed in Duke Ellington's revue Jump for Joy in Hollywood. In 1945 Turner and Johnson opened their own bar, The Blue Moon Club. 1951 saw Turner performing with the Count Basie Orchestra at Harlem's Apollo Theater where he was signed to a recording deal with a new label, Atlantic. Turner hit it big in 1954 with "Shake, Rattle and Roll,' which not only enhanced his career, turning him into a teenage favorite, but also helped to transform popular music. Although the Bill Haley and His Comets cover was a bigger hit, many listeners sought out Turner's original version and were introduced to the world of rhythm and blues. Turner, now 43 years old, was suddenly a rock star. Big Joe was recording hits on both the rock and blues charts.

Things quieted down for Turner by the early 1960s and he went back to blues and jazz work. He recorded through the 1980s, appeared at many music festivals. Big Joe's career stretched from the bar rooms of Kansas City in the 1920s (at the age of twelve when he performed with a penciled on mustache and his father's hat) on to the European jazz music festivals of the 1980s. Tuner was post-humously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987.

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