Boss Man
Big Joe Turner
The Giant of Rock and Roll
By Michelle Hatcher
I wonder if you have, like I have, walked passed a street entertainer and wondered if that person was eventually going to be a star? I frequently walk passed singers, buskers, one man bands, and wonder if I will ever see them on television and be billed as the next best thing to Elvis.
Perhaps the days of finding unique, Earth-shattering talent equal to Elvis have gone, and besides ‘talent’ in its watered down form is usually manufactured by the Simon Cowells of this world.
But for one man, who wasn’t like Elvis in the slightest, that’s exactly what happened. Joseph Vernon Turner was born on May 18th 1911.
He lost his father to a tragic train accident when he was only four years old, and found breaking into the entertainment world, for him, as about as tough as breaking a boulder in two. Yet he was dubbed as the man who invented rock and roll.
Black, 14 years old, broke but yet excessively gifted, his 6 foot 2 inch, 300 lbs stature was never going to make him a dreamboat. Yet this love for singing, like many black people of that time came from a strong connection with the church.
Like many magnificent performers of the 20th century, his genius, undivided attention to his career which had spanned a massive 60 years in the music industry, was not truly recognised until two years after his death in 1987 when he was finally inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, where he was named, quite aptly, ‘The Boss of the Blues’. He had got to see, however, in 1983, his name added to the Blues Hall of Fame.
Perhaps his biggest accolade was is version of ‘Shake Rattle and Roll.’ The track’s success has been given largely to Bill Haley and his Comets.
Big Joe Turner, as he was known due to his enormous physical size, had spent much of his teenage years singing on street corners, working as a bar tender, a cook, and at such a young age, working in the Kansas nightclubs as a singing act.
Tell It Like It Is
"...Crooners at the time would sing about hearts being broken by the smile of a girl. Turner would sing about if your woman is too loose, you dump her and get another.."