When Ike Turner died on December 12, 2007, most of the headlines focused on his troubled relationship with Tina and missed the truly important part of his legacy — the crucial role he played in the birth of rock ‘n’ roll.
Turner, who would have turned 78 this November 5, took the blues he grew up playing — practically breathing — in his native Clarksdale, Mississippi, to a place it had never been before, and spent his entire musical life experimenting with its raw elements until finally returning to its basic form at the end of his career.
The precocious Delta youngster got his first taste of the music business at age eight, spinning discs for the DJs at Clarksdale’s WROX when they’d take a bathroom or cigarette break. Then he carried amplifiers for legendary blues slide man Robert Nighthawk. When his interest turned to piano Turner began taking lessons from Pinetop Perkins, who continues to perform today at age 96.
Turner bought one of the first Stratocasters after he spotted it in a Memphis music store window, leading him to develop a radical and prickly guitar style captured in early recordings like the instrumental “Prancin’ ” and his version of “Steel Guitar Rag.” But he played piano on his debut recording with Ike Turner & His Kings of Rhythm at Sun Studio. That song, “Rocket 88,” powered by Turner’s steam-driven hammering of the keys and a wickedly distorted guitar rhythm, was the first rock ‘n’ roll record — a departure from the swinging syncopation, blues-inflected vocal delivery, and horn driven sound of rock presagers like Louis Jordan and Wynonie Harris.
Sun’s Sam Phillips was enamored of Turner, and near the end of his own life pronounced Ike “the best musician I have ever encountered.” Phillips turned to Turner as a source for new discoveries, essentially making Ike the first A&R man of the rock ‘n’ roll era, even if most of the artists he brought from the Delta to Sun were electric bluesmen. Thanks to Turner, Phillips recorded Howlin’ Wolf, James Cotton, and Little Milton, among others.
Chasing success and freedom from Jim Crow, Turner went to St. Louis and began dividing his time between there and Chicago, where he continued his A&R work, bringing Otis Rush to Cobra Records (where Turner played guitar on Rush’s “I Can’t Quit You, Baby”) and even working with doo-wop groups.
Although Turner was a capable singer and frontman, with his own burly charisma, he lacked confidence in his star quality and felt more comfortable as the man behind the proverbial curtain. So meeting the superbly dusky voiced Anna Mae Bullock — whom he rechristened Tina — was a stroke of good fortune he maximized. Ike’s skills as an arranger, songwriter, bandleader, and businessman, coupled with Tina’s sensuality and pure vocal soul, put 29 singles on the charts during their 16 years together, including the number four John Fogerty-penned pop hit “Proud Mary” and the lavish Phil Spector production “River Deep - Mountain High.” They also recorded more than 30 albums, appeared on network TV shows like The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour and The Midnight Special, and served as the opening act on the Rolling Stones’ infamous tour behind Exile on Main Street. For many white Americans, the Ike and Tina Turner Revue provided their first exposure to African-American music, and the ensemble’s embrace of both blues and rock gave them broad appeal.
Turner’s drug abuse and his tumultuous relationship with Tina has been chronicled famously in the autobiography I, Tina and in the film What’s Love Got to Do With It. And he spiraled out of control until he ended up in prison on a drugs and weapons charge in 1989. After his release from prison Turner struggled to reclaim his music and his reputation, but the wife-abuser label made him an untouchable to many booking agents and dogged him wherever he traveled.
Nonetheless, he put together another revue band in the mid-’90s and returned to the road with a full ensemble fronted by his new wife Jeanette Bazzell, playing clubs and blues festivals and mining the Ike & Tina repertoire. But the act lacked the vitality of the original Revue.
Partially in frustration, Ike returned to the piano and began restoring his keyboard chops. He also began performing his old guitar numbers, including “Prancin’,” turning his music’s clock back half a century. He produced and recorded his 2001 Grammy nominated solo album Here & Now, which revisited the music he’d played as a regional bandleader in Mississippi.
The rockin’ blues-based disc captured a new audience, beginning with a packed and critically heralded showcase at Austin’s South By Southwest music festival. It won awards from the Blues Foundation for “Comeback Album of the Year” and “Traditional Blues Album.”
Turner was once again in demand and the joy he took in his artistic redemption shot from the stage like lightning bolts when he performed. He remained on the road until he was slowed by emphysema shortly before his death. Turner’s final CD Risin’ With the Blues won a Grammy in 2007, and he was presented with a “Heroes” award by the Memphis chapter of the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences.
Turner was once again embraced by the rock world, too. He played piano on Gorillaz’ 2005 album Demon Days and was slated to begin a collaboration with the Black Keys and producer Danger Mouse when he died from a cocaine overdose at age 75.