Ike & Tina Turner

Ike & Tina Turner
Ike and Tina Turner, 1972.
Background information
Origin	St. Louis, Missouri, United States
Genres	Rock And Roll, soul, blues rock
Years active	1960 – 1976
Labels	Sue, Liberty, United Artists
Associated acts	Tina Turner (solo career), The Ikettes
Past members
Ike Turner Tina Turner

Ike & Tina Turner were an American musical duo composed of the husband-and-wife team of Ike Turner and Tina Turner. Spanning sixteen years together as a recording group, their repertoire was wide and varied ranging from R&B, soul, blues, rock, gospel and funk. They were known for their wild and entertaining concerts and their wildly interpretive re-arrangements of rock songs including "I Want to Take You Higher" and "Proud Mary, for which they won a Grammy Award. They were also known for several soulful numbers including "A Fool in Love", "It's Gonna Work Out Fine" and "River Deep - Mountain High". The duo was inducted to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1991.

Life and career

Early years

Ike and Tina Turner first met in 1956 when Tina, whose real name was Anna Mae Bullock, accompanied her sister to one of St. Louis' exclusive nightclubs, Club Manhattan, where Ike Turner and his band, The Kings of Rhythm, were regulars. Bullock was impressed by the band and wanted to join. Ike Turner recalled that Bullock's sister Alline, who was dating a Kings of Rhythm member, had told him that Bullock was a singer but rebuffed her. Bullock stole the show during an intermission in the Kings of Rhythm set one night at the club in the summer of 1957 when a Kings of Rhythm member passed the 17-year-old the microphone. Afterwards, an impressed Ike Turner allowed the teenager to be his background singer. In 1958, Ike featured Bullock as a background vocalist on his single, "Box Top", which was a regional hit in St. Louis. Bullock's stage name at the time was "Little Ann".

In late 1959, Turner used Bullock's voice on a recording of his song, "A Fool in Love", to lay down a guide track for a male vocalist who failed to show up. Turner's original idea was to erase Bullock's vocals after presenting the track to the vocalist he had hired to sing the song. But after hearing playback, Turner was so impressed that he kept Bullock's vocals on the song and sent the recording to Sue Records in New York, where label owner Juggy Murray offered a $25,000 advance for the song, convinced it was a hit. Around this time, Ann Bullock was going through a struggle. While she and Ike Turner were still in a platonic affair, Bullock's former lover and the father of her son, Raymond Hill, had left Turner's band a previous year and had wanted to bring Bullock to his band. Fearing he may lose a chance at national stardom, Turner asked Bullock to use his last name to discourage Raymond Hill. Bullock agreed. At the same time, Ike had another name in mind for Bullock. After watching Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, he began to envision the skinny teenage Bullock in the same way of Sheena, and gave Bullock the name Tina Turner. In April 1960, Turner and Bullock signed with Sue Records as Ike and Tina Turner.

"A Fool In Love" became a national hit in the late summer of 1960 eventually peaking at number 27 on the pop charts and number two on the R&B chart. The duo would have substantial R&B chart-toppers following "A Fool in Love" and went out on the road which would be constant throughout their career. During this time, the one-time platonic friendship between Turner and Bullock had turned personal after a night of drinking alcohol, according to Ike. Turner later alleged that he felt guilty for having sex with Bullock because "it felt like I was strewing (sic) my sister." This later resulted in Bullock giving birth to their only child together, son Ronald, in October 1960. Their professional career continued reaching highs when they had two further R&B hits - "I Idolize You" and "It's Gonna Work Out Fine", which like "A Fool in Love", sold a million copies and won them their first Grammy Award nomination. That year, having formed The Ikettes a year prior, Ike Turner released the group's first single, "I'm Blue (The Gong Gong Song)", which became another top 20 hit. Afterwards, Ike Turner began reassembling the band as The Ike & Tina Turner Revue.

The Ike and Tina Turner Revue

In 1962, Ike and Tina had two more hits - "Poor Fool" and "Tra La La", and carried on a tour-heavy schedule. That year, several changes started occurring in the band and with Ike and Tina themselves. While on the road, Ike and Tina allegedly went to Tijuana, Mexico to get married. The accounts of this by both Ike and Tina differ. In her autobiography, I, Tina, Bullock alleged Turner had simply asked her to marry him. Fearing she might get slapped or hit by Turner, she alleged, she reluctantly agreed and took her to Tijuana. In Ike's autobiography, Taking Back My Name, he alleged that his marriage to Bullock was illegal due to them marrying in Mexico and the marriage not being recognized as such in the United States and also because Turner had yet divorced his previous wife, Lorraine Taylor, whom Ike and Tina had alleged, once pulled out a gun on Bullock for sleeping around with Turner, later turning the gun on herself despite Ike's attempts to stop her.

