OU HAVE SUFFERED, IKE TURNER. grand entrance in a Doesn’t matter that she admits to hitting him, too. Nobody calls her YYou have suffered more than any of us could ridiculously loud blue- a “husbandbeater.” ever imagine. rhinestone-spackled suit. Funny how that works. You have suffered more than anyone who “What, did MC “She would get these attitudes,” Ike explained to a reporter, “and speaks ill of you. Hammer have a yard give me grief, so we would get into fights and I maybe had to hit You have suffered more than anyone who sale?” asked my Jewish her some.” wishes suffering upon you. female escort, and we That sounds good enough for me. You have suffered from the cruelty of those both chuckled at her who’ve never met you but still feel fit to judge playful witticism. OW TINY HE LOOKED as he stood there signing his new CD your character. And you know every- Hat the merchandise table after the show…what a small, small You have suffered more than Tina, that’s one in the audience man! What a shock…and what a relief…to see that Ike Turner, evil for sure. was thinking, “That’s the monster abuser, couldn’t be taller than 5’4” or 5’5.” He sports the Carl man who hit Tina Turner…” Lewis hi-top fade and satanic goatee he’s had for years. He’s 70 years T MAY AMAZE YOU TO LEARN that Ike Turner has Ike seemed happy and old, and I swear to Christ, he doesn’t look a day over 40. Apparently, Idone things in his life beyond committing acts of domes- eager to please…almost in eleven million dollars of cocaine served as the Fountain of Youth for Ike tic violence against Tina Turner. an obsequious, shuffling Turner. And he has one of the warmest, sweetest smiles I’ve ever seen Back in 1951, he played piano on “Rocket 88,” a way…as he led the band on anyone. rolling, locomotive-powered slice of Nigrabilly often pointed through rock chestnuts such as Ike is now into his thirteenth marriage, this time to a white lady to by nerdy historians as “the first rock ‘n’ roll record.” Ike’s “Tequila” and “Johnny B. who—gulp—works at a battered-women’s shelter. He has published an piano style was later copped by emotionally unstable Goode” and suchlike. He also autobiography, Takin’ Back My Name, in which he seeks to repair some piano-maniacs Little Richard (who admits it) and Jerry Lee grabbed the boys by the scruff of the damage…and emotional pain…caused by Tina’s allegations. Lewis (who, to my knowledge, doesn’t). Ike claims that Elvis of their necks and shoved “Before you start talking about my laundry, clean yours,” Ike once them through “Rocket told an interviewer. “That’s how I feel about it, man.” Presley used to watch him playing at Sun Studios in Memphis WHAT’S MONEY GOT TO DO WITH IT?: 88,” and for a flash That’s how I feel about it, too, Ike. long before Elvis first set his white-chocolate voice to wax there Tina Turner’s career skyrocketed (and in 1954. Blues chubster B.B. King, whose career Turner guided in her music started to suck) after she there, I heard something I recall the interview with Ike when he was in prison where Ike the 1950s, calls him “one of the founding fathers” of rock ‘n’ roll. alleged that ex-hubby Ike beat her. ancient and pure and demonstrated for the reporter the magnitude of his cocaine habit by As a talent scout and record producer, Ike Turner became a scholar original. Ike would laugh shoving a pen through the hole he’d burned through his septum. I think of blues and jazz and country. He can play guitar, piano, bass, from time to time during his spoken interludes, and it was always the of how he brags of losing his virginity at age six to a fifty-year-old drums, everything…playing juke joints like he did fifty years ago, you same laugh—demented, evil, demonic. At another point, when Ike woman. I think of his hardscrabble Southern upbringing and how he had to fill in on every instrument when one of the musicians had to go started to get excited and began pounding on his guitar, I blurted out, watched the Klan murder his father when little Ike was only four. take a piss. “BEAT HER, IKE!” to the delight of my friends and the dismay of And then I decide that I like Ike Turner. I like him a lot. He recorded his first song with Tina in 1960. On ‘61’s “Things Are everyone else around me. Then, later, I Gonna Work Out Fine,” a love duet between Ike and Tina, his guitar turned to my girl and said, “Watching FEEL YOUR PAIN, IKE TURNER. I know millions, but it’s washed-out electronic Caucasian-tainted Pop Lite. is all deep, fuzzy, wigged-out jaggedness. His low, comical spoken him is like looking into the face of I a bit of what you’ve been through—not the And what’s with the fake British accent? The girl was born in Nutbush, voice provides a safety net for Tina’s feline shrieking as she tells him pure evil.” being-born-a-poor-black-man-in-Mississippi