A number of years ago former Rainbow, Deep Purple and Yngwie Malmsteen vocalist Joe Lynn Turner recorded a bunch of cool classic rock cover songs during a number of recording sessions for what were said to be tribute albums. After not hearing anything about the project, he was contacted by California-based Cleopatra Records who said they were going to release the tracks on a new album entitled – quite logically – The Sessions.
Featuring a veritable who’s who of classic rock royalty as guest musicians, the album came out in early October and sees Turner, considered by many to be the possessor of one the best voices in hard rock music, alongside the likes of Paul Rodgers, Ian Gillan or David Coverdale, interpreting some of the best known and most beloved songs from the rock canon.
“I love doing covers because, let’s face it, we all grew up with these songs and when I got into singing, it was because of songs like some of the ones I am doing on this album. It was great fun to do them,” said Turner from his home in New York City, where he was taking a short break before resuming his seemingly constant touring schedule back in Europe.
The list of songs re-interpreted for The Sessions includes AC/DC classic Back in Black (featuring a turn on lead guitar by Def Leppard’s Phil Collen), The Kinks’ All Day and All of the Night (with guests Brad Gillis of Night Ranger, former Ozzy, Whitesnake and Quiet Riot bassist Rudy Sarzo and former AC/DC and Dio drummer Simon Wright), and Queen’s Fat Bottomed Girls, with Reb Beach of Winger and Whitesnake on guitar.
Iron Maiden’s Two Minutes to Midnight also gets the Turner treatment, as does Led Zeppelin’s incendiary Babe I’m Gonna Leave You and even a rollicking version of Elvis Presley’s All Shook Up. Other guest artists include Al Pitrelli (Dream Theater), Steve Lukather (Toto), Billy Sherwood (Yes), German axe master Michael Schenker, Tony Franklin (The Firm, Blue Murder), Leslie West (Mountain), Richie Kotzen (Winery Dogs, Poison), Tony Kaye of Yes and Steve Cropper.
“This was put together over a long period of time. I remember in most cases I was given a number of choices as to what songs I wanted to do for each session. In the beginning there were quite a few alternatives to choose from and then at other times they really honed in on songs they knew would be perfect for me and gave me maybe just a couple of options. I do know they were very generous in what they allowed me to cover,” he said, adding that they slyly convinced him to cover one of his trademark Rainbow songs, Stone Cold, with Vivian Campbell (Dio, Whitesnake, Def Leppard) on guitar.
“And when I do covers I always try to stay true to the original path of the artist. Yet at the same time, I remember Cleopatra saying to me that they wanted me to do some ‘Joe Lynn Turner-isms’ and to make them my own. But I always have respect for the artist and for the original song. So for example on Back in Black, I was very true to the first verse but then on the second verse I kind of let loose and put my own, bluesy stamp on it.”
Turner said as a young singer growing up in Hackensack, New Jersey, he learned how to sing by imitating the singers he heard on record and on the radio.
“Whether it was Frank Sinatra or Michael McDonald of the Doobie Brothers or Paul Rogers of Bad Company and even some punk singers I heard in New York, I was just trying to imitate what I heard until finally my own voice emerged. I remember being very honoured when Roger Glover (bassist/producer for both Deep Purple and Rainbow) said, that I had really found my own vocal identity. And then not long after the first Rainbow album I did (Difficult to Cure in 1981) I realized that people were actually starting to copy my sound,” he said.
“That’s what I tell any musician who asks for advice. I say that with any instrument, including the voice, you’re always imitating first. Whether it’s the guitar or the drums or the singer, you copy what they do on the record, you see how it feels and then you play someone else’s stuff and see how that feels and differs and somewhere, eventually, you’re going to find yourself. You’re just going to pop out one day and it’s an amazing feeling once you get there. All that different music and those influences come together when you just look inside yourself, your heart, your soul – the real you eventually breaks through.
“Listen, I am a guitar player too and when I was young that’s what I did; I used to copy Jimi Hendrix, Ritchie Blackmore, Jimmy Page – everybody. And then when you learn the cumulative licks of all those guys, eventually you start to play your own licks inside of that and then your own style starts to come through more and more. So that’s why I love to play covers because that’s how I found my voice.”
