Ike Turner has passed

[Jim Alfredson]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=al1m8Zbgq5g

[B. Goren.]

RIP Ike.

[AllenLowe]

great and important musician - listen to the stuff he did on Sue records - brilliant guitar playing -

also, however, a rapist, based on Tina's portrait in her autobiography - not just her, but a lot of the early girl backup singers were coerced -

Edited December 13, 2007 by AllenLowe

[JSngry]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=al1m8Zbgq5g

I've yet to be able, after all these years, to form in my mind's eye a coherent, believable picture of Spector & Ike working in the same studio on the same material at the same time...

[DukeCity]

I remember an appearance by Ike on the old Aresnio Hall show. Ever the probing interviewer, Arsenio asked something like: "Ike, there have been accusations that you beat Tina. Did you ever get violent with her?" Ike's response was something along the lines of: "Well, yeah I beat her. But only when she need to be beat."

A lesson for us all.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

I don't want to upset people, but there are some posts on the blues forum saying that:

Tina's autobio is one side of a messy divorce;

between the two of them, Tina was thought to be the more dangerous to be around; and

one of his subsequent wives was saying the same thing as Tina.

So, who really knows?

What's clear is that:

on stage, together, they were incredible!

Ike's impact on Blues, R&B, Rock & Roll and even Jazz in Memphis (think Hank Crawford, Phineas and Calvin Newborn all in his band, George Coleman's big break, also) made him one of the most important figures in the black music of the post war period.

MG

[AllenLowe]

well, when women are victimized they are often not believed, which continues the victimization - I'm not trying to start a side-debate here, but I think it's important to take victims seriously, and this was not just a matter of a domestic argument but systematic abuse - and all the evidence I have seen points to Ike as a victimizer - I am not saying the music is not important, just that this was not your garden-variety angry guy -

I take the subject seriously - not only in the wake of some fairly recent revelations about Al Haig, but also in light of the murder of a friend of mine a few years back who was caught up in just such a scene -

[Alexander]

What I think is sad is that to most people, Ike Turner is only remembered as the guy who knocked Tina around. I'm not defending or condoning spousal abuse, but there was certainly more to that man than that. My students today ONLY knew Ike as Tina's abuser. They had no idea that he did anything BUT abuse Tina Turner.

[ValerieB]

What I think is sad is that to most people, Ike Turner is only remembered as the guy who knocked Tina around. I'm not defending or condoning spousal abuse, but there was certainly more to that man than that. My students today ONLY knew Ike as Tina's abuser. They had no idea that he did anything BUT abuse Tina Turner.

i totally agree with you, alexander, and just posted as much on another jazz website. and although i don't condone his actions at all, i was really disappointed that today's obit in the l.a. times chose to use his abuser ID as the title of the obit. cheap journalism, i would say.

[sidewinder]

I saw that biopic of Tina Turner on TV the other week, ValerieB ('What's Love Got To Do With It'). It was a pretty damning portrayal of Ike. Any thoughts on the portrayal?

they actually had a composite character in that film who was part me and part an ex-ikette. the ikette who wouldn't take no stuff from him and introduced tina to buddhism and how to chant to get away from him!! now, suffice it to say, i was never an ikette!

the portrayal of ike was fairly accurate, i guess, but also one-sided. he most definitely was more than a one-dimensional figure. he could be extremely charming and fun to be with but he was very domineering with his women, that's for sure.

Thanks ! Yes, most certainly recall the 'composite' character in the film.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

well, when women are victimized they are often not believed, which continues the victimization - I'm not trying to start a side-debate here, but I think it's important to take victims seriously, and this was not just a matter of a domestic argument but systematic abuse - and all the evidence I have seen points to Ike as a victimizer - I am not saying the music is not important, just that this was not your garden-variety angry guy -

I agree with you on all those points. And Ike did admit, in his autobio, that he hit Tina, though he tried to tone it down. But Tina was not your garden-variety victim, either. There is a gap between the two accounts, but both had an interest - if you like, a "showbiz" interest - in widening that gap.

I take the subject seriously - not only in the wake of some fairly recent revelations about Al Haig, but also in light of the murder of a friend of mine a few years back who was caught up in just such a scene -

Yes.

MG

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

What I think is sad is that to most people, Ike Turner is only remembered as the guy who knocked Tina around. I'm not defending or condoning spousal abuse, but there was certainly more to that man than that. My students today ONLY knew Ike as Tina's abuser. They had no idea that he did anything BUT abuse Tina Turner.

I agree that's a shame. But all of the web news pieces over here deal with both his musical achievements as well as his relationship with Tina. Some accounts are better than others, as you'd expect. A couple are pretty good.

Maybe this is more a case of kinds not caring enough about what he did for a music they're not interested in anyway to take much notice, than a poor reporting problem? You can tell kids over and over but what goes in is what they're prepared to receive. So perhaps it says more about the general state of perception of the music of that era than about what kids are taught.

MG

[chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez]

saw him in '02 or '03 with his rock & roll revue. it was rockin'!

