The World's Greatest Heartbreaker

Turner told Pete Senoff: "I started professionally when I was 11. The first group I played with was Robert Nighthawk, then Sonny Boy Williams. This was like back in 1948-1949. I went to Memphis in about 1952. That's where I met Junior Parker, Willy Nix, Howlin' Wolf. I was just playing with different groups all around ... playing piano. From Junior Parker, I left Memphis and went to Mississippi, where I met the people from Kent and Modern Record Company. That's when I started scouting for talent for them. That's when I started recording B.B. King, Roscoe Gordon, Johnny Ace, Howlin' Wolf. We were just going through the South and giving people there $5 to $10 or a fifth of whiskey while we recorded over a piano in their living rooms.

"I wrote 32 hits for that firm, but I didn't know what a songwriter's royalties were. I didn't know nothing, man. They were sending me $150 a week, which was enough to keep me very happy in Mississippi, but not enough for me to get away to find out what was really going on."

Right after high school, Ike had formed the first Kings of Rhythm; their first job was in Lulu, Mississippi, and each King got 18 cents for the night's work. One time, they went to Memphis and recorded "Rocket 88" at B.B. King's label. It was a local hit. "But some dude at the record company beat me," Ike said, "and I only got $40 for writing, producing, and recording it. And the lead singer took the band from me and went on his own." Ike went back to Memphis, gigging around. After the record company job, he went back to his hometown, Clarksdale, reformed the Kings of Rhythm, and ended up in St. Louis. From 1954 to '57 he played all around the city.

One night, 17-year-old Annie Mae Bullock went to see Ike's show. She had moved to St. Louis two years before to join her sister. "She'd been telling me about Ike Turner, who was like a legend in St. Louis-you know, his picture and name spread about the newspapers. I went to this club to see what it was all about. I remember Ike was on top of the piano like Jerry Lee Lewis and the band was walking, and everybody was moving. Well, I've always sung and one night I asked Ike if I could sing and he said OK, but he never called me."

Annie Mae went out again, another night in 1957, to the Club Manhattan. On a B.B. King tune, with Ike on organ, the drummer went to the audience and set the mike in front of her sister-"teasing, I guess. She said 'No,' so I grabbed the mike and started singing. Ike looked up all surprised, like, 'Oh wow, she can really sing.'" She became a regular, singing on weekends, until she cut "A Fool in Love" in 1960, and the demo became a hit. By that time, they'd been married-"in 1958," syas Tina, "one of those house things, little preacher things, sort of quiet, saying, 'OK, let's do it.'"-and Ike changed Annie Mae's name to Tina.

"He's always looking for something different in a name," she said. Bolic Sound, the name of the studios, is taken from her maiden name.

Tine was born in Brownsville, Tennessee, and grew up in Knoxville. They way she stretches her limbs on stage, she looks tall, and her high cheekbones give her a proud Indian appearance. But she's only 5'4", and as for Indian blood: "It's in the family, but I don't know where or from what tribe. My grandmother really looked like an Indian, though. She was maybe one-fourth Cherokee."

Tina never studied music. Of course, she learned some from church-in Knoxville, she went to Baptist church and sang in the choir and, in high school, she sang some opera. But mostly she remembers a baby-sitter taking her to "sanctified church, a religion, they call it holiness-it's where they play tambourines and dance, but not just dancing-dancing like godly to the fast music, sort of like today. I remembered the excitement of the music; it inspired you to dance."

* * *

"Before Ike," says Tina, gingerly feeling hotpants, "I didn't-I never owned a record player. I listened to songs on the radio, but I never knew the artists went out and performed. I never connected the two. It's like you're dumb, you don't know how they make movies. I never knew ... I just thought I'd be singing in a church the rest of my life and marry."

The dumb kind travels the world and meets royalty. And her innate sensibility shows through. In Ghana: "I went to see where they kept the slaves before they brought them to America-and it was very interesting and touching. They kept the women on one side in a room this big [about 20 by 30 feet]. The only light was three holes at the top, and only the sea light came in. A lot of them got diseases from the dampness of the sea; it formed a sort of crust on the wall. They had to live in all that filth; there was no bathrooms, no nothing. Like just women over here and men over there -the men in a much larger room-and they'd open the door so they could 'multiply,' as they called it-in all that filth. It was really something to see where you came from-where it all began.

"I knew nothing about NY-kruma ... is that how you say ... Nkruma-none of that. I never did much reading. Everything I could have learned in America in two years, I learned in a week's time. But I went out and toured, going like 100 miles out of the main town. I got a chance to see how the real people live. Huts, no electric lights, no windows. They lived down in the fields.

