Born Joseph Linquito in Hackensack, New Jersey, on August 2nd 1951. His first band was The Temptations influenced Filet Of Soul, alongside J.T Taylor, later of Kool & The Gang. Next up came Ezra (named after the poet Ezra Pound) in the mid 70s, a New Jersey band whose staple was Deep Purple covers! After a short period as an English Literature teacher, Linquito adopted the stage name Joe Lynn Turner and fronted Long Island pop/rock outfit Fandango (nothing to do with Nick Simper's outfit of the same name), who released four AOR based albums on RCA between 1977 and 1980.

Having heard one of them, Ritchie Blackmore asked Joe to audition for Rainbow in late 1980. After a run through of 'I Surrender' and two other future "Difficult To Cure" tracks, Joe was immediately offered the job. He appeared on the last three Rainbow albums before the Deep Purple reunion halted proceedings in April 1984. In 1985 Joe's first solo album "Rescue You" was released on Elektra Records, and in the same year he appeared in the movie "Blue DeVille", portraying a rock singer called Eric Fury. Joe performed sessions for John Waite, Michael Bolton and Cher in 1987, then joined Swedish guitarist Yngwie Malmsteen's Rising Force. He sang on the studio album "Odyssey", and "Trial By Fire - Live In Leningrad". In December 1989 after Gillan had been fired (and others had been considered), Turner was asked to join Deep Purple, and sang on the "Slaves And Masters" album and tour before being replaced by Ian Gillan in August 1992.

Since then Joe has been involved in a variety of solo, group and session projects, including a clutch of Rainbow and Deep Purple tribute albums. The "Slaves And Masters" track 'Too Much Is Not Enough' was re-recorded by Joe for his "Hurry Up And Wait" solo album in 1999.

Major projects have included Mother's Army with ex-Rainbow bassist Bob Daisley, Bulgarian guitarist Nikolo Kotsev's Brazen Abbot, and most recently the Hughes Turner Project alongside Glenn Hughes, with one live and two studio albums, as well as European and Japanese tours.