Tina Turner Read online

  Critics and fans alike saw her as something special and magical, but to Ike she was nothing more than a meal ticket. In many ways, Tina was no more than a cog in the wheel of the Ike Turner machine. Emotionally, she was no more or less important than the guitar player or the drummer who was in his band. Tina realized that she was being treated as a mere tool in Ike’s scheme. “I was the singer,” she recalls with resignation (5). She had the one thing Ike would never have—a great singing voice.

  In 1968 the group released three different albums on three different labels. Among the three was yet another live performance album release, this time called Ike & Tina Turner & The Ikettes in Person on Minit Records. It featured Tina’s versions of “Sweet Soul Music,” “Son of a Preacher Man,” “I Heard It through the Grapevine,” and “Respect.” An album called So Fine was released on Pompeii Records, featuring the dance number “Shake a Tail Feather.” And on London Records came a hits retrospective simply called Ike & Tina Turner.

  In 1968, while all of this was going on, Ike and Tina and the entourage all went back to England for another tour. This tour included both Ann Cain and Ann Thomas—the latter was still an Ikette. It was during this tour that it was discovered that Tina and Ann Thomas were both pregnant with Ike’s babies. Disgusted with the whole situation, Tina decided that she was through having Ike’s children. Ultimately, she went and had an abortion.

  While on this European tour, Ike would get adjoining rooms. One was for he and Tina, and the other one was for Ann Thomas. In the middle of the night, he would go into Ann’s room, have sex with her, and then come back to bed with Tina to fall asleep.

  At one point, they took a trip to Switzerland and rented a sports car. Ike and Tina were riding in the front seat, and Ann was in the back. Some guy in a red Ferrari drove up alongside of them and started flirting with Ann Thomas. When they got to the hotel, the members of their entourage kept teasing Ann about the lover that was chasing her through Switzerland. Ike slowly got madder and madder. Finally, he exploded into one of his irrational rages. He went into Ann’s room, dragged her out into the stairwell of the hotel, and beat her up.

  Ann Cain was the next one in line for Ike’s blows. On a tour of the south of the United States, she picked a fight with him. He came at her with his guitar and broke it over her. When he saw the broken guitar, he began to beat her with his fists for causing his guitar to break. Not long afterwards, Ann Cain reached the conclusion that she’d had enough of Ike Turner, and she quit.

  Back home in Los Angeles, Ike had set up a little recording studio in their Olympiad Drive house. It was a demo-recording unit; that way he could do coke and work around the clock in his own home.

  The only problem with this new in-house studio setup was that when Ike ran into recording frustrations, he would often take them out on Tina. She recalls, “That was when I was just being led blindly, because I didn’t care about anything. I was just getting through this period” (5).

  Meanwhile, Tina was becoming a regular visitor to the emergency room at Daniel Freeman Hospital in Inglewood. One of Ike’s favorite things to beat her with was wire coat hangers. He also beat her with telephones, shoes, or whatever happened to be handy whenever he went off on one of his tirades. He would also choke her with his bare hands.

  Once, right before a show, he socked her in the face and broke her jaw. When she complained of the pain, he forced her to go on stage and sing anyway. Throughout the set she could taste blood flowing in her mouth. Ike didn’t care. She either did what he told her to do, or he simply beat the hell out of her.

  On one particular visit to the doctor’s office, Tina complained to the physician that she was having trouble sleeping. Could she please have some sleeping pills? Of course he complied. He gave her a prescription for fifty Valiums.

  Tina had tried to run away from Ike. That didn’t work. She felt trapped in a nightmare that never seemed to come to an end. Perhaps just leaving the world would be the best answer. Thinking that suicide might be her only escape, and equipped with a whole bottle of Valiums, she now had the means to simply and quietly kill herself.

  The members of The Ike & Tina Turner Revue were preparing to perform at a new black club in Los Angeles. Tina and the girls were up at the house, trying on the new mini-dresses that they were going to wear that night. Tina went into the bathroom and very quietly took all fifty Valiums.

