Joseph Vernon "Big Joe" Turner Jr. (May 18, 1911 – November 24, 1985) was an American blues shouter from Kansas City, Missouri.

"[8] Eventually they were seen by the talent scout John Hammond in 1938,[5] who invited them back to New York 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.

In 1939, along with the boogie-woogie pianists Albert Ammons and Meade Lux Lewis, Turner and Johnson began a residency at Café Society, a nightclub in New York City, where they appeared on the same playbill as Billie Holiday and Frankie Newton's band.

[4] Besides "Roll 'Em, Pete", Turner's best-known recordings from this period are probably "Cherry Red", "I Want a Little Girl" and "Wee Baby Blues".

[10] Joe Turner also played at the Cavalcades of Jazz concert held at Wrigley Field in Los Angeles which was produced by Leon Hefflin Sr. on September 23, 1945, to a crowd of 15,000.

[11] Turner also performed alongside Dizzy Gillespie at the fourth annual Cavalcade of Jazz concert held at Wrigley Field in Los Angeles, on September 12, 1948.

[12] Also on the program that day were Frankie Laine, The Sweethearts of Rhythm, The Honeydrippers, Little Miss Cornshucks, Jimmy Witherspoon, The Blenders, and The Sensations.

According to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Turner and Louis Jordan laid the foundation for R&B in the 1940s, "cutting one swinging rhythm & blues masterpiece after another".

[14] Turner made many albums with Johnson, Art Tatum, Willie "The Lion" Smith, Sammy Price, and other jazz groups.

[5] He was a master of traditional blues verses, and at Kansas City jam sessions he could swap choruses with instrumental soloists for hours.

Turner had great success during 1954 with "Shake, Rattle and Roll", which significantly boosted his career, turning him into a teenage favorite, and also helped to transform popular music.

[4] During the song, Turner yells at his woman to "get outta that bed, wash yo' face an' hands" and comments that she's "wearin' those dresses, the sun comes shinin' through!

Elvis Presley's version of "Shake, Rattle and Roll" combined Turner's lyrics with Haley's arrangement, but was not a successful single.

"The Chicken and the Hawk", "Flip, Flop and Fly",[17] "Hide and Seek", "Morning, Noon and Night", and "Well All Right" were successful recordings from this period.

After a number of successes in popular music, Turner resumed singing with small jazz combos, recording numerous albums in that style during the 1960s and 1970s.

[4] In 1966, Bill Haley helped revive Turner's career by lending him the Comets for a series of popular recordings for the Orfeón label in Mexico.

[4] Turner's career endured from the barrooms of Kansas City in the 1920s (when at the age of twelve he performed with a pencilled moustache and his father's hat)[22] to European jazz festivals of the 1980s.

Turner died of heart failure in November 1985, at the age of 74, in Inglewood, California, having suffered from effects of arthritis, a stroke and diabetes.

[4] The New York Times music critic Robert Palmer wrote of "his voice, pushing like a Count Basie solo, rich and grainy as a section of saxophones, which dominated the room with the sheer sumptuousness of its sound."

The brothers met Turner in Los Angeles, where he was playing in clubs on Central Avenue and living in the Adams district between tours in the 1960s.

A biography and discography, Big Joe Turner Feel So Fine, written by Derek Coller was published by Hardinge Simpole in 2023 (ISBN 978-1-84382-232-5).