People is reporting (via TMZ) that Ike Turner has passed away at his California home, with further details still pending.
Though he’s most famous, or infamous depending on where you get your history from, for a working relationship with his wife Tina that lasted for nearly two decades, producing rock and R&B classics that no serious fan should need inventoried, Turner’s career stretched back before the birth of rock and roll, and he was known for his ferocious guitar playing as both a sideman and leader–as well as for concurrent gigs as a songwriter, producer, and eagle-eared talent groomer for the blues market–well before his career took off in earnest in the ’60s. But while People uses the gentler euphamism “tempestuous” to describe Ike’s relationship with Tina, and while it’s tempting to let his historical achievements speak louder than his post-breakup rep, as the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame at least partly decided when he was inducted in 1991, we also shouldn’t shy away from the fact that Turner was a mean prick who eventually did own up to regularly abusing his own wife, which makes him another in a long line of musicians where it’s oh so easy to hate the player even as you admire their contibutions to pop history.
Ike Turner Dead At 76 [People]
Wikipedia says it’s true. They don’t lie.
It bears mentioning that Ike never excused himself for what he did and, at least not publicly to my knowledge, ever apologized for what he did to Tina during their marriage. It also bears mentioning that Ike was married 14 times.
That being said, Ike wrote and recorded the first rock and roll song ever, “Rocket ‘88″, which was later attributed to Jackie Branston & The Delta Kings. His contributions to music helped to create this thing that is an important part of what we do.
Ike was a rock star. Rock stars do impetuous, stupid, selfish, and occasionally brutal things. We tend to overlook or forgive them usually because of the music that they make and how it moves us.
I don’t support, endorse, or condone violence towards anyone (and particularly towards women). However, I can’t throw out the good and focus only on the bad here. Ike Turner was a living legend. When I miss him, I’ll be missing the music that he gave us.
I understand that he wouldn’t let Tina and the Ikettes be credited for singing on Frank Zappa’s “Montana.”
@loudersoft: I agree that we shouldn’t completely speak ill of the dead. Ike was a great musician, and he did bring Tina into the spotlight. Of course, people tend to remember the negative more than the positive about the dead.
Ike Turner, N.R.I.P.
The N stands for NoWay, btw
@Cam/ron: I don’t like to speak ill of the dead either lest someone speak of me that way when it’s my time.
But I don’t think it’s considered speaking ill if what you’re speaking is the truth.
nitpick time!
@loudersoft: it wasn’t later attributed to Brenston, but was from the start. if anything it wasn’t till later that Turner’s role as the record’s auteur came to real light.
Lots of great musicians are/were mean assholes, and letting that overshadow the work of those that we know were assholes is either unfair to them, or too generous to the ones who’ve done a good job of keeping their dirt a secret.
Ike Turner: the Jackson Browne of Nutbush!
I like to think he’s somewhere right now being slapped around while “Better Be Good to Me” plays over and over.
@Matos: thank you for trading in my old jalopy for the Rocket ‘88, Michelangelo. My fingers had gotten the best of me when I wrote that.