A shy teenager, the now 65-year-old Turner, like millions of other teenagers in the 1960s, garnered admiring eyes through playing music. Growing up in an Italian-American home, where Frank Sinatra, Enrico Caruso and other Italian musical heroes were second only to the Church in reverence, Turner (born Joseph Arthur Mark Linquito) realized that music was the path to popularity.
“We would all sit around the table on Sundays and sing and play guitars and stuff. I used to play accordion at first. Okay, that wasn’t a very sexy instrument so I dropped that pretty quick and started playing guitar. And when you start to play guitar and it gets known, that’s when you start to attract the attention of the girls in high school. And I think that’s a pretty universal story – shy kid uses a guitar to get noticed,” he said.
“And listen, the model had already been set down. You had Elvis, then the Beatles, and Jim Morrison of the Doors – guys wanted to be them and girls wanted to be with them. And that was so true. So this was very important for most of us who got into music and sex is also the driving force of all our lives whether people want to admit it or not. There’s a primal vibration there, and I think rock music is part of that.”
Turner turned 65 in August, just a few weeks before friend and fellow veteran rocker Glenn Hughes also turned 65. In both cases, instead of winding down and seeking relaxation at this milestone birthday, they’re as busy, as creative and as vital as ever.
“I love Glenn and he’s got a great new album out [Resonate] and he’s kicking it harder than ever. And we’re both looking at everybody else and it seems they’re all slowing down. They can’t or don’t want to sing any more or can’t play any more. I don’t feel like slowing down at all. I think I am more fit now than ever because I am healthier. Thank God for my wife Maya because she makes me very healthy food and gets me exercising. I feel so much younger now than I did back in the heyday of the 1980s,” he said.
“Back then it was all about the three ‘Bs’ – blondes, booze and blow and we were right in the middle of it. And when you put all those things aside – the toys for boys – and you start to focus on your life seriously and you want to be around for a while, you just feel so much better. The importance of a good partner can’t be underestimated. We are both here, male and female, to listen to each other and to learn from each other. And I really guess it takes some of us longer than others to figure that out – it took me a long time but now I am finally listening. And Glenn has the same thing with his wife Gabrielle. It makes an incredible different and positive impact on your life when you have that kind of driving force.”
And there is also still a lot of new music to come from Turner, as his creative spirit is also as vibrant and restless as it ever has been.
“I love to do write new music and record and most of all perform. I do so well in places like Europe where there’s a real appreciation for good, well-composed music. I can’t get enough of Europe and Russia – places that still pack the venues and love you and still pay a decent amount to make it worthwhile because we still have to feed the family. Yes, people like me love to do this stuff, but we’re still living and breathing and we still need to make a certain amount of money, not an outrageous amount, but enough to stay creative and stay vital and alive and have a nice life and be happy. That’s all. Guys like Glenn and I, we still do it because we still have the desire and passion and because we love it,” he said.
“And I know you’re going to ask me what I’m doing now. I call it a secret project and I am very proud of this. We’ve already got three songs in the can, but I can’t tell you much other than I am working with a Swedish artist and producer and it’s bridging between a classic rock sound and an industrial metal sound which I don’t think has ever been done before. We’re coming up with this hybrid and it’s really sounding incredible because it’s so interesting and so creative and artistic. I can’t wait for it to come out, hopefully sometime in 2017.”
In the interim, Turner will be returning in Europe for a number of shows in the Czech Republic, Italy and Russia before three dates at the end of November in New York and New Jersey.
For more information on Turner, visit http://joelynnturner.com.
To order a copy of The Sessions, visit http://cleorecs.com/store/shop/joe-lynn-turner-the-sessions-cd.
- Jim Barber is a veteran award-winning journalist and author based in Napanee, ON, who has been writing about music and musicians for a quarter of a century. Besides his journalistic endeavours, he now works as a communications and marketing specialist. Contact him at jimbarberwritingservices@gmail.com
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