Dec 122007
Ike Turner died today. Of his life, I say: was there another artist whose reputed assholishness was so purely, inversely proportional to the wonderfulness of his music?
To the spirit of Ike Turner, I say: thank you, and may you rest in peace, if that’s possible. May God have mercy on your soul, as I would have Him have mercy on mine.
HVB
Long, long, longtime RTH lurker Kathleen sent me word of this event under the e-mail headline “Ike Turner Beats Tina to Death.”
You beat me to the punch with your write-up, HVB. I was seconds behind you, with a post that was going to read “Tonight, Tina Sleeps Soundly.” The guy was a musical force in his time. In musical terms, he was by far the best thing that ever happened to Tina Turner. Mark Knopfler didn’t give her that spark.
Oh man, that’s just terrible. Terrible that I didn’t think of it. Nobody’s topping that one, ever.
And I think you’re also right, nobody’s ever topping Ike in terms of completely eclipsing their genuine talent with awful things they’ve reportedly done in their personal life.
From the NYTimes Lede Blog comes Tina’s telling statement (delivered by a spokesperson):
“Tina is aware that Ike passed away earlier today. She has not had any contact with him in 35 years. No further comment will be made.”
Check out the ace manly move from Ike on the downstroke at about 1:04. And what’s with Whitey barre-ing his chords over the top of the neck?!
35 years? According to wikipedia, Tina ran away from Ike in 1976 and divorced him in 1978.
I’ve heard some of the stuff Ike produced for Sun Records (via emusic), and it’s pretty cool. It would be a great service to rock historians if someone did a compilation of his non-Tina work, but I doubt that will happen.
Does anyone have recommendations on where to hear Ike Turner material?
What’s with Tina’s Look? I’ve never seen anyone rock a Wee Willie Winkie hat like that before. Nice use of the Designated Dancer towards the end. Who is that guy with the high voice?
The blond pompadour guitarist fretting over the top is strange, especially since he seems to be fretting normally later.
Funny you should ask about his non-Tina work. eMusic has a comp of recordings, mostly without Tina, from 1969 that’s pretty good. I’m planning on uploading a couple of tracks for sampling when I get time today. Obviously, that’s not anything like the comprehensive comp of Tina-free Ike that you probably have in mind.
I see what you guys mean about the honky fretting over the top of the neck. I hadn’t noticed that. He stops playing that way after changing guitars, right? Maybe that first guitar was tuned to an open chord.
Yes, the hat is surprisingly smokin’!
Kevin Dubrow of Quiet Riot, also dead this month, was allegedly such an asshole, that his roadies took to pissing a little bit into his onstage water bottles.