  By the time they arrived at the club, Tina could feel the pills taking effect. She kept thinking that if she could just remain conscious long enough to get onto the stage, Ike would still be paid for the gig. She was in the dressing room with The Ikettes, and she started putting her makeup on. When she went to use her eyebrow pencil, she missed her eyebrow and drew a line all the way up her forehead.

  One of The Ikettes took a look at her and knew something was very very wrong. When Ike arrived, Tina was unable to stand up. Instead of terror or sympathy, Ike was simply mad at her for doing anything so stupid, and for having the audacity to ruin his night. They rushed her to the hospital. She arrived unconscious, and the doctors began pumping her stomach.

  Later, her doctor told her that Ike was standing over her, screaming, “You want to die? Then die!” (1).

  As she began to regain consciousness, Ike shouted at her, “You motherfucker, you tryin’ to ruin my life?” (4). To say the least, her nightmare was far from over, and her plan to use death to escape from Ike had been entirely unsuccessful.

  Out of the hospital, Tina was not allowed to recuperate. Ike forced her to go back to work immediately. Her stomach was still screwed up from all of the Valium pills she had ingested. She was so sick after performing a show that she would go into the wings and start to cough and vomit. She couldn’t even make it back to the dressing room. Ike didn’t give her an ounce of sympathy. Instead, he blamed her for screwing up the series of gigs.

  According to Tina, this was a major cutoff point in their relationship. She had originally liked him when she first met him. Then, for a while, she loved him. When that subsided, she liked him as a friend again. Finally, she began to hate him and despised being around him.

  Meanwhile, they were constantly recording songs. One of the things that one has to admire about Ike is the fact that he managed to record and produce song after song.

  Several Ike & Tina albums were released in 1969, all signed to different labels. They included Cussin’, Cryin’, and Carryin’ On on Pompeii Records (again featuring “Shake a Tail Feather”), Get It Together on Pompeii Records (including “Beauty’s Just Skin Deep”), Get It, Get It on Cenco Records, and Her Man, His Woman for Capitol Records. However, none of them sold well enough to amount to anything. The one album to do well out of this batch was another live performance album for Minit Records called In Person. Recorded at the Basin Street West, In Person made it to No. 142 in Billboard in America.

  Yet, the nonstop touring and the pace of their lives continued to be hectic. Among the bookings that they received that year for personal appearances was a performance in Las Vegas. Since Elvis Presley made his big live performing comeback in Vegas, rock & roll and rhythm & blues acts started to carry more weight with the casino crowds. And Ike & Tina were right there.

  It was also a year for some musical changes. For the first time since Tina had recorded with Phil Spector, Bob Krasnow came back in their lives. He was now at Blue Thumb Records, and he needed acts to sign to his label. Always one to sign a new recording deal, Ike took Krasnow up on his proposal. With that, Ike signed on for two albums with Blue Thumb.

  Bob had an idea he wanted to run by Ike. He felt very strongly that Ike & Tina should record the Otis Redding song “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long.” Ike naturally didn’t agree, but eventually Krasnow talked him into it. When the song was released as the duo’s next single, it went on to become their biggest chart hit in ages, making it to No. 68 in the United States. The album it came from, Outta Season, charted at No. 91 in Billboard magazine.

  One of the most controvers
ial aspects of the album was the cover concept of the Outta Season album. Intended to poke fun at racism, the photo of Tina (on the front) and Ike (on the back) featured them in “white face” makeup, eating big slices of watermelon. Not everyone got the joke it was intended to provoke, but it certainly made some noise on the charts. Original copies of this album are considered true collector’s items today.

  They immediately followed up that album with another disc for Blue Thumb Records, called The Hunter. It produced one hit single, a song Ike composed called “Bold Soul Sister,” which became a No. 59 hit in America. The album peaked in Billboard at No. 176.

  The year 1969 was also a very high-profile one for Ike & Tina. On June 20 they were one of the headlining acts at the Newport ’69 Festival at San Fernando Valley State College at Devonshire Downs, in Northridge, California. They also joined The Rolling Stones amidst their tour of the United States. The tour opened on November 7 in Denver, Colorado. It also encompassed one of the most controversial Rolling Stones’ appearances: the infamous free concert at Altamont Speedway on December 7, 1969, at which four people died—including one by knife wounds. Fortunately, Ike & Tina weren’t present for that particular gig. However, they were featured in the film that was made of the Stones during that tour, called Gimme Shelter. In the concert film, Tina is seen singing their new hit “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long.”