"But I never go out a lot. Never saw the Statue of Liberty, which I'd really want to-especially since I've seen the Eiffel Tower. But I never feel like it; you get in the habit of sleeping all day. But there isn't a whole lot to see in America. We tore all our historical things down. Like there's no Indians, no real Indians for you to go out and see.

"Every now and then I read. Like for instance I took time to read what I wanted to about astrology, and I took time to read up on the health food thing." Tina is trying to move away from meat, and her kids "are doing vitamin pills, wheat germs, and sunflower seed flour. But I like a good steak now and then ...

"I read the Jacqueline Kennedy, the Ethel Kennedy book. From the very beginning I never paid any attention to the political end of America. So then when President Kennedy became president, I became interested, because for some reason I liked him. Every time they said the President's going to speak, I watched. Something about that family-they're real people. I don't know what it is-lively, life-like."

Ike and Tina played Hyannisport once-"a very small, really cute town for a married couple that's not interested in the city life and wants to live an old-fashioned sort of clean-cut life"-and got an invitation from Ethel to visit the Kennedy estate.

"You could feel there was a real family. Like my family, it's too late now. Sure, it's my family, and they know, but I'd like to have been able to teach them things before they reached the age of 13 where ... you know how kids question things, why say it this way or ... that's what they do, automatically know that this is the right way and why, not just because I say it is ... But you start from the root. Because my oldest son, he's really prejudiced, and I don't know why, because we've always mixed, being entertainers. And Greg's got this thing, 'Ahh, wow, mother, she's white ...' None of the other kids are like that, but he's really ..."

* * *

Ike is playing his new sides in his office, and everybody's moving, just so, head nodding, lower lip out a little, legs maybe churning a bit, and this photographer is sitting there, tapping both feet lightly on the floor, and Ike strikes an accusatory pose: "See? See? You white people-You have to move from inside! Man, white people put black people off beat clapping so long ..."

Which is not the way the Turners usually talk about their audiences. "OK," says Tina. "In the beginning we worked the chitlin' circuit, and now we go back, and it's really terrible. They really don't listen now, because they feel like, 'Well, we knew you first.' Black people seem to be like 'We know what Ike and Tina can do' ... like at one of our gigs, a guy right down front kept passing a cigarette the whole time, anything to distract from what's going on stage. Instead, with a white audience, they sit and listen, and you have their attention. Or they leave. But they never start walking around or start a fight.

"Like I'm not shameful of my people or anything, and I've had a lot of people come and say, 'Mama, when you gonna grow out the hair?' 'Where's the natural?' I told them, 'I'm black, you can see it.' I don't have to wear a big wooly head of hair. I like straight hair, I wear it, I feel myself, you don't see me walking around trying to be white ...

"Ike could do this better than myself, but have you ever noticed that when black people go to a dance, they dress the complete thing, the high-heeled shoes, the purse. But the whites, they just wear something they'll be comfortable in. All right, so I think that the black person a lot of times doesn't go to see what is there, he goes to be seen. And like you find in the middle of a number where you're really trying to climax your show, someone gets up and walks straight across right in front of you-a woman most likely, or a man dressed with a hat that's tilted and all the colors, and the flaps on his shoes, and you know, they don't think a lot about being entertained. They want to do the entertaining."

* * *

"I knew there had to be a time for us. I'd go and catch shows that people said were great that did nothing for me. And I felt our show was much better. And I knew we had to get some records out, but I didn't feel that it was going to be the records. I felt it was going to be a timing. I didn't know that the timing would be a change in the world, but I thought it would be a certain time, like maybe the 70's, But all of a sudden, remember when they used to call longhairs beatniks? OK. Now they call them hippies. The hippies came and more of them came and more and more. They took over San Francisco, they took over the highways, they just took over. That was the beginning of the change.

"They changed minds; they said, 'Well, why?' and everybody else said, 'Yeah, why?' And that's who accepted us. They felt like 'why dress up, for the acts.' 'Why is it that a woman can't wear short dresses or whatever?' You understand what I'm saying? And here I was that they could say, 'Here is Tina Turner, here is the Supremes. Why is it that Tina Turner isn't as good as the Supremes? Because you're of this-would it be-'culture'? No-you would say that the Supremes could play for a more sophisticated audience, but Tina Turner couldn't. And the hippies would say 'Why?' So everybody got into the 'why' bag and I sit right down in the middle ... And sayin' that this girl and their act is just as good as these other people; it's class. Really, they just got polished down, and for the other set of people.

"I never did like James Brown. I always did like Ray Charles. He was my only influence, because I always liked to sing more or less like men sing, and sound like they sound. Like he and Sam Cooke were my influences."

