Biography of Big Joe Turner

This big-voiced blues shouter from Kansas City played a major role in the shaping of rock & roll vocalizing. The essentials are listed below, but everything he recorded is worth hearing. ~ John Floyd

Biography of Pete Johnson

Another great boogie-woogie pianist whose impact extended beyond his genre. Pete Johnson's rumbling, energetic phrases and rollicking rhythms, whether in combative sessions with other players or accompanying longtime friend and robust shouter Big Joe Turner, were emphatic and majestic. Johnson played drums and piano as a teen in Kansas City. He worked with vocalist Edna Taylor at the Hole in the Wall Club and Jazzland, then, while backing Turner at the Sunset Cafe, was heard by John Hammond. Johnson moved to New York in the late '30s, playing in 1936 at the Famous Door. He and Turner joined many other jazz greats at the 1938 Carnegie Hall concert "From Spirituals To Swing," which Hammond organized. In December of that year, Johnson played with fellow greats Albert Ammons and Meade "Lux" Lewis in The Boogie-Woogie Trio. The threesome appeared the next year at Cafe Society. Johnson worked regulary with Ammons over the next decade, and made some appearances with Lewis, while also playing as a soloist. Johnson moved to Buffalo in 1950, toured with Lewis, Art Tatum and Errol Garner in 1952, then toured Europe and performed at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1958. A stroke later that year left him partly paralyzed and virtually ended his career other than a nostalgic appearance at Hammond's "Spirituals To Swing" concert in 1967. ~ Ron Wynn