Tina Turner Read online

  With the original trio gone, Ike had another excuse to look for new women, and The Ikettes became a revolving door for his sexual appetite. At one point in their ever-changing lineup, none of the replacement Ikettes could sing on key, even though they looked great on stage. To make it through a show, the band had to sing the back-up vocal parts while The Ikettes danced. On several occasions, new girls landed jobs as Ikettes simply so Ike could seduce them.

  Once, and only once, there was a white Ikette—and she later became a full-fledged rock star as well. Bonnie Sheridan is more commonly known by her later married name, Bonnie Bramlett. In the late 1960s Bonnie married Delaney Bramlett, and they formed their own group, Delaney & Bonnie & Friends. Among the “friends” on their albums were such rock luminaries as Eric Clapton, Dave Mason, Leon Russell, and Rita Coolidge. Bonnie was a regular cast member of the highly rated Rosanne TV show for several seasons. In the 1990s Bonnie and Delaney’s daughter, Bekka Bramlett, filled in for Stevie Nicks in Fleetwood Mac.

  Even in the early 1960s Bonnie had an incredible and soulful voice—especially for a white blues singer. She was a big fan of R&B music, she had a great voice, and she loved to sing. As a young girl, she would follow The Kings of Rhythm from one club to the next in the St. Louis days. At the time, she was performing under the name she was born with, Bonnie Lynn O’Farrell.

  When one of the Ikettes suddenly dropped out of the group, Bonnie was hired at the last minute. Unfortunately, her tenure as an Ikette was very short. During this era, The Ike & Tina Turner Revue was playing a lot of one-nighters in the Deep South, where—in the 1960s—Jim Crow laws of segregation were still taken very seriously. If they played in a white club, drunken patrons would shout things at her onstage. For one gig in Kentucky, blonde-haired Bonnie put Man-Tan skin bronzer all over her face and arms to look darker. Even with a wig on, she just looked like a very orange white woman. The final incident came on the highway, when a car full of drunken white supremists tried to run Ike’s Cadillac off the road, amidst shouts aimed at Bonnie calling her a “nigger lover.” After that, it was mutually decided that she shouldn’t be part of the act. However, Bonnie now has the distinction of being the first, and only, white Ikette.

  During this era, Ike discovered another woman whom he wanted to join The Ikettes. Her name was Ann Thomas, and she was very beautiful. Unfortunately, she couldn’t sing a note. Ike came up with the idea of having Ann become the fourth Ikette in the act. Tina met Ann, and agreed that she would be a great visual addition to the stage show. Ann Thomas became known as “the nonsinging Ikette” in the group.

  It wasn’t long before Ike and Ann Thomas were having sex on a regular basis. On more than one occasion, Tina would walk in on Ike and Ann having sex, and she would calmly leave the room. Tina at this point had no desire to have sex with Ike, and she would rather have him occupied than bothering her.

  It also wasn’t long before Ann Thomas was pregnant with Ike’s baby. This was another occurrence that Tina took in stride. It was like Tina was only biding her time during this era, eager to see where she might find an escape hatch to get free from the nonstop life she found herself trapped in. Ike didn’t treat Ann Thomas any differently than he treated Tina, beating her when she displeased him.

  The Ike & Tina Turner Revue would have a concert, and Ike would send Tina back to their hotel room. He would then go out and party all night with the band, The Ikettes, or any of the women he had lined up for that night’s entertainment. Tina was the star of the show night after night on stage, but she was the only one not having any fun. Ike never allowed her to attend these parties. She would later recall, “The party rooms became party suites. I was jealous and hurt. But I couldn’t say anything—no one could say anything to Ike. Because you never knew what he’d do” (4).

  When they were back in Los Angeles, another girl named Ann moved into one of the bedrooms of Ike and Tina’s house. Her name was Ann Cain, and Tina was glad to have Ann there to help with the children and to keep Ike out of her hair as much as possible. When Ann started working more closely with Ike on the management of the business, there was a need for another housekeeper. This is when a woman by the name of Rhonda Gramm came into the picture. She too was fascinated with show business, and she and Tina became quite close friends throughout the years.

