12 Facts About Gil Turner

Gil Turner was a founding member of The New World Singers in 1962 with Happy Traum and Bob Cohen.

Gil Turner's best known include "Benny 'Kid' Paret", a protest song about a boxer who died in the ring, and "Carry It On", a Civil Rights anthem recorded by folk artists such as Judy Collins and Joan Baez.

Gil Turner was born on May 6,1933, in Bridgeport, Connecticut, the son of a machinist.

Gil Turner's father, a German immigrant, was a member of a Bridgeport singing group that toured the US twice, and his mother, a member of the church choir.

Besides their musical talent, Gil Turner inherited his parents' love of religion, and as a teen, he became a lay preacher.

Gil Turner attended the University of Bridgeport as a Political Science major and later, the Columbia School of Social Work, where he was trained to work with autistic children.

In papers he wrote, Gil Turner explored how music might be used to treat children with autism as well as patients with rheumatoid arthritis, a disease he suffered from that in time would partially cripple him.

When Seeger, Agnes "Sis" Cunningham and her husband Gordon Friesen were considering launching a magazine devoted to protest songs, Gil Turner became the key to the enterprise.

One of the up-and-comers Gil Turner brought around was Bob Dylan.

Dylan, who had arrived in the Village in January 1961, signed with Columbia Records nine months later, around the time Gil Turner was hired at Gerde's.

Gil Turner wrote a new song called "Blowin' in the Wind" and wanted Turner to hear it.

When he went up upstairs for his next set, Gil Turner sang the song from Dylan's rough manuscript.