Steve Turner is an English

music journalist Music journalism (or music criticism) is media criticism and reporting about music topics, including popular music, classical music, and traditional music. Journalists began writing about music in the eighteenth century, providing commentary on ...

biographer Biographers are authors who write an account of another person's life, while autobiographers are authors who write their own biography. Biographers Countries of working life: Ab=Arabia, AG=Ancient Greece, Al=Australia, Am=Armenian, AR=Ancient Rome ...

, and

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator (thought, thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral t ...

, who grew up in

Daventry, Northamptonshire Daventry ( , ) is a market town and civil parish in the West Northamptonshire unitary authority area of Northamptonshire, England, close to the border with Warwickshire. At the 2021 United Kingdom census, 2021 Census, Daventry had a populati ...

, England.

Career

Turner's first published article was in the '' Beatles Monthly'' in 1969. His career as a journalist began as features editor of '' Beat Instrumental'', where he interviewed many of the prominent rock musicians of the 1970s. He subsequently freelanced for music magazines such as ''

Melody Maker ''Melody Maker'' was a British weekly music magazine, one of the world's earliest music weeklies; according to its publisher, IPC Media, the earliest. In January 2001, it was merged into "long-standing rival" (and IPC Media sister publicatio ...

'', ''

NME ''New Musical Express'' (''NME'') is a British music, film, gaming and culture website, bimonthly magazine, and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a "Rock music, rock inkie", the ''NME'' would be ...

'' and ''

Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. The magazine was first known fo ...

''. During the 1980s, he wrote extensively for British newspapers and magazines on a range of subjects as well as produced his study of the relationship between rock music and religion, ''Hungry For Heaven'', and co-authored ''U2: Rattle & Hum'', the book of the eponymous 1988 film. In the 1990s, he began devoting himself to full-length books. The first was a best-selling biography of British music star

Cliff Richard Sir Cliff Richard (born Harry Rodger Webb; 14 October 1940) is a British singer and actor. He has total sales of over 21.5 million singles in the United Kingdom and, as of 2012, was the third-top-selling artist in UK Singles Chart histo ...

, ''Cliff Richard: The Biography'' (1993), which stayed on the ''

Sunday Times ''The Sunday Times'' is a British Sunday newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of N ...

'' bestseller list for six weeks. He has also written a number of poetry books for both adults and children. The first of his books for children, ''The Day I Fell Down The Toilet'', has sold over 120,000 copies, and total sales for his children's poetry collection exceeds 200,000. His other poetry collections for children are: ''Dad, You're Not Funny'', ''The Moon Has Got His Pants On'', ''I Was Only Asking'' and ''Don't Take Your Elephant To School''. His published poetry books for adults are: ''Tonight We Will Fake Love'', ''Nice and Nasty'', ''Up To Date'', ''The King of Twist'' and ''Poems''. He now combines his book writing and journalism with poetry readings, lecture tours of America and Europe, and consultancies.

Personal life

Turner lives in London with his wife and two children.

Books

*''U2 Rattle and Hum: The Book of the Making of the Movie'' (1988) *''Hungry for Heaven:

Rock and Roll Rock and roll (often written as rock & roll, rock-n-roll, and rock 'n' roll) is a Genre (music), genre of popular music that evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s. It Origins of rock and roll, originated from African ...

and the Search for Redemption'' (1988) *'' Van Morrison: Too Late to Stop Now'' (1993) *''

: The Biography'' (1993) *''A Hard Day's Write: The Stories Behind Every

Beatles The Beatles were an English Rock music, rock band formed in Liverpool in 1960. The core lineup of the band comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are widely regarded as the Cultural impact of the Beatle ...

Song'' (1994; updated in 1999, 2005 and 2009) *''

Jack Kerouac Jean-Louis Lebris de Kérouac (; March 12, 1922 – October 21, 1969), known as Jack Kerouac, was an American novelist and poet who, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, was a pioneer of the Beat Generation. Of French-Canadian ...

: Angelheaded Hipster'' (1996) *''Trouble Man: The Life and Death of

Marvin Gaye Marvin Pentz Gaye Jr. (; April 2, 1939 – April 1, 1984) was an American Rhythm and blues, R&B and soul singer, songwriter, musician, and record producer. He helped shape the sound of Motown in the 1960s, first as an in-house session player an ...

'' (1998) *''Imagine: A Vision for Christians in the Arts'' (2001) *''The Man Called

Cash In economics, cash is money in the physical form of currency, such as banknotes and coins. In book-keeping and financial accounting, cash is current assets comprising currency or currency equivalents that can be accessed immediately or near-i ...

: The Life, Love and Faith of an American Legend'' (2004) *''Amazing Grace: John Newton, Slavery and the World's Most Enduring Song'' (2005) *''The Gospel According to the Beatles'' (2006) * ''An Illustrated History of Gospel'' (2010) * ''The Band That Played On: The Extraordinary Story of the 8 Musicians Who Went Down with the Titanic'' (2011) * ''Popcultured: Thinking Christianly About Style, Media and Entertainment'' (2013) * ''Beatles '66: The Revolutionary Year'' (2016) * ''Turn, Turn, Turn - Popular Songs Inspired by the Bible'' (2017)

References

External links

Profile at Harper Academic
which provided much of the source material for this Wikipedia article
Tony Cummings interview: Grace and CliffLibrary Thing: Steve Turner

Poems

Steve Turner: PoemsSteve Turner's 12 Poems
{{DEFAULTSORT:Turner, Steve Living people 21st-century British biographers English non-fiction writers Van Morrison English male non-fiction writers Year of birth missing (living people) 20th-century British biographers