This text was initially revealed by The Epoch Occasions: Maintain Rockin’ Endlessly, Tina Turner!
I can’t bear in mind the precise date after I first noticed Tina Turner.
It should have been within the very early ’70s, and it was at a lodge on the Las Vegas Strip.
I used to be on my technique to attempt to get tickets for some present that I, as regular, had combined feeling about—however, hey, I used to be in Vegas—after I heard one thing wonderful coming from one of many neighboring lounges.
Drawn irresistibly, I walked over. It was the Ike and Tina Turner Revue.
Inside seconds, my mouth had dropped open. This was rock and roll plus rhythm and blues the likes of which I had by no means heard, and I heard quite a bit in these days. It was what you probably did. I shortly forgot wherever it was I used to be purported to go.
The lead singer, somebody I took to be Tina Turner, was essentially the most “out of sight,” as we used to say then, rocker this facet of Mick Jagger—for whom she quickly grew to become a gap act.
It shouldn’t be all that shocking that after I heard that Tina Turner died at 83, tears got here to my eyes.
Extra got here out after I fumbled with YouTube till I discovered a black and white clip from these days of the Ike and Tina Revue. It was every part I remembered: “I Wanna Take You Higher,” the electrical “Fool for Love,” and different terrific numbers that don’t age (you could find them right here).
These got here earlier than the extra well-known hits, reminiscent of “River Deep—Mountain High” (with its orchestrations by the loopy genius Phil Spector), the long-lasting model of “Proud Mary,” and, in fact, “What’s Love Got to Do With It.”
Nice as they’re, I choose the previous Ike and Tina songs. Perhaps I’m a roadhouse type of man.
Most of us of a sure age know the darkish story of Ike and Tina, how their relationship that dated from the late Fifties, when Ike was 25 and Tina simply 17, turned bodily abusive. They had been married in 1962 and Tina held on for 16 years, till 1978.
It’s not a protection within the slightest, but it surely’s straightforward to see how all this occurred psychologically—Ike, the older man, was actually gifted however ended up with a youthful lady who was gifted and charismatic past something he or anybody else might even have imagined. He didn’t know how one can take care of it, although Tina adopted Ike’s two youngsters from a earlier marriage and had two of her personal with him.
None of this sturm und drang was new to Tina, who, in her adolescence as Anna Mae Bullock, obtained a shock from her first teenage boyfriend who, she found after a yr, was married to a different lady who was already anticipating a baby.
It was a great distance from that childhood in Brownsville, Tennessee, to being the worldwide celeb she grew to become, assembly with the Dalai Lama and in the end marrying German music government Erwin Bach and dwelling with him in Switzerland, the place she grew to become a citizen.
Tina had super musical versatility and is the one feminine artist to have received Grammys in pop, rock, and R&B. The record of her accolades goes on and on.
However the poignant half is that Rolling Stone journal named Ike & Tina Turner No. 2 on their record of the 20 Best Duos of All Time. Simon & Garfunkel had been No. 1. (They, too, suffered an estrangement, although much less extreme.)
Usually, we are saying R.I.P. (relaxation in peace) to those that die, however who desires to think about Tina resting within the afterlife? We need to see her rocking.
I’ll take that additional. I wish to see her rocking once more with Izear Luster “Ike” Turner Jr., who died on Dec. 12, 2007.
However to try this, Ike must apologize with all his coronary heart and soul for what he did.
Are you able to try this … up there?
And perhaps he’s not even … up there.
Roger L. Simon’s 14th e-book, “American Refugees,” will probably be revealed by Encounter in September.
Featured picture through Tina Turner Instagram.
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