[GA Russell]

Here's what Phil Spector said at Ike Turner's funeral:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,317986,00.html

Music legend and murder suspect, Phil Spector, isn't trying to make friends or curry favor with old pals while he waits for a second trial. He turned up at reviled R&B legend Ike Turner's Los Angeles funeral on Friday and gave an impromptu speech that laid into both Tina Turner and Oprah Winfrey.

Spector, according to our spy in the Greater Bethany Community Church in Gardena, Calif., was among several celebrity mourners including Bonnie Raitt and Little Richard who gathered to say good-bye to the Grammy-winning musician.

"I'm so sorry, I wasn't prepared to say anything," said the thin and frail-looking music producer. "Nobody had told me that I was going to speak. This is a very sad occasion for me."

Spector rambled, but he had points to make. Here they are, for better or worse:

"First of all, the things that were said about Ike, that were in that piece-of-trash movie they made about him were ... (applause), it was a piece-of-trash movie. I haven't seen the movie but it was told to me, and [barney] Kessel was the world's greatest guitar player in the world and the only reason that Ike didn't play on 'River Deep, Mountain High' was because Ike was the second greatest guitar player in the world. I treasured him and everybody knew it except Ike. That's how good he was

"B.B. King told me at a party with Doc Pomus and Joe Turner and Ray Charles sitting there that Ike Turner was the only guitar player he wouldn't play behind. That's how good he was. But Ike never boasted. He came to parties with me and I'd say, 'play, play' and Ike would never play.

"Ike could play circles around Eric Clapton and Eric knew it. I had someone once ask me what's the difference between Ike Turner and Eric Clapton. I said, 'you don't know the difference between Eric Clapton and Ike Turner? That's funny, why don't you ask Eric, Eric knows.'"

"Ike made Tina the jewel she was. When I went to see Ike play at the Cinegrill in the '90s after his absurd reason for being sent to prison for no reason other than being a black man in America, there were at least, and I counted them, five Tina Turners on the stage performing that night, any one of them could have been Tina Turner."

"And sell-out, whom you really love and respect but I have an ambivalence towards Oprah Winfrey. She made Tina Turner's book into a bestseller, which demonized and vilified Ike. The book wouldn't have sold 10 books. It was badly written. It was a piece of trash and because Oprah idolized Tina, she didn't feel it wrong to vilify a 'brother.'"

"Other black sisters did the same thing to Ike and there was a very famous story about Whoopi Goldberg, who had a television show for about five minutes, interviewed Ike. Ike had called me and said, 'Shall I do the show?'

"I said, 'You can't get hurt.' And he said, 'OK, I'm going to do it.'

"And we figured it would be good because it's Whoopi and Whoopi asked him, 'I understand before you were married when you were living together, you beat the hell out of her and she tried to commit suicide because she was so terrified of you and she tried to jump out of a window,' and Ike said, 'Yeah, but it's hard to jump out of a window from a basement floor.'"

"It was only one Ike. I learned more from Ike than any professors I've been around. He never, ever bothered me. He never interfered with me. He never got in my way."

"When we did 'River Deep Mountain High,' people said you can't put Ike and Tina Turner's name on that record. It won't sell because they are rhythm and blues and it's a pop record. I said I signed Ike and Tina Turner, it won't even say featuring Tina Turner; it's Ike and Tina Turner."

Spector said part of the reason he became disillusioned with the record business was because he could not make Ike and Tina as big of an act as he wanted.

"I wanted them to be the biggest revue in America. They were the first act that I recorded that ever could play big-time and break it in Vegas and America."

edit for typo

Edited December 23, 2007 by GA Russell

[7/4]

Listen to Spector, he would never harm anybody.

[chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez]

barney kessell!

[AllenLowe]

now, Barney was a nice guy -

[Adam]

LA Times story on the funeral service, with an edited version of Spector's comments.

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/...1,1029323.story

Ike Turner remembered with music, a little controversy

His legacy and musicianship are extolled. Spector decries the performer's public persona as an abuser.

By Geoff Boucher, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

December 22, 2007

The memorial service Friday for R&B stalwart and rock 'n' roll pioneer Ike Turner was much like the life of the troubled star himself -- rich in music and applause, reflexively defensive about the nature of his legacy and, for good or bad, most memorable for its moments of controversy.

Phil Spector, the fabled record producer and recent celebrity defendant, for instance, gave a long speech decrying Turner's defining public persona as the abusive former husband of Tina Turner, a reputation largely shaped by the 1993 film "What's Love Got to Do With It," which Spector called "that piece-of-trash movie that made up things about him."

Spector also singled out Oprah Winfrey, Whoopi Goldberg and Tina Turner, all of whom he said contributed to demonizing Turner, who died Dec. 12 at his home in San Diego County at 76 after a long battle with emphysema.

Other speakers at the service included Little Richard, soul singer Solomon Burke and members of the Turner family.