  Instead of Tina getting jealous over Ike bringing all of these women into their house, she seemed relieved to have the attention taken off of her. Ann Cain, however, was extremely jealous of Rhonda Gramm when she came into the Turner operation. Eventually Rhonda Gramm joined the band as the road manager when they went on the road. Since part of Ike’s money at gigs was based on how big the crowd was on any given night, someone from Ike’s camp had to be at the door to monitor the number of paying patrons. Often, it was Rhonda’s job to stand at the door and count people as they entered the club.

  One of the many labels that Ike signed with at this point was Loma Records. It was run by a man named Bob Krasnow. A long-time record executive, he eventually became the chairman of Elektra Entertainment. He will never forget the first time he met Tina, at the Turner’s Baldwin Hills home in the 1960s. He was expecting a big, glamorous star. Instead, he was shocked to find that when they were off stage, Ike treated her like she was his maid. Recalls Krasnow, “She was in the kitchen with a wet rag, down on her hands and knees wiping the floor, wearing a do-rag on her head” (5).

  From the very start, Krasnow could tell that she had all of the raw talent that it took to become a really big star—much bigger than what Ike had turned her into. According to Bob, “She has this sensual persona, but her private mores are so old-fashioned, so traditional. Tina could be your girlfriend, your sister, your best friend—she can fulfill all these emotional niches. Yet when she gets up onstage, she has the power to stimulate you and bring words to life in a way that’s uniquely her own” (5).

  In December of 1965, The Ike & Tina Turner Revue was one of the guests on a TV special called The TNT Award Show. They were seen performing the songs “It’s Gonna Work Out Fine” and “One More Time.” Also on the show were Joan Baez, Bo Diddley, The Byrds, The Lovin’ Spoonful, Petula Clark, Donovan, Ray Charles, and The Ronettes. This was when Tina Turner first came to the attention of producer Phil Spector.

  Phil was the producer of all of the hit records by the girl group The Ronettes. He was also romantically involved with The Ronettes’ lead singer, Ronnie Bennett. He started out in the music business as a member of the singing group The Teddy Bears. The group had a huge No. 1 hit in 1958 with the song “To Know Him Is to Love Him.” After a couple more hit singles as part of The Teddy Bears, Phil decided to become a record producer. From 1961 to 1965, in his own Gold Star Recording Studio, he was responsible for producing hit after hit by The Crystals (“Uptown,” “Da Doo Ron Ron”), Darlene Love (“Today I Met the Boy I’m Gonna Marry”), The Righteous Brothers (“You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling,” “Unchained Melody”), and The Ronettes (“Be My Baby,” “Baby, I Love You”). For years, one of his employees was another would-be producer, Sonny Bono. Sonny had a habit of inviting his girlfriend, Cher, to the studio. Cher made her recording debut as one of the background voices on “Da Doo Ron Ron.”

  According to Cher, “The first time actually I saw Tina, Sonny, and I were in Sacramento [California]. Ike and Tina were late, and so everyone was waiting for Ike and Tina to come. I was standing there and the whole entourage went by, and it was Ike and then all these guys, and then all these girls who looked like Tina, and then Tina Turner came whizzing by. And I thought, ‘This is really Tina Turner, this is so amazing’ ” (19). Cher and Tina were to become life-long friends.

  Phil had developed a way of making a group of singers and musicians sound like an army by layering track on track of sound on top of each other. He called his method of recording “the Wall of Sound.” It was expensive to produce, unique, and has since become legendary.

  Spector had started out as singer himself, so he appreciated gr
eat voices. As soon as he heard Tina Turner singing on The TNT Award Show, he was convinced that he had to produce her in the studio.

  According to Bob Krasnow, his phone rang one day and, “It was Phil Spector. He said, ‘You guys have Ike and Tina?’ I said, ‘Yeah, we do.’ He said, ‘Well, uh . . . I want to make a record. With Tina’ ” (4).

  Spector was most insistent that Ike was not to have anything to do with the sessions he wanted to produce. Krasnow played liaison between Spector and Ike Turner. According to the deal that they struck, Phil paid Ike $20,000 for Tina’s services. Phil would produce most of the album, but it had to include five songs produced by Ike. Actually, the songs Ike contributed to the album were more “pop” sounding versions of four of Ike & Tina hits as well, plus a new Turner composition. The rerecorded songs included “I Idolize You,” “A Fool in Love,” “Such a Fool for You” and “It’s Gonna Work Out Fine.” The new song that Ike wrote was called “Make ’Em Wait.” These were excellent treatments of those songs, especially a more rocking version of “Such a Fool for You.” Ike’s verbal appearance on the album came as part of his familiar spoken vocal on this new version of “I Think It’s Gonna Work Out Fine” and background vocals on “Make ’Em Wait.”

