Ike Turner

[ghostrider]

i think i've related before the story out of "the true adventures of the rolling stones", stanley booth's account of "let it bleed" tour:

Stanley Booth was another client of the literary agency I worked at in the 1970s. I went thru his file & found a photocopy of his agreement with the signatures of all 5 original Stones on it, including Brian Jones. If it had been the original I would have swiped it.

 

Booth was years late with his manuscript, surprirse surprise, his original publisher eventually cancelled the deal & he sort of got dropped as a client - "sort of" in that no one could find him for years. The book didn't surface until I had gotten out of the biz.

 

 

How is Chuck Berry, anyway?

 

ETA: 81 years old, touring, and scheduled to play BB King's on December 30.

Chuck plays a regular monthly gig in a high school pal's bar back in our mutual hometown of St. Louis - also Ike's hometown, to wrench this diversion back on topic.

 

We had dinner last month at Highway 61 Revisited, a fun new restaurant/bar in StL that does food from all along the legendary highway. Big mural of musical figures from New Orleans on up covers one wall, including Ike & Tina & Chuck. Cool place, good andouille.

[Lex]

Wonder just how much jail time ol' Phil will get

None - hung jury. Between OJ, Robert Blake, and now Phil it's clear that Los Angeles is the best place to commit murder if you're a rich guy.

[Wilfrid1]

Allegedly.

[splinky]

Wonder just how much jail time ol' Phil will get

None - hung jury. Between OJ, Robert Blake, and now Phil it's clear that Los Angeles is the best place to commit murder if you're a rich guy.

after the mistrial, the DA's Office had announced its intention to retry the case. it remains to be seen if he will skate on the charges. i do agree that in LA there's a pretty good chance he'll get off, if there is a second trial

[monkeymay]

How is Chuck Berry, anyway?

 

ETA: 81 years old, touring, peeking at girls in the bathroom, and scheduled to play BB King's on December 30.

 

I fixed it for you.

 

RIP Ike.

 

One of the great pleasures in my life was dancing with Chuck Berry in the basement of a dive club off Hollywood Blvd. One smooth motherfucker, let me tell you.

 

A woman who I used to work for was a manager at The Whiskey A Go Go back in the 60's. Along with her many claims to fame (she was Sinatra's bookeeper at Reprise for awhile - what a record collection!) not only did she train the Whiskey's go go dancers, but she used to book Ike and Tina for 50 bucks a night when they first came to town...the mind reels.

 

RIP Ike

Keep rockin Tina

 

 

[Ron Johnson]

We had dinner last month at Highway 61 Revisited, a fun new restaurant/bar in StL that does food from all along the legendary highway. Big mural of musical figures from New Orleans on up covers one wall, including Ike & Tina & Chuck. Cool place, good andouille.

 

Where in St. Louis is this located?

 

food any good?

 

 

 

[ghostrider]

We had dinner last month at Highway 61 Revisited, a fun new restaurant/bar in StL that does food from all along the legendary highway. Big mural of musical figures from New Orleans on up covers one wall, including Ike & Tina & Chuck. Cool place, good andouille.

 

Where in St. Louis is this located?

 

food any good?

34 S. Old Orchard in Webster, just a few doors off Big Bend.

 

Creole pasta was good & fiery. Crab cakes were way too salty (low-sodium diet here) for my personal taste. I'd go back & likely will next time we're in town.

 

I'd forgotten that StL hasn't gone no-smoking. The smoke from the bar was apparent in the non-smoking room, but it was the largest bar crowd they'd ever had by far according to the staff - we happened to choose the night of the Mizzou-Kansas game.

 

http://hwy61roadhouse.admitonevip.com/

[mongo_jones]

donald fagen takes stock

 

Muddy Waters was raised in Clarksdale. John Lee Hooker and Sam Cooke were born and grew up there. Ike Turner was a Clarksdale boy, too. This was the 1930s in the Deep South. Real bad stuff happened. Nevertheless, by the time he was a teenager, Ike could bang out a boogie on the piano and play the guitar with an authentic Delta twang. But, in truth, talented as he was, there wasn't anything really supernatural about Ike's skills as a musician. His singing was always spirited, but, relative to the wealth of local competition, no big deal. What Ike excelled at was leadership: conceptualization, organization, and execution. It's intriguing to think: If Ike walked down to the crossroads one moonless night, what exactly did he ask for?

