It is hard to think of ANYONE more seminal and influential in the beginnings of R&B than Ike Turner. He is just EVERYWHERE and playing with everyone while writing and producing for themand he is discovering and developing new talent for multiple labels. His own bands are the tightest, most hardworking groups around and he does not tolerate drugs or excessive drinking in his own working bands. (Later he developed a 15 year cocaine habit with the drinking that accompanies it but initially he is a straight arrow.) He was a perfectionist who drove his touring bands hard and wasn't always well liked for that long before Disney concocted their tales that branded him a national villain. (even Tina has admitted publicly that almost nothing shown about Ike in the movie was factual, she was just mad because he owned the copyright on her stage name!) If Dave Bartholomew was the Architect of New Orleans R&B then Ike Turner fills that roll everywhere else but the West Coast where it was Johnny Otis and Maxwell Davis.
Turner was born in Clarksdale, Mississippi, on November 5, 1931, to Beatrice Cushenberry (1909–195?), a seamstress, and Isaiah (or Izear) Luster Turner, a Baptist minister. The younger of two siblings, Turner had an elder sister, named Ethel May. Turner believed for many years that he was named Izear Luster Turner, Jr. after his father, until he discovered his name was registered as Ike Wister Turner while applying for his first passport. He never got to discover the origin of his name, as by the time he discovered it, his parents were both dead.
Turner said when he was very young, he witnessed his father beaten and left for dead by a white mob. His father lived for 3 years as an invalid in a tent in the family's yard before succumbing to his injuries. Writer and blues historian Ted Drozdowski has told a different version of the story, stating that Turner's father died in an industrial accident. His mother remarried to a man called Philip Reeves. Turner said his stepfather was a violent alcoholic and they often argued and fought, after one fight Turner knocked out his stepfather with a piece of wood. He then ran away to Memphis where he lived rough for a few days before returning to his mother. He reconciled with his stepfather years later, buying a house for him in the 1950s around the time Turner's mother died.
Turner recounted how he was introduced to sex at the age of six by a middle-aged lady called Miss Boozie. Walking past her house to school, she would invite him to help feed her chickens, and then take him to bed. This continued for some years. Turner claimed to not be traumatized by this, commenting that "in those days they didn't call it abuse, they called it fun". He was also sexually molested by two other women before he was twelve.
Around his eighth year Turner also began frequenting the local Clarksdale radio station, WROX, located in the Alcazar Hotel in downtown Clarksdale. WROX was notable as one of the first radio stations to employ a black DJ, Early Wright, to play blues records. DJ John Frisella put Turner to work as he watched the record turntables. Soon he was left to play records while the DJ went across the street for coffee. Turner described this as "the beginning of my thing with music." This led to Turner being offered a job by the station manager as the DJ on the late-afternoon shift. The job meant he had access to all the new releases. On his show he played a diverse range of music, playing Louis Jordan alongside early rockabilly records.
Turner was inspired to learn the piano on a visit to his friend Ernest Lane's house, where he heard Pinetop Perkins playing Lane's fathers' piano. Turner convinced his mother to pay for him to have piano lessons with a teacher; however he did not take to the formal style of playing, instead spending the money in a pool hall, then learning boogie-woogie from Perkins. . He taught himself to play guitar by playing along to old blues records. At some point in the 1940s, Turner moved into Clarksdale’s Riverside Hotel, run by Mrs. Z.L. Ratliff. The Riverside played host to a great number of touring musicians, including Sonny Boy Williamson II and Duke Ellington. Turner associated and played music with many of these guests.
In high school, a teenage Turner joined a huge local rhythm ensemble called The Tophatters, who played dances around Clarksdale, Mississippi. Members of the band were taken from Clarksdale musicians, and included Turner's school friends Raymond Hill, Eugene Fox and Clayton Love. The Tophatters played big-band arrangements from sheet music. Turner, who was trained by ear and could not sight read music, would learn the pieces by listening to a version on record at home, pretending to be reading the music during rehearsals. At one point, the Tophatters had over 30 members, and eventually split into two, with one act who wanted to carry on playing dance-band jazz calling themselves The Dukes of Swing and the other, led by Turner becoming the Kings of Rhythm. Said Turner: "We wanted to play blues, boogie-woogie and Roy Brown, Jimmy Liggins, Roy Milton." Turner would keep the name of the band throughout his career, although it went through considerable lineup changes over time. Their early stage performances consisted largely of covers of popular jukebox hits. They were helped by B. B. King, who helped them to get a steady weekend gig and recommended them to Sam Phillips at Sun Studio. In the 50s, Turner's group got regular airplay from live sessions on WROX-Am, and KFFA radio in Helena, Arkansas.
Sun Studio at 706 Union Avenue in Memphis, Tennessee, where in 1951 Turner and the Kings of Rhythm recorded Rocket 88, one of the first Rock and roll records. Turner would later work at the studio as in-house producer for Sam Phillips.
Around the time he was starting out with The Kings of Rhythm, Turner and Ernest Lane became unofficial roadies for blues singer Robert Nighthawk, who often played live on WROX. The pair sat in playing drums and piano on radio sessions and supported Nighthawk at blues dates around Clarksdale. Playing with Nighthawk allowed Turner to gig regularly and build up playing experience. He would also provide backup for Sonny Boy Williamson II (Alex "Rice" Miller), playing gigs alongside other local blues artists such as Howlin' Wolf, Charley Booker, Elmore James, Muddy Waters and Little Walter. Performances typically lasted for about twelve hours, from early evening to dawn the next day. Turner described the scenario to an interviewer:
“ We played juke joints; we'd start playing at 8.00pm and wouldn't get off till 8.00am. No intermissions, no breaks. If you had to go to the restroom, well that's how I learned to play drums and guitar! When one had to go, someone had to take his place.
It was around this time that Turner and his band came up with the song, "Rocket 88". The song was written as the group drove down to Memphis to record at Sam Phillips' Sun Studios. Turner came up with the introduction and first verse, the band collaborated on the rest with Brenston, the band's saxophonist, on vocals. Phillips sold the recording to Chess in Chicago, who released it under the name "Jackie Brenston and His Delta Cats". The record sold approximately half a million copies. In Turner's account book he recorded that he was paid $20. The success of Rocket 88 caused tensions and ego clashes in the band, causing Jackie Brenston to leave to pursue a solo career, taking some of the original members with him. Turner, without a band and disappointed his hit record had not created more opportunities for him, disbanded the Kings of Rhythm for a few years.After recording Rocket 88, Turner became a session musician and production assistant for Sam Philips and the Bihari Brothers, commuting to Memphis from Clarksdale. He began by contributing piano to a B. B. King track "You Know I Love You", which brought him to the attention of Modern Records's, Joe Bihari, who requested Turner's services on another King track 3 O'Clock Blues. It became King's first hit.
I've broken some 5 cd's worth of compilations down into three digestible bites that do not overlap and are sorted by the vocalist. I think it makes for a much better listen that way and it let's you see Ike's Kings of Rhythm in a variety of settings, this first set covers 1951 to 1953 and has two killer vocalists in Jackie Brenston and Johnny O'Neal. I have left the covers from the original compilations on the files but there is no real point in being album-centric when all of this material was released as singles. KC
