Big Joe Turner - The Atlantic Albums '2021

Tracks list

Tracklist:

01. Cherry Red
02. Roll 'Em Pete
03. I Want a Little Girl
04. Low Down Dog
05. Wee Baby Blues
06. You're Driving Me Crazy
07. How Long Blues
08. Morning Glories
09. St. Louis Blues
10. Piney Brown Blues
11. Shake, Rattle and Roll
12. Flip Flop and Fly
13. Feeling Happy
14. Well All Right
15. The Chicken and the Hawk (Up, up and Away)
16. Boogie Woogie Country Girl
17. Honey Hush
18. Corrine Corrina
19. Midnight Special Train
20. Hide and Seek
21. Oke-She-Moke-She-Pop
22. Crawdad Hole
23. Sweet Sixteen (feat. Van Piano Man Walls Orchestra)
24. Chains of Love (feat. Van Piano Man Walls Orchestra)
25. Jump for Joy
26. Teenage Letter
27. Love Roller Coaster
28. Lipstick, Powder and Paint
29. Morning, Noon and Night
30. I Need a Girl
31. Red Sails In the Sunset
32. Blues In the Night
33. After a While
34. World of Trouble
35. Trouble In Mind
36. TV Mama
37. You Know I Love You
38. Still In Love
39. Wee Baby Blues (Single Version)
40. Rock a While
41. Baby I Still Want You
42. The Chill Is On
43. Poor Lover's Blues
44. Don't You Cry
45. Ti-Ri-Lee
46. Married Woman
47. Midnight Cannonball
48. I'll Never Stop Loving You
49. After My Laughter Came Tears
50. Bump Miss Susie (feat. Van Piano Man Walls Orchestra)
51. Switchin' In the Kitchen
52. Nobody In Mind
53. Until the Real Thing Comes Along
54. I Get the Blues When It Rains
55. Rebecca
56. When I Was Young
57. Don't You Make Me High
58. Time After Time
59. Pennies from Heaven
60. Here Comes Your Iceman


 Read Full BiographyThe pair initially traveled to New York at John Hammond's
behest in 1936. On December 23, 1938, they appeared on 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" on the historic show, kicking off a
boogie-woogie craze that landed them a long-running slot at the Cafe Society
(along with piano giants Meade Lux Lewis and Albert Ammons).

As 1938 came to a close, Turner and Johnson waxed the thundering "Roll 'Em Pete"
for Vocalion. It was a thrilling up-tempo number anchored by Johnson's crashing
88s, and Turner would re-record it many times over the decades. 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 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 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 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 groundbreaking TV program Showtime
at the Apollo during the mid-'50s, commanding center 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. Atlantic's recording strategy wisely
involved recording Turner in a jazzier setting for the adult-oriented album
market; to that end, a Kansas City-styled set (with his former partner Johnson
at the piano stool) was laid down in 1956 and remains a linchpin of his legacy.

Turner stayed on at Atlantic into 1959, but nobody bought his violin-enriched
remake of "Chains of Love" (on the other hand, a revival of "Honey Hush" with
King Curtis blowing a scorching sax break from the same session was a gem in its
own right). The '60s didn't produce too much of lasting substance for the
shouter -- he actually cut an album with longtime admirer Haley and his latest
batch of Comets in Mexico City in 1966!

But 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 Blues Time. During the '70s and '80s, Turner recorded prolifically for
Norman Granz's jazz-oriented Pablo label. These were super-relaxed impromptu
sessions that often paired the allegedly illiterate shouter with various jazz
luminaries in what amounted to loosely run jam sessions. Turner contentedly
roared the familiar lyrics of one or another of his hits, then sat back while
somebody took a lengthy solo. 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. They called him the Boss of the Blues, and the appellation was truly a
fitting one: when Turner shouted a lyric, you were definitely at his beck and
call. ~ Bill Dahl

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