Portrait of Big Joe Turner

Birthday profile

Big Joe Turner

Big Joe Turner, American blues/R&B singer (died 1985)

Born
May 18, 1911
Died
November 24, 1985
Zodiac sign
Taurus
Birth year
1911

About Big Joe Turner

Joseph Vernon "Big Joe" Turner Jr. (May 18, 1911 – November 24, 1985) was an American blues shouter from Kansas City, Missouri. Turner's greatest fame was due to his rock and roll recordings in the 1950s, particularly "Shake, Rattle and Roll", but his career as a performer endured from the 1920s into the 1980s. Turner was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987, with the Hall lauding him as "the brawny voiced 'Boss of the Blues.'" According to songwriter Doc Pomus, "rock and roll would have never happened without him." AllMusic called Turner "the premier blues shouter of the postwar era". It was a song that Turner recorded many times, with various musicians, over the ensuing years.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

The world when Big Joe Turner was born

Big Joe Turner was born in 1911. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Culture in 1911

  • Best-selling book"The Broad Highway" – Jeffery Farnol

Headlines and milestones

  • Major sports momentFirst Indianapolis 500 race
  • Top headlineTriangle Shirtwaist Factory fire kills 146 workers
  • Technology milestoneFirst transcontinental airplane flight (49 days)
  • World population~1.71B

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderWilliam Howard Taft
  • U.S. population93.4M

1911 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Big Joe Turner's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure19112026
Population93.4M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, MusicBrainz, Wikidata. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.