What Tina likes, and what she aims for when she choreographs the Ikettes-is action. "I let an Ikettes wear an Afro once," she says-"Esther, the little short one, because it fit her personality and she wanted to. But I've found that long hair adds to the action of our show. Esther was on television with a natural, and she said, 'Why is this, I don't look like I'm doing anything.' The difference was the difference in the action. We went on stage once, and I wore a fur dress and the Ikettes wore leopard furry dresses-but you gotta work harder, because there's no swing. Every time I wear a chiffon dress, everyone says 'What's wrong with you tonight, Tina? You weren't moving.' The chiffon hides the action."

Before any given date, Tina will run the Ikettes through rehearsal, "all day and all night and they eat at the house. If I'm training a new girl, we rehearse every day from 2 to 6 for two weeks, like a constant grind, because there's a lot for her to learn and she's still going to forget when she gets on stage, because once the music hits you and the audience and the stage and the lights, a different thing comes over you. But now with an old set of girls, I don't have to call a rehearsal, I'll say in the dressing room, 'Hey, let's put this step in or change this routine.' It's a matter of like driving somewhere, someone gives you directions-you go so many blocks and turn left-that's how I get it over to them."

Friday night at the Circle Star, the Ikettes were by themselves, each packaged in silver micro-minis, combing out their hair and laughing insults at each other, like dormitory girls.

The Kings of Rhythm were into the first of their usual two-number set, and the Ikettes, right on time, were adjusting their sequin chokers and ready to put on their medium-heels. As one, they laughed about the bad old days.

* * *

Various ex-Ikettes had said how difficult Ike and Tina were, how selfish they were, how stingy (one ex said Ikettes got $30 a night if they were within 50 miles of L.A.; an extra $5 outside-this in '68 and '69-"and we paid our own rent; they just paid transportation"). Another girl spoke about a fine system-$10 for a run in an Ikettes' stockings; $25 for "laughing too loud"- even if it happened off-stage, in a hotel room. She also spoke of Ike putting down their singing and hiring local session singers for his albums. When they were called in for a session, she said, they weren't paid-except for "Bold Soul Sister." The Ikettes, she said, wrote the song, but didn't get credit-"only $15 each for that session."

And the turnover. "They give excuses like, 'Lots of girls have to get married.' But most of them just can't take their baloney. Of course when you leave you have a bad attitude. I was so naive-Ike'd holler on stage, and it was hard to concentrate on what you were doing." But, she admitted, it was good training-not unlike boot camp. And there've been plenty who've server-including Bonnie Bramlett, in 1965-and another soulful white singer, Kathy MacDonald. Ike found her at the Fillmore West and wanted to sign her as a solo artist, and she sang on "Come Together," but she stayed with her job in the chorus behind Joe Cocker.

"It was very common to get approached by Ike," said one former Ikette. "He'll just approach anything in a skirt. He'd be shrewd about it, buy you things and make you think twice about it. Tina may know all this, but she tries to act like she doesn't. They're not as happy as they put out front."

* * *

The current Ikettes, a minute before curtain call, put on happy faces. "The last time there was a fine was almost two years ago," says Edna, and she proceeds to knock on wood. Esther "Bills" Jones and Jean Brown Burks ("Brown is my maiden name," she emphasizes) join her, slamming their knuckles on their vanity table in unison and laughing. "Tell the girls you talked to that things have changed," said Esther, who's been an Ikette for three years. Edna dropped out for a year-she had TB-and rejoined, a year ago. Jean dropped out for two years after working two years. She's been back six months.

Driving from her house to the studios, Tina talks about interviews. Her least favorite question is about the different Ikettes. "Lord knows how many there've been," she says, evading another question by adding, "They leave for one reason or another." Bonnie Bramlett, she says, "would have lasted, but we went to the South, and we had trouble down in Louisiana, guess she looked too white. We put a scarf on her and we felt she'd pass as 'a yellow nigger,' but they just sort of knew, and they blocked us and everything ... But whenever I run into anyone like with a good voice that could be an asset to the group-if they can dance-I hire. I don't worry about color.

"Yeah, I work with the Ikettes on their records because a lot of times they can't always do Ike's ideas-control the voice and all. Sometimes we have to use other outside voices for certain sounds ..."

As for Ike and Tina and whether they're a woosome twosome-it's difficult to tell. Ike makes himself unavailable-by his pace-and lets Tina do the talking. When they do an interview together, invariably they disagree and chide each other. Posing for a photo, Ike is asked to embrace Tina; he does, and warns: "Better catch this quick; I don't do this often." In the dressing room, while Tina talked, Ike slept. In the hallway, while Ike chatted, Tina was in seclusion.

Ike Turner spends most nights in his private apartment-"the Whorehouse,"-a mile away at his new studio, Bolic Sound, but Tina says she stays there whenever she can. And yet she's upset now because Ike was talking to the telephone man the other day about buying cable lines, so he can hook up another remote camera from his office and watch what's going on at home.

From Issue 93, October 14, 1971