  However, it was the seven new songs that Phil Spector chose to produce for Tina, which were truly fresh and unique. Tina was thrilled by the compliment of having Spector pursue her services. According to her, “Nobody wanted me to sing in those days. They wanted me to do that screaming and yelling” (5).

  Among the songs that Phil recorded with Tina were the power ballads “Every Day I Have to Cry,” and “I’ll Never Need More Than This.” He also chose two R&B classics that he wanted Tina to reinterpret: The Drifters’ hit “Save the Last Dance for Me,” and Martha Reeves & The Vandellas’ “A Love Like Yours.” Spector’s trademark “Wall of Sound” technique makes these amongst the most excitingly recorded Tina Turner performances of the entire decade of the 1960s.

  However, the make-it-or-break-it success of the album was pinned to the one song that was earmarked to be a sure-fire Tina Turner hit single. It was a song called “River Deep-Mountain High.” Written by Phil, with Ellie Greenwich and Jeff Barry, it was a strong and gutsy kind of R&B song that would really allow Tina to open up vocally. Reportedly, Phil spent over $22,000 on this track alone. It was to be one of his milestone masterpieces. And in many ways, it was exactly that—a critical hit from the word “go.”

  Phil Spector personally played “River Deep-Mountain High” for Tina. She reported in the British music publication, New Musical Express, “I was knocked out by the Jeff Barry/Ellie Greenwich/[Phil] Spector song the first time I heard it. Phil kinda sang it along with a guitar and I loved it. Then he did the instrumental tracks. Wow! Jack Nitzche’s arrangement was really somethin’ else!” (20).

  Tina was informed that she would be rehearsing the songs that Phil wanted her to record for two weeks, from noon until two every afternoon. One of the details that Tina liked the most was that Ike was not going to be with her. She was “allowed” by Ike to drive herself over to Phil’s mansion. For the first time in her singing career, Tina felt like a true professional. This was a project that she completely put her heart into.

  Tina was amazed as she arrived at Phil’s mansion the first time. She had to be buzzed into the gate to get onto the premises. She eyed the high ceilings and winding staircases. Phil had a mynah bird in the house, and Tina would stop and talk to the bird while she waited for Phil to appear.

  While Phil was recording the instrumental and background vocal tracks, Tina made one visit to the studio to see how he worked. She was in awe to find that he had seventy-five musicians and twenty-five singers jammed into the studio just for “River Deep-Mountain High.” So much was riding on this one song that Phil reportedly spent hours and hours tinkering with the tracks. According to Bob Krasnow, every important studio session musician in the business was there working on this song, including Glen Campbell, Leon Russell, Sonny Bono, and Hal Blaine.

  Cher was later to recall, “I remember when Phillip was playing it, and how excited he was.” And Tina remembers, “He was so much behind that project—something he strongly, strongly believed in. I’ve got to tell you, it was seventy-five backing vocals—it was a choir! The room was full of singers” (19).

  After two weeks of rehearsals, the day finally came for Tina to go into Gold Star Studios and record her lead vocal. It was March 7, 1966. When she arrived there at two in the afternoon with Bob Krasnow in tow, it was just Phil and his engineer Larry Levine. Spector had her sing the song over and over and over again. It wasn’t long before she worked up a sweat in the sound booth. Finally, drenched in sweat, she removed her shirt and stood there in her bra. They recorded until late at night.

  Tony Hall, an English promotional director, was assigned to the task of letting the radio stations in the British Isles know about this dynamic recording. A long-time Tina Turner fan, Hall recalls, “When we first heard the test pressings, we flipped! This surely was the most exciting record of the year. But how commercial was it? Frankly, I had no idea. I just knew that it would be a crime if all the love put into it by Phil and the Turners were to no avail. The record had to be heard. So far, [in 1966] there was no sign of it in the U.S. Top 100 charts. All the greater challenge to us to get it away in Britain. So I sent out personally handwritten letters to almost every deejay in the country, beseeching them to give the public the chance to make up their own minds” (20).

