Big Joe “Boss of the Blues” Turner was a Kansas City blues belter who started out in the 1920’s at the age of 12 playing in K.C. dives and, by the ’30’s and ’40’s, was performing with a whole host of top jazz entertainers, including Art Tatum and Count Basie, but didn’t have a really big hit of his own until he was 43 with “Shake, Rattle and Roll.” The 1954 release is credited by some as being the true beginning of rock and roll, but others, like Louis Jordan and Ike Turner (no relation), beat Big Joe to that distinction. Moreover, since it was still the segregated ’50’s, it took Bill Haley and His Comets’ even-bigger-hit version of the tune to really put Big Joe on the map. During the 1960s, Turner returned to jazz for a while, but remerged in the ’70s as a blues singer sought after for blues festivals and the like. He passed in 1985, leaving behind quite a legacy, even among those rockers who don’t realize they were influenced by Big Joe. BTW, he earned his nickname honestly, as he stood over 6-feet tall and weighed more than 300 lbs.
Here’s Bill Haley’s cleaned-up version of the tune: