Ike Turner 1931–2008
A Black Man’s Soul text Andria Lisle
Perkins’s able hands—liberated him. Perkins was practicing for the King Biscuit Time radio show; Ike just happened to overhear. He drew closer to the house and, discovering an open window, stood rapt beneath it. Watching Pinetop, Ike later proclaimed, “put a burn in my mind.” In second grade, he began piano lessons himself, and by high school, he’d formed the Kings of Rhythm. Bigger things beckoned, and in March 1951, Ike brought the Kings of Rhythm to Sun Studio in Memphis. The band’s equipment was primitive—as legend has it, a guitar amp fell off the roof of the borrowed car, breaking the speaker cone, as they made their way up Highway 61—and their fortune was pinned on an admittedly corny ditty about the Oldsmobile 88. At Sun, Ike began pounding the piano keys as if his life de- pended on it, as drummer Willie Sims hurried to catch up. Wil- lie Kizart struck the guitar strings with a closed fist, and wild fuzz ensued. Throwing any sense of dignity out the window, Raymond Hill blasted chaotic, brain-piercing sax notes. Over it all, Jackie Brenston grabbed the mic, bellowing a guttural rhyme, praising the Olds’ V-8 engine and convertible top. American music would never be the same. After “Rocket 88” hit, Ike returned to Clarksdale briefly, then moved into that blue shotgun house in Memphis. Sam Phillips’s friend, Joe Bihari, paid the rent, giving Ike a job title—talent scout for Modern Records—and a handsome salary of $225 a week. Ike scoured the Delta for musicians, herding them into Bihari’s open arms. When necessary, Ike—by now a savvy studio musician—sat in with his finds, playing piano on Howlin’ Wolf’s “How Many More Years” and B. B. King’s “Three O’ Clock Blues.” In a remarkably short period of time, an unfathomable selection of hits, including Bobby “Blue” Bland’s “Stormy Monday,” Rosco Gordon’s “No More Doggin’,” Wolf’s “Moanin’ at Midnight,” and a creepy twofer by the Sly Fox, “Hoo-Doo Say” and “I’m Tired of Beggin’,” were all shaped by his intuitive musicianship. Memphis proved too small to hold Ike. He relocated to Chicago,
It’s the summer of 2000, and Ike Turner is navigating a leased Lincoln Town Car through the streets of South Memphis. His girl- friend, Audrey Madison, is riding shotgun. I’m in the back seat, a Triton eighty-eight-key keyboard resting on my lap. Ike makes a left turn onto Crump Boulevard and slows in front of a combination gas station/fried-chicken joint. Then Ike gestures magnanimously toward Audrey, a California girl who is anxious to glean any details about his former history. “See that?” he asks, guiding our attention toward three shotgun structures, pointing toward the blue one, which stood on a lot further west of the intersection. The house was laughably small—probably three narrow rooms, including a kitchen. The front porch sagged. Tar-paper patches on the roof were tattered and worn. Yet the pride in Ike’s voice was unmistakable. “That house,” he says, “is the first place I rented in Memphis.” Ike died on December 12, 2007, and within a few months, his first Memphis home was razed. Even the concrete foundation has disappeared, likely hammered into movable chunks by scavengers and hauled off overnight. All that remains is a pile of old tires un- wanted by even the garbage men, who turn a blind eye to the debris on their weekly rounds. While the physical remnants of Ike Turner’s life have been dis- respected and neglected, the significance of his musical contribu- tions remains undisputed. It’s continually overshadowed, however, by his reputation as a cocaine addict and alleged wife beater. Born and raised seventy miles south of Memphis in Clarksdale, Missis- sippi, Ike was indoctrinated into wickedness at an early age. He wit- nessed his father’s painfully drawn-out death, the result of a racial assault. Neighbor women molested him, and his drunken stepfather dispensed vicious whippings on a regular basis. But somehow, Ike flourished: like the protagonist in a fairy tale, he collected scrap metal, raised baby chicks, chopped stove wood, brewed moonshine, and, when all else failed, posed as a deaf and dumb beggar to earn a few coins for his seamstress mother. Music—initially delivered via boogie-woogie pianist Pinetop
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