After the Ike and Tina Turner Revue became successful, several other acts including James Brown, Ray Charles and labels such as Stax and Motown began creating their own soul music revues. Finally in 1963, the group cut ties from Sue Records and moved to Los Angeles. Ike Turner would be in search for greater deals with companies large and small and between 1964 and 1969, they would record for Sonja, Warner Bros., Kent, Loma, Modern, Philles, Innis, Blue Thumb, Minit and A&M. Despite their early success, Ike and Tina struggled with several recordings due to, some say, Turner's refusal to have successful producers and writers compose anything for them assuring he had full control of his contracts. Ike Turner was known by some for being a taskmaster, much like Ray Charles and James Brown and sometimes fined and/or fired musicians for any wrongdoing, including drug abuse. Ike Turner rehearsed the band daily. Tina Turner started to pull her weight in the band, buying outfits for the Ikettes and herself, with Ike helping along, by cutting parts of the dresses out to create their increasingly wild and sexy stage attire. Tina also became a choreographer for the Ikettes helping them to create dance moves. The Ikettes group started going through a rotating door of members after the original members left over royalty issues with Ike in 1965. Tina Turner later alleged that Ike Turner's first account of his dominance over her was over financial issues prior to their marriage.

In 1965, Phil Spector signed Ike & Tina to his Philles label after Spector sought the duo following a performance on The Big T.N.T. Show where his group, The Ronettes, were on the same bill. Spector knew of Turner's obsession with control of his music and offered Turner $25,000 USD to let him record Tina by herself. Spector had written a song that he felt was custom-made for Tina titled "River Deep - Mountain High". Spector reportedly had Tina cut the vocal twenty-two times before he was finally satisfied. "River Deep - Mountain High" was released as a single the following year, in 1966. Its initial flop in the United States led Spector to retreat from the music industry for several years. Ironically, international distribution of the record helped the record to make a splash in England where, unbeknownst to Ike and Tina, they had a sizable audience due to many of their songs being chosen for Northern soul events in the country. "River Deep" initially reached the top 30 in the UK in its initial 1966 release while another song, a cover of the Motown standard, "A Love Like Yours (Don't Come Knocking Everyday)", hit the top 20 in the UK, leading to Mick Jagger of The Rolling Stones to ask them to open for them on their UK tour. Later in 1969, "River Deep - Mountain High" returned to the UK charts following Eric Burdon's cover of the song. The original eventually peaked at number three that year.

Major success

The group became a mainstream success in the late 1960s, with the releases of the Blue Thumb albums, Outta Season and The Hunter, released in 1968 and 1969 respectively. In 1968, they had a modest hit of Otis Redding's "I've Been Loving You Too Long". For stage shows, Ike and Tina Turner choreographed sexual dialogue between one another. In 1969, with the release of The Hunter, the duo had a hit with the funk-oriented "Bold Soul Sister", which landed Tina Turner a solo Grammy nomination for Grammy Award for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance. And that year, they opened again for The Rolling Stones on their US tour. A bit of their opener was put in the beginning of the group's Gimme Shelter concert film. This time, due to this, Ike and Tina's fan base increased with younger white audiences who hadn't been exposed to their music previously. Around this time, the group had started to include then-current rock and funk hits into their act as a result of Tina becoming a fan of the music. In 1970, the Turners signed with Liberty Records and released the Come Together album, which included a cover of Sly & The Family Stone's "I Want to Take You Higher". The song outperformed the original version on the charts and became Ike and Tina's first top forty US hit in eight years. This success led to them performing in Las Vegas and Ed Sullivan later included the act on his show.

Later in 1970, the group became headliners of their own successful European tour. One tour was later documented on a live album from their performance at Paris' Olympia Hall. In early 1971, the duo put out their next studio album, Workin' Together, which included the duo's biggest-selling hit to date, a scintillating cover of "Proud Mary". The single was released as a single in January 1971 and peaked at the top five on the Billboard Hot 100 that March reaching number four. The song later won the duo a 1972 Grammy Award for Best R&B Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group. The album also included the modest hit, "Funkier Than a Mosquito's Tweeter", which had been written by Tina's sister Aillene; the song would be covered interestingly enough by Nina Simone a couple years later. Later in 1971, the group relocated to United Artists where they would remain for the remainder of their recording career, releasing the record, Nuff Said. Later in 1971, the group appeared at a rock music festival alongside Wilson Pickett and The Staple Singers headlined in Ghana. The concert festival was later released as a documentary film under the title, Soul II Soul. They also made a brief performance in Miles Forman's Taking Off. The group then performed at Carnegie Hall, documented on their 1971 live album, What You Hear Is What You Get - Live at Carnegie Hall Due to the success of "Proud Mary" and the ascent of Ike and Tina Turner as an international success, Ike Turner used money earned from this to create his recording studio, Bolic Sounds, the name taking its inspiration from Tina's maiden name, Bullock.

