Joe Turner: A Song History

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"Joe Turner" is an old African American song, and W. C. Handy gave an account of its origins.[1] In an interview that Dorothy Scarborough printed in 1923, Handy said he had heard and played the old song "thirty or more years ago," and that its title figure was an officer who transported prisoners from Memphis to Nashville.[1] Handy called the officer a brother of a former governor of Tennessee, named in the printed interview as Pete Turner.[1] The Traditional Tune Archive identifies the officer as Joe Turney, also called Turner, brother of Governor Pete Turney.[2] Peter Turney was elected governor of Tennessee in 1892.[3]

Old photograph of a row of paddle steamers moored along a muddy river landing at Nashville

Rodney Poole, Supply Steamers at Nashville, Tennessee, albumen print, 1862. The Nashville riverfront in the 1860s, shown for the city in Handy's account of the song; it has no connection to the song.

Handy based his own "Joe Turner Blues" on the old song,[1] and Pace & Handy Music Co. of Memphis published it in 1915.[4] Scarborough reported that his version set aside the prison story and made Joe Turner a departed sweetheart.[1] The Victor Military Band recorded a "Joe Turner Blues" medley of Handy's music in October 1916, released on Victor 18174.[5] The title kept turning up in later decades: Milton Brown and His Musical Brownies had a "Joe Turner Blues" on Bluebird in 1935, Mississippi John Hurt's "Joe Turner" drew on the Turney story, and Big Bill Broonzy recorded a "Joe Turner Blues" in 1951 that he claimed dated from 1892.[2]

None of the sources consulted here connects the song with Big Joe Turner, the singer of blues, jazz and rhythm and blues who died in 1985 and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987.[6] Shelley Stevens includes "Joe Turner" in Using The 1 1/2 Fret In DAD Tuning, a Fingers Of Steel book that teaches chords, scales and tunes using the extra fret in the keys of G, C and D minor, with audio tracks for most of its tunes.[7]

Our book that contains the song "Joe Turner"

Sources

  1. Internet Sacred Text Archive: "Dorothy Scarborough, 'The Blues as Folk-Songs,' in Coffee in the Gourd (Texas Folk-Lore Society, 1923)".
  2. Traditional Tune Archive: "Joe Turner Blues".
  3. Tennessee Encyclopedia: "Peter Turney".
  4. Harvard Music Library, Music in MoBA: "Joe Turner Blues".
  5. Discography of American Historical Recordings: "Victor matrix B-18495. 'Joe Turner blues' medley / Victor Military Band".
  6. Rock & Roll Hall of Fame: "Big Joe Turner".
  7. Fingers Of Steel: "Shelley Stevens, Using The 1 1/2 Fret In DAD Tuning".
  8. Image: Rodney Poole, Supply Steamers at Nashville, Tennessee, albumen print, 1862. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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