  Tina’s friends were horrified when they learned about how Ike would beat her mercilessly. The stories never came from Tina. She was afraid of letting people know about what her life was really like. Bill Wyman of The Rolling Stones recalls, “I heard horrendous stories from The Ikettes about what was going on in the background. It was almost unbelievable, actually. They changed so quickly, The Ikettes, every time you saw them, it was a completely different set, because they just couldn’t deal with what was going on, I suppose” (19).

  On November 26, 1969, Tina Turner turned thirty. She was starting to come into her own as a person. She was beginning to have an awareness of the world around her for the first time. She was also pushing aside several of the illusions that she had carried around with her about life in general, her life with Ike, and where she was going. She recalls making several new observations during this era.

  According to her, “I’d say I was about thirty when a lot of realizations happened. I remember I had always respected airline stewardesses. It was a fantasy, you know—the traveling, the way they dressed in their hats and suits. And on my thirtieth birthday, I remember sitting on a plane. I don’t know what happened, but I finally saw that they were really making people comfortable and serving food. I don’t mean disrespectfully, but I thought, ‘Oh, my God, they’re waitresses.’ I’d only seen the beauty and the glamour” (7).

  During this period of time, all of a sudden Tina also became much more interested in listening to the music that was going on around her. The year 1969 was made famous by Woodstock and several other music festivals. There suddenly seemed to be all kinds of great new music to listen to everywhere, especially in the rock & roll realm. It was the year of The Beatles’ Abbey Road, Hair, Blood, Sweat & Tears, Led Zeppelin II, and Creedence Clearwater Revival’s Green River. Whereas, in all of the years before, Tina had just let Ike choose their music and dictate their direction, she began to branch out to discover new material on her own. Ike’s musical taste was still—very much—stuck in the 1950s. It was time for Tina Turner to begin to look forward instead of backward. As the 1960s came to an end, so did an old way of thinking for Tina.

  One of the songs that she fell in love with was The Beatles’ recent single “Come Together.” She recalls, “I said to Ike, ‘Please, please let me do that song on stage’ ” (1). He wasn’t keen on it in the beginning, but she convinced him to let her start selecting new tunes to interpret on stage and on record. She was growing tired of always singing rhythm & blues songs about “I lost my man” and “I’m so broke and so blue.” She wanted to sing rock & roll. She liked the stance of the songs, and she enjoyed singing them. She especially liked the strong, aggressive kind of music that the male rockers were writing and performing. Among the songs she fell in love with during this era were the Sly & The Family Stone’s “I Want Take You Higher,” and Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Proud Mary.”

  It is interesting to note that Ike had the habit of rewriting the same song over and over again. In a whole string of songs he had Tina record, she would publicly call herself a “fool,” while the object of her affections was God’s gift to women. After “A Fool in Love” came “Poor Fool,” “A Fool for a Fool,” “A Fool for You,” “Poor Little Fool,” “Foolish,” and “Such a Fool for You.” Furthermore, Tina would be required to record these songs over and over again, as Ike jumped from record company advance to record company advance. Well, she was about to get her own songs to sing. At long last, Tina was getting sick of being an unquestioning “fool” for Ike.

  8

  PROUD MARY

  With the two-album obligation to Blue Thumb Records fulfilled, Ike again signed a new recording contract for himself and Tina. This new contract was a more long-term one. It started out with Minit Records—a label they had been on and off of for years. However, only months into the contract the company was absorbed into Liberty Records, which was in turn melded into United Artists Records. This contract would last for the duration of the 1970s.