In 1972, the group released Feel Good, which included Ike and Tina's own composition, the blues rocker, "Black Coffee". The record would later be covered by the hard rock band, Humble Pie a year later. They also appeared on Soul Train that same year, becoming one of the few acts on the show to perform live rather than lip sync. Later in 1972, they issued the album, Let Me Touch Your Mind. A year later, Ike and Tina scored what turned out to be their last major hit with the Tina-composed "Nutbush City Limits", which reached number 22 on the Hot 100 and number four in England, also hitting the top ten in several European countries. The parent album, also titled Nutbush City Limits, became an indication into Tina Turner's solo career, which was started while still with Ike, a year later, with the release of the country soul album, Tina Turns the Country On, in 1974. Later in 1974, the band released the album, Sweet Rhode Island Red, which included one of the duo's final charted singles, "Sexy Ida (Part 1)", which helped land them a second appearance on Soul Train. Also later in 1974, they issued a gospel album, The Gospel According to Tina Turner, which as it turned out, would be their final album released while the duo was still together.

Decline

While the group was still recording music in 1975, that year they failed to release a recording as Ike Turner's growing cocaine abuse, which had started developing in the early seventies. When Ike was deemed unfit to appear in many of the duo's television bookings, he sent Tina on her own and she appeared on The Cher Show, The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour and The Mike Douglas Show. Later in 1975, Tina accepted an offer by The Who to appear in their rock musical, Tommy, which she played The Acid Queen. Due to this, Ike Turner chose to benefit from Tina's success by producing another solo album for her also titled, Acid Queen. That same year, Tina Turner was shouted out by funk singer Betty Davis on her album track, "F.U.N.K.", from her Nasty Gal album in tribute to who she deemed as funk acts.

Later Ike and Tina continued a tour-heavy schedule in both 1975 and 1976 but began running into trouble after the group had abruptly left the stage on some shows. One show in Malaysia was canceled after Ike complained of monetary issues. By 1976, Ike and Tina Turner hadn't released an album in two years and their popularity had dwindled. In July of 1976, Tina Turner fled from the hotel room she and Ike were sharing prior to a show in Dallas, allegedly claiming she left with only thirty-six cents and a Mobil gas credit card in her possession. Tina Turner alleged that the escape was the root of their flight to Dallas in which Bullock alleged she fought back "for the first time" against Ike Turner's physical assault, which she said, had dominated her for more than fifteen years. Bullock made a flight to Los Angeles and hid in several friends' apartments for several weeks. Tina alleged she had purchased a gun as a defense mechanism in case Ike would spot her.

Tina Turner later filed for divorce from Ike Turner on July 27, 1976, bringing an end to the Revue. After a year going over financial issues and royalty disputes, Tina dropped her case telling her lawyer that she only wanted to be free from Ike Turner and only asked that she'd be allowed to keep her stage name. In November 1977, it was decided that Bullock would keep her stage name and in March 1978, Ike and Tina's divorce was finalized. Tina later settled with concert promoters after lawsuits were ordered against her and Ike for backing out of concerts on their tour. In 1977 and 1978, United Artists released two leftover Ike and Tina albums, Delilah's Power and Airwaves, culled from the group's 1975 recording sessions.

Solo careers

Following her escape from Ike Turner and her divorce filing, Tina laid low for nearly a couple years, taking work cleaning her next-door neighbor's house and accepted food stamps. In late 1977, Tina Turner made her return to the stage producing a cabaret act in Las Vegas for two years. Tina remained a popular live act in Europe and still had something of a following in the United States. In 1978, she released her third solo album and her first post-Ike Turner album, Rough and went on the road for a year with her Wild Lady of Rock 'n' Roll Tour. That same year, she appeared in a cameo for "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" In 1979, following the release of her fourth solo album, Love Explosion, Tina was dropped from United Artists Records in the U.S. and EMI in Europe.