Tennessee! she went to see the preacher man and has started making wedding Then he introduced a chick who, part, but what it means to bear the Alright, so he beat her. But it was the best thing that ever happened plans. On this record at least, things work out fine. Ike and Tina sound despite her bombshell looks and able “wifebeater” tag. to her career! Public sympathy for Tina’s wretched story, rather than deeply in love. The song is difficult to listen to in light of their breakup’s singing talents, immediately registered I realize, like you probably do, Ike the quality of her post-Ike music, sent the Screechy Lady to the top of messy aftermath. in everyone’s mind as Tina’s Turner, that The Man brought you the charts. Fuck, I’d trade bein’ whupped with a coat hanger for a few Their explosive live act, The Ike & Tina Revue, scorched audiences’ Replacement. She appeared to be wear- down…while he elevated Tina…as part million dollars! Why all the fuss? shorts throughout the sixties and early seventies. With Ike as the musi- ing a blonde wig, and we couldn’t tell if of his sinister plan to destroy the black cal director and Tina as the star performer, they managed to make she was black or white. Together she and Ike family. It must have been hell for you to E PUT TINA ON white songs blacker (“Proud Mary,” “Come Together”) and black songs plowed through “Proud Mary” and another duet, I watch her dance shamelessly with a THE COVER OF whiter (“I Want to Take You Higher”). H believe which was called “Sex,” in which Ike simu- skinny-ass white boy in that video, THEIR RECORD WITH Then they broke up. lated cunnilingus on his microphone in a very wagging her finger and saying, A BLACK EYE!” bawdy and disturbing manner. “You better be good to me!” Yes, be protests the woman—a INA TURNER IS A MONSTROUSLY TALENTED live per- A few nights later, I told somebody that I thought good to her, white boy…unlike Ike, black woman—when I former. She was James Brown With a Clit. But Ike Turner, her hubby Ike put on a great show. the Evil Black Devil Man. T excitedly tell her I’m of eighteen years, added something to her music that vanished after You and I, Ike, we know how going down to Portland’s the couple split the sheets. Their turbulent domestic life apparently lent “Although it might be distasteful to allege women can push you to the brink. that Tina’s music was better when Ike was a thunderstorm-level electricity to their music which evaporated after Tina was a fireball. I’m sure it beating her, it’s inarguable that her music got stressful on tour. I Tina fled the raging coke monster Ike with mere coins in her pocket. THE IKE & TINA REVUE: suffered once he stopped.” As we all know, she went on to find astronomical solo success through can’t imagine stuffing the Domestic turbulence translated car trunk with suitcases chanting na myoho renge kyo. Her massively successful solo career to onstage electricity. while she’s all PMSing recalled what happened to Dolly Parton after she stopped recording “Man, he hit Tina in the FACE!” was all he and shrieking at you like with mentor Porter Wagoner. Dolly and Tina dumped their vaguely Waterfront Blues Festival to could say. she screams on stage. creepy male partners and went on to become cultural icons, while Ike watch Ike Turner and His Because he hit the bitch, this musical genius will be I forgive you, Ike ‘n’ Porter languish on the fringes of elderly obscurity. Kings of Rhythm perform for forever branded as a wifebeater…not the father of rock Turner, even if no one Although it might be distasteful to allege that Tina’s music was better an audience of mostly white, ‘n’ roll, but a wifebeater. Not a man who feels pain, but else does. when Ike was beating her, it’s inarguable that her music suffered once mostly middle-aged, mostly a wifebeater. Not a human being who, at least at this point in his life, And if I added to your pain merely by mentioning the domestic he stopped. flabby blues aficionados. is having a harder time of it than Tina, but a wifebeater. Tina could abuse and bringing up all those bad memories again, I’m sorry. Strolling along her post-Ike hi-yella brick road, Tina rejected the The Kings of Rhythm, mostly black but clad entirely in white, pounded own half of England and Ike could be boiling French fries I’ve accomplished things, too, Ike. But just today, someone said I’ll greater glory of black soul and went for easy-listening, middle-of- out an instrumental before Ike made his grand splash onstage. We were in the kitchen at some McDonald’s in Compton, and he’d still be the be branded a wifebeater for the rest of my life. the-road white pop tarts. Tina’s post-Ike music has sold millions and far enough away from the stage that Ike still looked big as he made a master abuser and she’d still be the victim. Just like Ike. ✗