 

Long before he met Tina (originally Anna Mae Bullock) in St. Louis in the late 1950s and began the 16-year partnership that would end with his name used mainly as a comic byword for "blow-addicted megalomaniacal black wife-beater," Ike had already been successful at some half-dozen careers in music. He was a DJ, a relentless talent scout, an arranger (for Sam Phillips at Sun, among others), a bandleader (with his own group, the Kings of Rhythm), and a session player (he recorded with B.B., Howlin' Wolf, Elmore James, and many others). His employers included the Bihari brothers at Modern Records, the Chess brothers in Chicago, and a host of tough club owners. They didn't like to fool around with their money. Ike had to be at that session on time, he had to book those gigs, make sure the band's suits were pressed, and that they rolled in to the next town ready to play. Organization!

[Sneakeater]

donald fagen takes stock

 

. . . .

Long before he met Tina (originally Anna Mae Bullock) in St. Louis in the late 1950s and began the 16-year partnership that would end with his name used mainly as a comic byword for "blow-addicted megalomaniacal black wife-beater," Ike had already been successful at some half-dozen careers in music. . . .

 

I'm sort of amazed and flattered to see that sentence, only cuz I wrote virtually the same thing somewhere on the web as well.

 

Ike Turner had a somewhat unique career in that what he is mainly famous for (and by that I just mean the hippy-era Ike & Tina -- it would have been the same thing if none of the ugly personal shit came out) has so overshadowed everything else he did that it has caused his true importance to be completely underrated. By the time Ike started doing Ike & Tina, he'd ALREADY HAD one of the most significant careers in American vernacular music. (And, of course, people don't know anything about the GOOD, early 60s Ike & Tina records, either . . . .)

[Wilfrid1]

Correct. I know Guralnick has written some good stuff on Ike: I think in Sweet Soul Music.

 

My speculation is that his personal failings are so high profile because the woman he is famous for beating up is a household name. There's probably a Wikipedia article about male artists and musicians who have beaten up women; Ike is hardly a unique figure in this respect.

[hollywood]

One of my regrets is not getting to the Skyliner Ballroom to see Ike & Tina there (scroll down).

[Sneakeater]

Correct. I know Guralnick has written some good stuff on Ike: I think in Sweet Soul Music.

 

My speculation is that his personal failings are so high profile because the woman he is famous for beating up is a household name. There's probably a Wikipedia article about male artists and musicians who have beaten up women; Ike is hardly a unique figure in this respect.

 

As Bob Christgau put it decades ago, "Hardly the last major rock and roller to brutalize women, Turner gets short-changed by history partly because his best-known victim was so major herself and partly because his specialty was collaboration."

 

I think it's more the latter, though -- sure, the Tina-battering stuff is a good distracting story and all, but I think the big problem is that Ike's special talent was such that his name isn't even on his most significant records.

 

But the main point I want to keep emphasizing is that, forget the domestic violence, Ike Turner got undervalued because his biggest fame was as the strong-but-silent bandleader/accompanist of the Ike & Tina Turner Review. That's all most people knew him as, and to most people it was enough. I can say for myself that I was astonished when I discovered Ike's extensive 50s discography in the 70s and very early 80s. It just never occurred to me that he was that important. I thought he was nothing more than the guy who said "rollin'" behind Tina.

[Wilfrid1]

I mentioned "Rocket 88" earlier, arguably the first rock and roll record. It's by Jackie Brenston and the Delta Cats. Also known as Ike Turner.

[Sneakeater]

Right. Exactly. It's sort of weird. For all that people have been calling "Rocket 88" a plausible candidate for "the first rock and roll record" since as far back as the 60s, you'd almost never read it noted that "Jackie Brenston & the Delta Cats" were really "Ike Turner & His Kings of Rhythm."

 

When I first found that out, I almost wondered whether I was the only person who knew.

[Sneakeater]

Or, to try to say that in English, I knew that "Rocket 88" was supposed to be the first rock and roll record, and I knew who Ike Turner was, long before I knew that those two things had anything to do with each other.