After performing in San Francisco in January 1980, Australian music manager Roger Davies, who had been working with Olivia Newton-John previously (Tina was on Newton-John's Australian TV special a year prior and had been pursuing Davies), agreed to work with her. Davies advised her to drop her cabaret act and perform solo, replacing any trace of her Ike and Tina years. Davies then set up a European tour for Tina that took place throughout 1980. A U.S. tour took place the following year and Tina made a breakthrough at The Ritz Theatre in May of that year. Rave reviews from the show led Rod Stewart to ask her to, first perform with her on Saturday Night Live, and then have her as part of his Los Angeles concert tour. Later in 1981, she won an opening spot with her 1960s acquaintances The Rolling Stones' hot-selling tour. In 1982, she recorded a European hit with the dance act, B.E.F. on a cover of The Temptations' "Ball of Confusion". Despite her successes as a touring act, Tina was still unable to secure a recording deal. In 1983, Davies set up a second appearance at The Ritz, which included David Bowie and Keith Richards in the audience. Capitol Records later signed her following this as a recommendation by Bowie following the show.

In 1984, Tina scored her first solo hit single with the release of the Al Green cover, "Let's Stay Together", which prompted Capitol to sign Tina to a three-album deal. Later in 1984, Tina released the Private Dancer album, which included several more hit singles including her biggest-selling hit, "What's Love Got to Do with It". The single peaked at number-one on the Billboard Hot 100 in September 1984 and became Tina's first number-one hit in her entire career. During their career, Ike and Tina Turner had never reached that position only peaking as high as number four pop and number two on several occasions on the R&B charts. In February 1985, Tina won three Grammy Awards and went on a hugely successful arena world tour. Tina would go on to release several more hit albums and go on a bunch of successful stadium world tours ending the 1980s as one of the biggest pop superstars of the decade.

Ike Turner reportedly fell into a depression and struggled with his drug addiction following the end of the Ike & Tina Turner Revue. In 1981, Turner's Bolic Sounds studio burned down due to technical failures. Throughout the 1980s, Ike was beleaguered by lawsuits and accusations of assault charges. Though Turner beat most of his cases in court including a 1982 assault case, in 1987, his luck ran out after he tried to sell cocaine to an undercover cop. In 1990 Turner was sentenced to four years in prison for cocaine possession and completed 17 months before being granted parole. While still in prison, the female rap group Salt-n-Pepa released their hit single, "Shoop", which featured a sample of the Ikettes' "I'm Blue". Thanks to this success, following his release from prison, Turner revamped his Kings of Rhythm band.

Turner reportedly sobered up after his release from prison. Reviving his musical career, Turner returned to his blues roots and recorded the Grammy-nominated Here & Now in 2001. Six years later, he won his first solo Grammy for the blues album, Risin' With the Blues. Before his death, he also collaborated with the bands Gorillaz and The Black Keys. In December 2007, Ike Turner died from an apparent cocaine overdose in his California home, he was 76. When his former musical partner was reached for comment, Tina Turner's spokeswoman released a statement that Tina refused to comment on the news.

Awards and accolades

Ike & Tina Turner were inducted to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1991; Ike Turner was still incarcerated and Tina, still not wanting any ties to Ike whatsoever, didn't attend, but stated she was working on an album. Phil Spector accepted their induction on the former duo's behalf.

The group was nominated three times for Grammy Awards. They were nominated and won Best R&B Vocal Performance by a Group in 1971 for "Proud Mary" at the 14th Annual Grammy Awards. Tina herself received a nomination for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance for the 1969 song "Bold Soul Sister". The group also received a nomination for their 1961 recording "It's Gonna Work Out Fine".

The group received a NAACP Image Award. Both Ike and Tina each received stars and were inducted individually to the St. Louis Hall of Fame.

Two of their songs, "River Deep - Mountain High" and "Proud Mary", were inducted to the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999 and 2003, respectively.

Tina received a solo star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1986.

Discography

Main article: Ike & Tina Turner discography

Filmography

• 1970: Gimme Shelter
• 1971: Soul 2 Soul
• 1971: Taking Off
• 1999: Ike & Tina Turner – The Best of MusikLaden
• 2004: The Legends Ike & Tina Turner – Live in ‘71
• 2004: Kenny Rogers Rollin’ Vol. 1
• 2005: Ike & Tina Turner: Live
• 2006: Through the Years
• 2006: Ike and Tina Turner: Rollin with Ike and Tina Turner Live
• 2006: Flashbacks: Soul Sensation

See also

• Supercouple
• What's Love Got to Do with It (film)

External links

• Rock & Roll Hall of Fame page on Ike & Tina Turner
• History of Rock Page on Ike & Tina Turner
• Rolling Stone page on Ike & Tina Turner