Big Lips, Hot Legs, Explosive Tempers, and Going Solo: A Comparison of The Ike and Tina Turner Revue and The Rolling Stones
Chapter 11: Rolling Tina Turner
Photo: Beyoncé's outfits, at Rock & Roll Hall of Fame exhibit, Cleveland, Ohio, taken by the author, 17 September 2014. As Tina Turner did throughout her career, Beyoncé wears sexually appealing outfits during her high-energy performances.
While the Rolling Stones and Mick Jagger’s solo career hit a huge boulder of dueling egos, Tina Turner’s career from the mid eighties to the end of that decade kept rolling. Her hairstyle and great legs were an eighties visual sensation. Her voice and high energy performances remained the same as when she started out. Although she moved on from Ike Turner, she didn’t shy away from the past. During her Private Dancer tour, she sang her classics River Deep, Mountain High,
and Proud Mary.
Tina Turner published her autobiography I, Tina in 1986, with focus on the abuse she endured and escaped. The book was made into the 1993 movie What’s Love Got to Do with It. Tina Turner continued to tour during the early 1990s, fighting to keep herself relevant in the pop music world. Turner not only regained fame and made her own fortune during the eighties, she also found the love of her life Erwin Bach. In 1995, they settled in Switzerland, with Tina Turner enjoying a healthy, loving relationship, a complete 180 from the one she had with Ike Turner.
Ike Turner didn’t have the commercial success Tina Turner had during her solo career. He claimed in his autobiography that he felt secure with Tina. When she left, he felt alone. He lost her and the trademark to her name. He couldn’t replace her, and as a result decided to lock himself in his studio and party. Cocaine addiction plagued him through the 1970s and into the 1980s, whittling away at the wealth he had accumulated. Needing cash to fuel his addition, he agreed to have someone portray him in a movie based on Tina Turner’s book I Tina for a $15,000 initial payment. Ike just wanted the initial payment for drugs and didn’t question how he’d be portrayed in the movie. He had numerous run ins with the law and, despite getting some breaks due to his celebrity status, decided to keep using and associating himself with the wrong people. He got busted for crack possession and spent two years and two months in prison. Ike claimed that prison time helped him kick addiction.
Upset with the negative publicity he received when the movie What’s Love Got to Do with It came out in 1993, Ike decided to tell his own story. His autobiography Takin’ Back My Name: The Confessions of Ike Turner didn’t become a bestseller like I Tina. Ike claimed that Tina made him seem like a monster, yet admitted to physically and emotionally abusing her. His own words didn’t help his desire to clear his name. Ike not only pointed fingers at Tina Turner; he also criticized Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood for refusing to answer calls he made to them during the 1990s. Despite his claim that the bad publicity he received in the 1980s and 1990s ruined his music career, he did regain some respect in the industry. He went on to record blues albums that received critical acclaim, with his Risin’ with the Blues album winning a 2006 Grammy for Best Traditional Blues Album.
Unfortunately, Ike Turner didn’t completely kick his cocaine habit. He died of an overdose 12 December 2007. Tina Turner wrote in her book My Love Story that when she received the news she didn’t feel much emotion. She had moved on from Ike Turner.
Tina Turner’s last performance occurred 5 May 2009. Her body couldn’t take the high octane performances any longer so she retired. Since then, Tina Turner has spent her retirement battling health issues, including a stroke, intestinal cancer, and kidney failure, in which her husband Erwin donated a kidney to her. That’s true love, something Ike Turner wouldn’t have done.
Tina Turner saw Mick Jagger after her Fiftieth Anniversary tour’s final show. When she told him about her retirement, she felt like Jagger wanted to scold her. She asked him if he ever got tired. Jagger didn’t answer, he just remained quiet. Tina Turner suspected yes was his answer. She also wrote in her My Love Story that she believed he would continue to perform until he couldn’t walk.