Steve Turner
Steve Turner is an English music journalist, biographer and poet, who grew up in Northamptonshire, England. His 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 papers including NME, Melody Maker and Rolling Stone.
During the 1980s he wrote extensively for British newspapers and magazines on a range of subjects as well as producing his study of the relationship between rock music and religion, Hungry For Heaven, and co-authoring U2: Rattle & Hum, the book of the film. In the 1990s he began devoting himself to full-length books, the first being a best selling biography of British music star Cliff Richard, Cliff Richard: The Biography, in 1993, which stayed in the Sunday Times bestseller list for six weeks. At the same time he has 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 now sold over 120,000 copies, and total sales for his children's poetry collection now exceeds 200,000.
His published poetry books for adults are Tonight We Will Fake Love, Nice and Nasty, Up To Date, The King of Twist and Poems. His published poetry collections for children are The Day I Fell Down The Toilet, Dad, You're Not Funny, The Moon Has Got His Pants On, I Was Only Asking and Don't Take Your Elephant To School.
He now combines his book writing and journalism with poetry readings, lecture tours of America and Europe and consultancies. He lives in London.
Hungry for Heaven: Rock and Roll and the Search for Redemption(1988)
Van Morrison: Too Late to Stop Now (1993) Van Morrison
Cliff Richard: The Biography (1993) Cliff Richard
A Hard Day's Write: The Stories Behind Every Beatles Song (1994; updated in 1999 and 2005)
Jack Kerouac: Angelheaded Hipster (1996)
Trouble Man: The Life and Death of Marvin Gaye (1998)
Imagine: A Vision for Christians in the Arts (2001)
The Man Called Cash: The Life, Love and Faith of an American Legend (2004) Johnny Cash
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 (2011)
“If the rock band U2 had been born in Orange County, California, would they have become just another church worship band?”
“If chance be the Father of all flesh, Disaster is his rainbow in the sky, And when you hear State of Emergency! Sniper Kills Ten! Troops on Rampage! Whites go Looting! Bomb Blasts School! It is but the sound of man worshiping his maker.”
“We believe that religions are basically the same…they only differ on matters of creation, sin, heaven, hell, God, and salvation.”
“The arts can sharpen the vision, quicken the intellect, preserve the memory, activate the conscience, enhance the understanding and refresh the language.”
“A corollary of this has been that Christians have thought that they should only create art with a Pollyanna quality to it: paintings of birds and kittens, movies that extol family life and end happily, songs that are positive and uplifting – in short, works of art that show a world that is almost unfallen where no one experiences conflict and where sin is naughty rather than wicked.”