  In America the record failed to find an audience at any radio format. However, in England the record was a roaring success. “The response was really rewarding,” explains Tony Hall, “And the reorders started pouring in. It looked like a certainty for Top 20. On the strength of these sales figures, I approached Johnnie Stewart, producer of BBC-TV’s high-rating Top of the Pops show, to commission his American film unit to video-tape the Turners. Under the guidance of Jim Fitzpatrick in Los Angeles, the Turners were finally tracked down in the middle of a hectic ninety-day tour. The film that resulted was the most exciting of its kind ever seen in Britain. The warmth, pace, and spirit of Tina’s vital, visual performance, watched over by Ike and backed by the wild dancing of The Ikettes, was really fantastic. We found it almost impossible to believe that the beautifully Tina was really a happily married mother of four! Up and up rose the record in the charts. Top 20. Top 10. Top 5. Top 3. In America? Nowhere. Frankly, we [in England] were knocked out. As Phil [Spector] himself was quoted as saying, ‘We can only assume that England is more appreciative of talent and exciting music than the U.S.’ ” (20).

  Hall was—like the rest of the world—misled about Tina’s “happily married” status. If he only knew the reality of what went on behind closed doors in the Turners’ private life! Aside from that fact, he certainly knew talent when he saw it.

  According to George Harrison, a Beatle who truly knew good music when he heard it, “ ‘River Deep-Mountain High’ is a perfect record from start to finish—you couldn’t improve on it” (21).

  Although it is today regarded as a classic, Tina Turner’s recording of “River Deep-Mountain High” at the time was considered to be a “bomb” in America. According to Tina, “It was too black for the pop radio stations and too pop for the black stations.” Yet, she had to admit, “It showed people what I had in me” (1).

  The song only made it to No. 88 in the United States. Interestingly enough, “River Deep-Mountain High” went to become a huge No. 14 American pop hit in 1970 when it was recorded by The Supremes & The Four Tops. But for Ike & Tina in 1966, it was to become known as the milestone American hit that never was.

  Ironically, the song “River Deep-Mountain High” was considered such a non-hit in the United States that the River Deep-Mountain High album wasn’t even released stateside. Instead, it was only released in Europe at the time. It didn’t debut in America until 1969, when it was released by A&M Records and made it to No. 102 on the album chart in Billboard.


  However, when the single hit No. 3 that summer in the United Kingdom, they were an overnight success. Because of the European success of “River Deep-Mountain High,” all of a sudden there was a huge interest in Ike & Tina Turner and their elaborate revue.

  Across the Atlantic Ocean, The Rolling Stones were among the biggest fans of the sound of Ike & Tina. The Stones had an upcoming British tour in the fall of 1966, and they thought that The Ike & Tina Turner Revue would be perfect to have on the bill.

  On September 23, 1966, “The Rolling Stone’s ’66” U.K. tour kicked off at Royal Albert Hall in London. Also on the bill that night were The Yardbirds, Long John Baldry, and The Ike & Tina Turner Revue. Tina remembers walking out of her dressing room at Albert Hall, and listening to Jeff Beck, The Yard-birds’ guitarist, standing against a wall, playing a masterful guitar solo. Ike too was impressed by the musicianship that he heard on this trip. They toured twelve dates across England with The Rolling Stones, the last one being on October 9, 1966, at the Gaumont Theatre, Southhampton, Hants.

  Along the way, Tina Turner met two fans who were destined to become lifelong friends: Mick Jagger and Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones. Throughout the years, they have grown to become two of her best friends and biggest supporters—through thick and thin.

  That tour was a lot of fun for Ike and Tina. They had gotten so used to being pigeon-holed into playing the so-called “chitlin circuit” of black American clubs that they had forgotten how great it was to be on large bills at big theaters. According to Tina, “It was fun. It was fantastic. My first experience was when Mick Jagger walked in the dressing room without knocking, and he says, ‘I love how you girls dance.’ That was the first introduction. I didn’t know who he was. And then later, of course, Ike introduced us, and then often he would come into the dressing room, but we were always prepared because we never knew when he was coming in. But that was—that’s how Mick is” (16).