Ike Turner: give the man a second chance!
by Hall Gardner
[ people - january 06 ]
A three-day escape before the school year began, we took the night train from Paris, chugged across the French border to Italy, to the serene, unpretentious seaside town of Bordighera, with its boardwalk overlooking Mediterranean waves lapping upon stone beaches. By sheer serendipity, it was the weekend of the 13th annual Jazz & Blues Festival, September 2-4.
The Festival brought together representatives of the real American cultural scene: Kool and the Gang, Kid Creole and the Coconuts and Ike Turner and the Kings of Rhythm. Of the three, Cool and the Gang seemed the obvious choice, but their performance was Sunday night and we had to return by night train to work, early Monday morning. The Italian description of Kid Creole and the Coconuts didn’t really thrill me, depicted as “fusion disco kitsch (swing, cha-cha, soul, salsa, calypso, reggae, funk).” It seemed a bit too much of a mish mash, not really my taste...
But Ike Turner? Hum, second thoughts. How dare we go to see that male chauvinist, that wife beater, that man obsessed by sex so detested by every feminist on the planet? How uncouth! How politically un-correct! How could anyone who considers him/herself to be “progressive” go to the concert of that ex-cocaine junkie so destroyed by Tina Turner’s fictional dramatization, What’s Love Got To Do With It?
With great apprehension, and limited resources, we finally decided to purchase two regionally subsidized 17 Euro tickets. After all, for better or worse, Turner’s notoriety was an actual part of American history. And like it or not, he was literally a “living legend”. He had started to play the piano at five, and began his musical career at the age of 11 as a piano accompanist to Sonny Boy Williamson and Robert Nighthawk.
Turner sells himself as the “father of Rock & Roll” based upon his playing piano on the 1951 boogie-woogie hit ‘Rocket 88’, sung by Jackie Brenston and written by Turner (possibly influenced by the 1947 song, ‘Cadillac Boogie’, by Jimmy Liggins). Chess Records, however, gave Brenston - and not Turner - the credits. In fact, the first rock and roll songs, which often brought out sexual connotations in gospel lyrics, may have been ‘The Fat Man’ by Fats Domino, or ‘Rock The Joint’ by Jimmy Preston, or ‘Rockin' At Midnight’ by Roy Brown, or ‘Rock And Roll’ by Wild Bill Moore, most written and produced around 1948-49, or else ‘Good Rockin' Tonight’ by Wynonie Harris, which was cut in 1947, but before the term “Rock & Roll” became current in 1951, coined by disc jockey, Alan Freed). [1]
Whatever the case, the Ike and Tina Review (once Anna Mae Bullock, transformed into “Tina”, became star of the show) really hit the big time in the late 1950s and early 1960s with hits like: ‘A Fool in Love’, ‘I Idolize You’, ‘It's Gonna Work Out Fine’, ‘Poor Fool’ and ‘Tra La La La La’, as well as ‘It’s Gonna Work Out Fine’, ‘I’m Blue’, ‘I Wanna Take You Higher’, ‘Nutbush City Limits’, ‘River Deep - Mountain High’ and ‘Proud Mary’! It was playing with the Rolling Stones on their tour in 1969 (and helping Mick learn how to strut) that made them really famous among white and international audiences...
In trepidation that some “politically correct” militant might snap a digital photo revealing our presence, and then zap it to newspapers across the planet in the effort to castigate us for patronizing such a macho fiend, we skulked in the shadows around the open park with its palm trees and tropical flowers, which were now radiating red and blue under the stage lights. There were craftsmen/ women selling hand made jewelry, paintings with African images - and even psychedelic artwork sparkling with day glow colors. There was an American-style barbeque, smoking with Italian sausage, chicken skewers, and swordfish. Open bottles of wine and casks of beer were flowing like the streams of Dolceacqua on the mountainside a few kilometers away. I really felt like I had almost ventured back to those long forgotten days of peace and love, but this time with lyrics of (safe) sex, no drugs (except alcohol) - plus real Rock & Roll.
Ike came on scene “promising” a good concert. My heart skipped a beat: If he had to promise, does that mean he doesn’t always give a good show? Yet, from the very first notes of his keyboard, followed by the rifts of his guitar, what energy! What an explosion! Bordighera, known (falsely) as a home for the retired, was now rocking to the original 74-year-old Rock & Roll king - the man who was not about to keel over into retirement despite the heavy media criticism and public pressures. Nor was the crowd willing to give into old age and senility either!
For here, in all of his magnified mega-watt electronic glory, was one of the original Black American musicians whom Elvis Presley used to spy on, sneaking into an West Memphis all-Black club, hiding behind the piano, to study his boogie style, energy and movements. Turner was also the man who had once hired Jimi Hendrix, but then fired him for his “incessant uncontrolled feedback”! The stories of his past are truly legendary...
