CLASSIC BIG JOE TURNER R&B 78 HONEY HUSH / CRAWDAD HOLE US ATLANTIC 1001 E-

	£		30
	$		40

TWO SUPERB SIDES ON THIS REALLY GREAT R&B 78 FROM JOE TURNER AND THE BAND ON THE ORIGINAL ATLANTIC LABEL

b/w  CRAWDAD HOLE

Joe Turner, more commonly known as Big Joe Turner, was a Kansas City native born in 1911. Even as a boy, Turner was enthralled with music and had been known to use his mother's eyebrow pencil to draw on a moustache in order to obtain entrance into clubs and listen to the music when he was under-aged. However, this ploy was not always successful and he sometimes had to resort to perching atop garbage cans in the alleys behind the Vine Street clubs peering into windows to get a peek at the bands.

Finally, Big Joe Turner, who acquired the latter nickname because of his impressive size, secured a job in a club bartending, acting as a bouncer and singing in the 1930's. Here, Turner, who was known for the powerful voice that matched his large physique, met pianist Pete Johnson and the two men went to New York in 1936.

In 1938, the pair made an appearance at the "Spirituals to Swing" concert at Carnegie Hall, which included Big Bill Broonzy, Count Basie and the Golden Gate Quartet. The show was quite a success with Turner and Johnson playing songs like "Low Down Dog" and "It's Alright Baby."

While in New York, Turner and Johnson signed with the Vocalion record company, recording "Roll 'Em Pete" which was an up tempo number that Turner would rerecord over his career many times. In 1939, the pair also recorded the blues number "Cherry Red" for Vocalion accompanied by the trumpeter Hot Lips Page and a full combo band.

1940 brought a change in record companies as Turner and Johnson signed on with Decca Records where they produced "Piney Brown Blues." While with Decca, Turner also branched out to record a few numbers without Johnson. 

Turner ventured out to the West Coast during the war years, building quite a following while ensconced on the L.A. circuit. In 1945, he signed on with National Records and cut some fine small combo platters under Herb Abramson's supervision. 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."

Few West Coast indie labels of the late '40s didn't boast at least one or two Turner titles in their catalogs. The shouter bounced from RPM to Down Beat/Swing Time to MGM (all those dates were anchored by Johnson's piano) to 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 Theatre 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 commence.

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" (co-penned by Ertegun and pianist Harry Van Walls) that restored him to the uppermost reaches of the R&B charts. From there, the hits came in droves: "Chill Is On," "Sweet Sixteen" (yeah, the same downbeat blues B.B. King's usually associated with; Turner did it first), and "Don't You Cry" were all done in New York, and all hit big.

Turner had no problem whatsoever adapting his prodigious pipes to whatever regional setting he was in. In 1953, he cut his first R&B chart-topper, the storming rocker "Honey Hush" (later covered by Johnny Burnette and Jerry Lee Lewis), in New Orleans, with trombonist Pluma Davis and tenor saxman Lee Allen in rip-roaring support. Before the year was through, he stopped off in Chicago to record with slide guitarist Elmore James' considerably rougher-edged combo and hit again with the salacious "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. With the Atlantic braintrust reportedly chiming in on the chorus behind Turner's rumbling lead, the song sported enough pop possibilities to merit a considerably cleaned-up cover by Bill Haley & the Comets (and a subsequent version by Elvis Presley that came a lot closer to the original leering intent).

Suddenly, at the age of 43, Turner was a rock star. His jumping follow-ups -- "Well All Right," "Flip Flop and Fly," "Hide and Seek," "Morning, Noon and Night," "The Chicken and the Hawk" -- all mined the same good-time groove as "Shake, Rattle and Roll," with crisp backing from New York's top session aces and typically superb production by Ertegun and Jerry Wexler.

Turner turned up on a couple episodes of the ground-breaking TV program Showtime at the Apollo during the mid-'50s, commanding centre stage with a joyous rendition of "Shake, Rattle and Roll" in front of saxman Paul "Hucklebuck" Williams' band. Nor was the silver screen immune to his considerable charms: Turner mimed a couple of numbers in the 1957 film Shake Rattle & Rock (Fats Domino and Mike "Mannix" Connors also starred in the flick).

Updating the pre-war number "Corrine Corrina" was an inspired notion that provided Turner with another massive seller in 1956. But after the two-sided hit "Rock a While"/"Lipstick Powder and Paint" later that year, his Atlantic output swiftly faded from commercial acceptance. 

  TWO GREAT SIDES ON THIS CLASSIC R&B ROCKER 

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POSTAGE STUFF

10" 78 RPM RECORDS NEED CAREFULLY PACKING, AND I CLAIM TO HAVE THE BEST PACKAGING IN THE WORLD FOR DISPATCHING THEM!

 THE GREG'S GREAT'S SYSTEM CONSISTS OF A SPECIALLY DESIGNED INNER BOX MADE OUT OF 1" THICK POLYSTYRENE, WHICH THEN GOES INSIDE A DOUBLE CORRUGATED STIFF OUTER CARDBOARD CARTON. THE BOXES CAN TAKE UP TO 21 RECORDS

I SEND OUT ON AVERAGE ABOUT 30 PARCELS A WEEK AND DISPATCH IS NORMALLY DONE ONCE A WEEK