Ike Turner Jr., fighting back tears, carried to the dais with him the two Grammy trophies that his father won late in life. The awards were an honor that gave the elder Turner a sense of redemption after his 1980s and '90s slide into a drug haze and obscurity. "My father was happy. I could see it," said his son.

Many speakers pointed out that the calculation of Turner's legacy is a tricky matter. He was the key person behind "Rocket 88," the rollicking 1951 hit that many music historians cite as the first rock 'n' roll record. But that single was credited to Jackie Brenston and His Delta Cats, a group that didn't exist (Brenston was a horn player for Turner and did the vocals on the song).

The opportunity missed could have made Turner as famous as Ray Charles, said Jerry Wexler, the former Atlantic Records producer, who sent a letter that was read to the crowd at the cavernous City of Refuge and Greater Bethany Memorial Church in Gardena. "A terrible wrong . . . disastrous," Wexler said of the misplaced credit for the landmark recording.

Perhaps, but Turner went on to fame anyway after he spotted a talented, leggy teenager named Anna Mae Bullock, whom he gave the stage name Tina Turner.

The pair became a scintillating sensation with a string of hits starting in 1960 and a stage revue that many observers say set a new standard for R&B and pop music as a whole.

Little Richard brought laughter to the service by playfully pointing out that he shamelessly cribbed part of "Rocket 88" and "turned it into 'Good Golly Miss Molly,' a big hit song." He described the epiphany of hearing Ike Turner for the first time in Georgia and marveling at his band, the Kings of Rhythm.

"I felt it all over; it touched me down in my soul," the 75-year-old rock icon said. "I had never heard a band like this band. And I will tell you I have never heard one like this band to this day."

Spector added that Turner had been one of the best guitar players alive -- "Ike Turner could play circles around Eric Clapton, and Eric knows that" -- and that B.B. King once confided that Ike Turner was the only person he would not play guitar in front of.

Spector tried to take Ike and Tina into a wider pop field with the ambitious 1966 "River Deep-Mountain High," which the producer has in the past cited as his best personal work. That song was a commercial disappointment, and Spector said Friday that he believed Ike and Tina Turner should have been "the biggest thing in America," but that race issues tamped down their opportunities beyond R&B. He added that their great potential was "because of Ike Turner, not Tina Turner."

That statement drew applause in the room, but it doesn't match the general public impression of Ike and Tina, who were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991. Tina's autobiography, "I, Tina," and the subsequent film "What's Love Got to Do With It" portrayed her as an exploited captive of her domineering husband. Ike Turner's name became shorthand for abusive backstage husbands.

Tina Turner has not commented publicly on Ike's death, and her publicist issued a terse statement that she had no plans to talk about someone she had not seen in 35 years. On Friday, her name was read off in a list of notable people who were unable to attend the memorial but had sent their condolences. The couple split up in the late 1970s, and their life trajectories were markedly different in the '80s.

Tina became a solo star of the first order; Ike submerged his career regrets with drugs and had several run-ins with the law.

Exaggerated or fair, his public persona was impossible to ignore.

Many of his old friends pointed out how different it was from the man they knew, one who once insisted on paying the rent for Little Richard's mother during lean times and who always opened his studios to young unknown musicians for the simple reason that he loved to work with talented newcomers.

Burke praised Turner as "a teacher who taught everyone something different" and said the man who first put rock 'n' roll on vinyl was no longer worried about his reputation in the world of men.

"Ike's got a better gig, and he took it," Burke bellowed in his smooth baritone. With a bit of wink, he nodded toward the musicians still playing: "And he didn't take his band. Say, 'Thank God.' "

[Christiern]

now, Barney was a nice guy -

and Doc Pomus was not.

Just thought I'd add to your aside.

[Randy Twizzle]

Having just seen "Walking Hard" I'm curious about Spector and Turner's relationship with the great Dewey Cox.

[7/4]

Having just seen "Walking Hard" I'm curious about Spector and Turner's relationship with the great Dewey Cox.

damp.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

now, Barney was a nice guy -

and Doc Pomus was not.

Just thought I'd add to your aside.

He produced some great albums with Spoon and B B, though.

I saw him on British TV in '62, singing the song made famous by Fabian, "Turn me loose", which he and Mort had written. Incredible performance and carrying an entirely different meaning when you saw Doc singing it from his wheelchair.

MG

[Christiern]

I will not give any details other than to say that I base my remark about Pomus upon a very ugly encounter I witnessed up close and personal. Don't ask, I won't tell.

[ValerieB]

just heard via CNN that the toxology reports said that Ike died of a cocaine overdose and other mitigating circumstances. i had believed that he had been "clean" for a very long time. my guess is that he knew he was on his way out so felt, "what the f__k"!!

[DukeCity]

just heard via CNN that the toxology reports said that Ike died of a cocaine overdose and other mitigating circumstances. i had believed that he had been "clean" for a very long time. my guess is that he knew he was on his way out so felt, "what the f__k"!!

The report I heard said the mitigating circumstances were high blood pressure and emphysema. I'm thinking that maybe a stimulant that you inhale may not have been the best choice for Ike's recreational drug.