Turner opened with a version of ‘Caledonia’ that would give Riley ‘Blues Boy’ King (BB King) himself a run for his money. With his guitar flaming, he played a number of Rock & Roll classics, including ‘Rocket 88’; he then wailed the blues of ‘Eighteen Long Years’, depicting his marriage with Tina, but from his side of the coin. The lyrics themselves (“working in the steel mill”) were not entirely convincing, but it was still a powerful performance. One wonders how those two individuals - with such incredible charisma and such massive egos - could ever get along, sharing the same bed in the first place - even without all the other hardships (which Ike partly blames on drug addiction) that eventually sent Tina running out the door in 1975, fleeing to the nearest hotel, with nothing more than 36 cents and a gas station credit card, according to the continuing legend?
The vocalist Audrey Madison then came on like a tigress, with a wild blondish-red mane, full of fire and fury. While the titillating lyrics of the resurrected ‘Idolize you’ certainly would not please feminists, Madison sang ‘Trouble’ with such power and conviction, fighting to overcome those domineering and suicidal feelings of being deep down and under, striving in a superhuman effort to overcome true despair...
The problem, however, was that she seemed to be dancing in Tina’s shoes, not quite free of Tina’s all pervasive influence - and of Ike’s initial influence upon Tina. It seemed that Ike himself still hadn’t been able to live down that torrid experience with Tina - and those recurring calamities that had so destroyed his career and wasted his considerable fortune. That is, unless his media consultant told him that the public still wanted a Tina Turner lookalike...
Before getting in line to buy his album, Ike Turner’s (Final) with a repertoire that merges an incredible mix of blues, rap and Rock & Roll, we talked to the guitarist, who seemed to be substituting as a security guard. Tall, sleek as a panther, it turned out he had just returned from Iraq, as a member of the Special Forces. I asked if his term of duty was over... “Yeah, I did my six months; it ain’t at all like they say, nothing you hear is right about what’s really happening....” He seemed to represent yet another example of America’s finest, perhaps not quite as bitter as those Vietnam-era vets upon their return, but disheartened, nevertheless. His guitar was his only catharsis, that’s what kept him going, kept his soul alive... America could do much more for its best and bravest...
We asked him how Ike was doing back in the USA; the ex-soldier replied that “he was making a come back; it was slow, not easy, public opinion was hard to crack, but things were happening, people got to know the man’s great...” The question remains, to what extent should we admire great art and music for what it is, as it is, separate from its creator, and to what extent should we judge that art through the nature of the actions and the character of those who produced it?
Although his dirty little ditty ‘Little School Girl’ won’t help to enhance his reputation, and could once again raise a polemic against him, Ike more or less admits that he made a lot of mistakes (perhaps a hell of a lot), and pleads for forgiveness in his gospel-like Jesus Loves Me. It seems that it is time to recognize that the past is the past, and even if one can never forget (and shouldn’t forget)... one can still forgive, as long as he does not continue to make the same mistakes. Give the man a second chance!
We’re now at the front of the line. The last time I felt like this was when I praised Richie Havens face-to-face for his rendition of Freedom! (not at all the same genre!). But then again, nothing could ever compare to those extraordinary few days I once spent in the Black, back alleyways of New Orleans, in the netherworld far away from Bourbon Street, where most white dudes have never set foot, overwhelmed by a chorus of unknown Black angels and all night symphonies of jazz and blues! After Hurricane Katrina, we can only hope that that Holy City of Creole Spirituality can be resurrected - if it is at all possible. Yet I not at all sure that America - and particularly the White House - even if it could truly commiserate with the unbearable loss of human life and suffering - has any deeper conception of what’s also been lost. What a tragedy!
As I hand over my 20 Euros, I tell Ike that “he’s bringing the real America to the folks over here who really know nothing about us, only hear the official line...” He chuckles, takes my money, and signs, “This is for you, man”... We ask the autograph of Audrey Madison as well. She purrs as she scrawls her name in bold silver letters... I mean, I think that’s being “politically correct.”
That Sunday night, we jumped on the night train. It was supposed to arrive at 7:45am in Paris but was held up for hours in Marseille as the fire department came on board to exterminate a massive infestation of lice and ticks in the wagon next to ours. I myself got bit on the eyelid. Damn! We could have seen Cool and the Gang and returned to Paris at about the same time, very late for the first day of class - and without feeling quite as itchy...
Notes
1 Jackie Brenston, ‘Rocket 88.’ www.hoyhoy.com/brenston.htm. See also, Ike Turner’s version of the story, http://www.iketurner.com. [Back]
