RIP Ike Turner

Following Blog Stage's good music news yesterday, about the reunion of classic rockers Led Zeppelin, is today's sad news that rock & roll pioneer Ike Turner died yesterday at age 76. The cause of death is as yet unknown.

The rock and R&B musician, songwriter, bandleader, producer, talent scout, one-time DJ, and abusive ex-husband of Tina Turner is acknowledged by many music historians as the man behind the first true rock ’n’ roll record: "Rocket 88." Turner won a Grammy in February for Best Tradition Blues Album for Risin’ With The Blues.

But he was best known for discovering Anna Mae Bullock, a teenage singer from Nutbush, Tenn., whom he renamed Tina Turner. Tina's career and allegations of domestic abuse would later overshadow Ike.

Reuters reports:

But Ike Turner was also a violent man, according to his ex-wife and others including Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards, who said he saw him pistol-whip a fellow musician.

"Ike acted like a goddamned pimp," Richards told Vanity Fair in 1993.

Tina Turner's memoir, I, Tina and a 1993 biopic What's Love Got to Do With It turned Ike Turner into one of the most notorious villains in the music industry.

The singer said her ex-husband regularly abused and humiliated her for 16 years, and drove her to attempt suicide in 1968. He cracked her ribs, threw hot coffee in her face, burnt her with a cigarette and punched her in the nose so often she had to have surgery, she said.

Tina Turner said that she had not had contact with Ike for 30 years and refused to comment, People reports.

(And by the way: the New York Post really outdid itself with this headline)

-- Daniel Lehman

Comments

[Music Lyrics]

It's too bad that what most people will remember about Ike is the spousal abuse ahead of his contribution to music. He probably thought about his legacy in later years and how there was no way to erase it.

[MAC MCALLISTER]

TRIBUTE TO IKE TURNER 1931 - 2007