  When the single version of the song that Tina wanted to sing, “Come Together,” was released, it peaked at No. 57 on the American singles chart. The album of the same name made it to No. 130 on the LP chart. The Come Together album contained Ike & Tina’s entry into the rock & roll realm, featuring Tina’s searing version of “Honky Tonk Women,” as well as a truly rocking interpretation of Sly & The Family Stone’s “I Want to Take You Higher.” It was the beginning of Tina’s career-long habit of taking hot rock songs—from male rockers—and making them all her own. As a single, “I Want to Take You Higher” made it to No. 34 on the Pop chart. The stage was now set for Ike & Tina to score some of the biggest musical successes of their entire career together.

  Probably the most revealing Ike Turner composition on the Come Together album was an audible train wreck that he wrote called “Contact High.” A song about smoking pot, doing coke, and passing out, Tina must surely have cringed at being forced to record such drivel. It also gave the false impression that Tina was a recreational drug user. Nothing could be further from the truth. It was, however, an honest look into Ike’s life of false bravado amid a delusional sea of drugs.

  Ike & Tina made several notable television appearances during 1970. They were seen on The Andy Williams Show and the Sunday night mainstay of American entertainment, Ed Sullivan. They were busy and working hard, touring and recording. However, the nonstop grind began to wear on Tina.

  At this point, Tina came down with a cold that wouldn’t seem to go away. Soon it turned into bronchitis. Her doctor commanded that she get immediate bed rest. Ike would hear nothing of it, and he insisted that she keep on working and quit complaining—and so she did. Soon she had full-blown pneumonia and a fever that she couldn’t shake.

  Tina tried to tell Ike that she was gravely ill, but he insisted that she just take aspirin. He had several tour dates lined up, and he wanted the money from them. He couldn’t be bothered with her complaints. Finally, Tina had to drive herself to the hospital in their limousine. She had never driven such a huge car, but it was the only way she could get there—Ike sure wasn’t going to drive her to seek help. The hospital admitted her immediately, and found that she had developed tuberculosis. Her right lung had collapsed, she had a glandular infection, and she was developing lumps in both of her legs because she was so full of toxic infection.

  In the hospital one morning, Tina awoke to discover that her room was filled with flower arrangements. Reading the cards, she was delighted and thrilled to see that one of the huge arrangements was from Mick Jagger and The Rolling Stones. She was touched to find that she was ge
nuinely loved and cared about by her friends. Naturally, not a single flower arrived from Ike.

  Tina was hospitalized for several weeks. When she was finally released, she went home to a real shocker. Instead of having spent money on flowers to send to Tina, she found that Ike had spent a small fortune on completely redecorating their house—from floor to ceiling—in Superfly ghetto whorehouse chic style. Tina was horrified at this sight.

  The house was done in wall-to-wall red shag carpeting. There was a blue velvet sofa featuring arms that morphed into octopus tentacles, a waterfall now cascaded down one wall, and there was an enormous coffee table shaped like a guitar. Cabinets that looked like huge snail shells housed a TV set and entertainment equipment, and several bubbling aquariums were homes to tropical fish. The master bedroom now had mirrors on the ceiling, and the kitchen was a bilious shade of green.

  When Bob Krasnow came over to the house to see Ike to discuss business, he was equally as shocked by the incomparable tackiness of the new decor. “You mean you can actually spend $70,000 at Woolworth’s?!” he exclaimed (1).

  Fresh from the hospital, and held together by massive amounts of antibiotics, Tina again hit the road for an endless sea of one-nighters. The only real respite came when they played in Las Vegas. At least there, the Turner clan was put up in grand style. They would play there for long engagements, and there was even enough room in the suite to bring along all four of their cumulative sons.

  While they were in Las Vegas during this era, they were invited to appear on an episode of the TV crime series The Name of the Game. This particular episode was filmed in Vegas and centered around one of Tina’s favorite stars—Sammy Davis Jr. Thanks to Sammy, in the episode Ike and Tina were seen as guest star performers who were featured in a casino segment.

  Sammy loved Tina, and when the filming was finished, he wanted to do something nice for her. Perhaps he sensed that Ike never, ever did anything nice for her! Davis took Tina’s assistant, Rhonda Gramm, aside and told her what he had planned: He wanted to buy Tina a Mercedes Benz as a gift. Rhonda informed him that what Tina would really love was a Jaguar. Sammy loved the idea of surprising her with exactly that.