Big Road Blues Show 10/1/23: I Got A Gal For Every Day Of The Week – Big Joe Turner

Show Notes:

For today’s show we spotlight the Boss of the Blues, Big Joe Turner, who is no stranger to this show. The inspiration for this show is a brand-new book on Big Joe titled I Feel So Fine by Derek Coller. The book is nicely illustrated with a very thorough discography. It brought back memories of my first Big Joe album, the 2-LP gatefold Have No Fear, Big Joe Turner Is Here which collects his Savoy/National sides cut between 1945-1947. I found this one in my high school years at my favorite NYC records shop, Finyl Vinyl on Second Ave in the East Village. As the blurb states: “Big Joe Turner was the greatest of the blues shouters. For more than five decades, from Kansas City saloons to Carnegie Hall, through the swing era, rhythm and blues, rock and roll, and soul music, Joe Turner sang, never wavering. Small bands, big bands, trios, pianists, rock groups, choirs, all styles of accompaniment rocked to his rhythm. Joe Turner was like a force of nature, making everyone feel fine.” Today we spotlight Big Joe’s music from the 30s through the 70s and chat with the author of this impressive bio-discography as he calls it.

Big Joe was born Joseph Vernon Turner, Jr. in 1911 in Kansas City, Missouri, Turner was a product of his hometown’s swinging, wide-open jazz and blues scene. Between the years 1926 and 1939, political machine boss Thomas J. Pendergast, or “Boss Tom,” exerted tremendous influence over almost every facet of political business, and cultural life in Kansas City. When prohibition came into law it was ignored by Pendergast and his associates. The Pendergast Wholesale Liquor Company was unaffected as the bootleg alcohol flowed freely. This helped establish over one hundred entertainment venues of all types. This created lots of jobs for musicians and they flocked to Kansas City to take advantage of the opportunity. Blessed with both a big voice and large stature (hence the nickname) Turner looked more than mature enough by his teens to gain entry to various K.C. night clubs. He ended up simultaneously tending bar and singing the blues before hooking up with boogie piano master Pete Johnson during the early ’30s. One of the placed he performed was the Sunset Club managed by Piney Brown. Big Joe Turner wrote “Piney Brown Blues” in his honor and sang it throughout his career. The song was first recorded in 1940 and in 1948 he recorded the sequel “Old Piney Brown is Gone.” Saxophonist Eddie Barfield recalled fond memories of Brown: “Piney was like a patron saint to all musicians. He used to take care of them. …If you needed money to pay your rent, he would give it to you and take you out and buy you booze. He was a man you could always depend on for something if you needed it.” “Piney Brown Blues” was recorded by several artists including Cootie Williams, Muddy Waters and others.

Big Joe and Pete Johnson initially traveled to New York at John Hammond’s behest in 1936. On December 23, 1938, they appeared in the fabled Spirituals to Swing concert at Carnegie Hall on a bill with Big Bill Broonzy, Sonny Terry, the Golden Gate Quartet, and Count Basie. Turner and Johnson performed “Low Down Dog” and “It’s All Right, Baby” in that historic show, kicking off a boogie-woogie craze that landed them a long-running slot at the Cafe Society. Café Society was a New York City nightclub open from 1938 to 1948 on Sheridan Square in Greenwich Village. It was managed by Barney Josephson. He “The Wrong Place for the Right People.” Josephson opened a second branch on 58th Street, between Lexington and Park Avenue, in 1940. Regarding Big Joe, Josephson said: “He had an endless repertoire of blues, not just slow, sad blues of the Deep South, but he pepped it up some. The women were all crazy over Big Joe.”  Turner worked at Café Society off and on for more than five years. As 1938 came to a close, Turner and Johnson waxed the thundering “Roll ‘Em Pete” for Vocalion.  Turner and Johnson waxed their seminal blues “Cherry Red” the next year for Vocalion with trumpeter Hot Lips Page and a full combo in support. In 1940, the massive shouter moved over to Decca and cut “Piney Brown Blues” with Johnson rippling the ivories. But not all of Turner’s Decca sides teamed him with Johnson; Willie “The Lion” Smith accompanied him on the mournful “Careless Love,” while Freddie Slack’s Trio provided backing for “Rocks in My Bed” in 1941.

Turner ventured out to the West Coast during the war years, building quite a following while on the L.A. circuit. In 1945, he signed on with National Records and cut some fine small combo platters. Turner remained with National through 1947, belting an exuberant “My Gal’s a Jockey” that became his first national R&B smash. Contracts didn’t stop him from waxing an incredibly risqué two-part “Around the Clock” for the aptly named Stag imprint (as Big Vernon) in 1947. There were also solid sessions for Aladdin that year that included a wild vocal duel with one of Turner’s principal rivals, Wynonie Harris, on the ribald two-part “Battle of the Blues.” Turner bounced from RPM to Down Beat/Swing Time to MGM (all those dates were anchored by Johnson’s piano) to the Texas-based Freedom (which moved some of their masters to Specialty) to Imperial in 1950 (his New Orleans backing crew there included a young Fats Domino on piano). But apart from the 1950 Freedom 78 “Still in the Dark,” none of Turner’s records were selling particularly well.

When Atlantic Records bosses Abramson and Ahmet Ertegun fortuitously dropped by the Apollo Theater to check out Count Basie’s band one day, they discovered that Turner had temporarily replaced Jimmy Rushing as the Basie band’s frontman, and he was having a tough go of it. Atlantic picked up his spirits by picking up his recording contract, and Turner’s heyday was about to begin. At Turner’s first Atlantic date in April of 1951, he imparted a gorgeously world-weary reading to the moving blues ballad “Chains of Love”  that restored him to the uppermost reaches of the R&B charts. From there, the hits came in droves: “Chill Is On,” “Sweet Sixteen” and “Don’t You Cry” were all done in New York, and all hit big. In 1953, he cut his first R&B chart-topper, the storming rocker “Honey Hush and before he year was through, he stopped off in Chicago to record with slide guitarist Elmore James’ considerably rougher-edged combo and hit again with  “T.V. Mama.” Prolific Atlantic house writer Jesse Stone was the source of Turner’s biggest smash of all, “Shake, Rattle and Roll,” which proved his second chart-topper in 1954. Suddenly, at the age of 43, Turner was a rock star. His jumping follow-ups included, “Well All Right,” “Flip Flop and Fly,” “Hide and Seek,” “Morning, Noon and Night,” “The Chicken and the Hawk.” After the two-sided hit “Rock a While”/”Lipstick Powder and Paint” later that year, his Atlantic output swiftly faded from commercial acceptance. Turner stayed on at Atlantic into 1959.

The ’60s didn’t produce too much of lasting substance for the shouter. By the tail-end of the decade, Turner’s essential contributions to blues history were beginning to receive proper recognition; he cut LPs for BluesWay and BluesTime. During the ’70s and ’80s, Turner recorded prolifically for Norman Granz’s jazz-oriented Pablo label. Other notable album projects included a 1983 collaboration with Roomful of Blues, Blues Train, for Muse. Although health problems and the size of his humongous frame forced him to sit down during his latter-day performances, Turner continued to tour until shortly before his death in 1985.