Big Joe Turner

Big Joe began his career working as a singing bartender at a place called Hole In The Wall on Independence Ave in Kansas City in the early '30s. He soon went to work for a man named Piney Brown at the Sunset Club on 12th & Highland, partnering with boogie-woogie pianist Pete Johnson in a time when the Kansas City jazz scene was the 'it' place for top musicians and socialites. During the Prohibition days, clubs in KC were open and hopping until long past sunrise every night of the week. Many famous musicians came from this scene, but no one could shout the blues as powerfully as Big Joe. They say he sang so loud he shook foudations and cracked sidewalks three blocks away. Then they invented the microphone and not since Krakatoa was the Earth so moved. From Big Joe an entire genre of music was born. Once out of his midwest watering hole, Turner attracted followings in New York and Los Angeles influencing younger musicians who went on to start something they called rock and roll.