Big Lips, Hot Legs, Explosive Tempers, and Going Solo: A Comparison of The Ike and Tina Turner Revue and The Rolling Stones
Chapter 1: The Creation of Tina Turner
"Ike and Tina Turner Poster" by artistmac is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0
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During the late 1950s, rhythm & blues journeyman musician Ike Turner, one of the Rocket 88
creators, a tune some consider to be the first rock and roll single, discovered Anna Mae Bullock’s singing talent in St. Louis. Born in Nutbush, Tennessee, Anna Mae’s parents separated after a tumultuous relationship, leaving Anna Mae with her grandmother. Anna Mae loved to sing and perform. She moved to St. Louis to live with her mother and sister Alline after her grandmother died. Alline frequented The Club Manhattan where her boyfriend Eugene Washington played drums for the Kings of Rhythm, a band led by Ike Turner.
The Club Manhattan was one of the three venues Ike Turner and the Kings of Rhythm would play each night. Playing three venues a night in St. Louis guaranteed journeyman musician Ike a continuous cash flow in one location. Ike Turner had the glory of Rocket 88,
but he didn’t get the money he should have earned from that song, so he had to keep working. At that time, the band only toured within the St. Louis vicinity. Being in that one location helped cement the Ike Turner and Anna Mae Bullock relationship.
The Kings of Rhythm played 5 hours during each Club Manhattan performance with a 15 minute break each hour. Ike Turner tended to use the break time to play instruments while other bandmates left the stage. Alline often asked Ike to let her sister Anna sing during a break. Up until that point, the band never had any female singers in the band, with Ike feeling that his audience weren’t interested. Ike tended to blow off the request, so one night in 1956 Eugene Washington took matters into his own hands and handed the microphone to Anna. She sang well enough to earn herself a position in the band, albeit a non-paying position. Ike instead showered her with clothes, and jewelry. He also taught Anna singing and voice control, proudly writing in his autobiography Takin’ Back My Name that he never charged her for his lessons. Anna Mae Bullock, daughter of field help, felt like a star.
Anna Mae first thought that Ike Turner was too old and skinny for her taste. She thought of Ike as a big brother and mentor, coaching her about her performance. Her first physical relationship with a band member occurred with saxophonist Raymond Hill. In November 1957, during her high school senior year, Anna became pregnant with their son, Raymond Craig. Hill abandoned Anna Mae, leaving St. Louis to return to his Mississippi hometown. Single-mother Anna Mae Bullock remained with the band, and worked as a nurses assistant to support her son and herself. Ike Turner claimed that he let Anna and her son live with him after he saw the deplorable conditions of her alley garage living quarters.
After four years into their professional relationship, Ike Turner started to touch Anna in a not so brotherly way, according to Tina Turner. Ike Turner claimed that Anna seduced him when he was drunk, saying their first time felt awkward. Ike put his relationship with his common law wife on hold. He asked Anna to sing on a recording of Ike’s new song, A Fool in Love.
Ike Tuner originally wrote it for band member Art Lassiter to sing, but they had a huge quarrel, so he had Anna sing it during a recording. Juggy Murray, head of Sue Records, heard the recording, and paid Ike Tuner $25,000 for the song. Murray advised Ike to make Anna the leader singer of the band. Even before he married Anna Mae, Ike, being a very controlling person, renamed his band The Ike and Tina Turner Revue. Ike, a fan of scantily clad movie characters, such as Sheena, Queen of the Jungle and Nyoka the Jungle Girl, decided to make Anna his Sheena. With a rhyme, he renamed Anna without consultation, and Tina Turner became her name. Ike admitted in his autobiography Takin’ Back My Name that he feared Raymond Hill would waltz back into Tina’s life and take her away from the band. He schemed that if Anna did leave, he could replace her with another woman. He trademarked the name Tina Turner so that he could retain the name for a replacement if Tina left. Warning signs about Ike Turner began to flash.
In 1960, A Fool in Love
received airplay but never became a huge pop chart hit, peaking only at number twenty-seven. It did reach number two on the Rhythm and Blues (R&B) charts. The song created a buzz about The Ike and Tina Turner Revue, especially Tina Turner and the newly added group of backup singers/dancers called The Ikettes. Ike wanted the music and the women to give their audience a sensation of wild, raunchy sex. The band expanded beyond the St. Louis circuit, with Los Angeles serving as their base beginning in 1962. They toured constantly through the 1960s, but never had a mega hit in America during that decade. Tina Turner recorded River Deep -Mountain High
with Phil Spector. Spector only wanted Tina Turner’s voice for this project. Ike wasn’t invited to join in the collaboration, which according to Tina Turner Ike resented. Ike, however wrote in his autobiography that he didn’t mind a hit record, even if he wasn’t a full participant. Tina appreciated the opportunity because it allowed her to work in a different genre, with different people, and got her briefly out of Ike Tuner’s grip. This tune, released in 1966, did poorly in the States, but was a big hit in the UK.. The song opened up touring in England with The Rolling Stones.