Founding Father: Ike Turner

Too many fathers of rock have been lost to the mists of time, so join J.A. Bartlett of the Hits Just Keep On Comin' every Saturday as he reminds us who helped to set the groundwork for the music we love...

Everything you read about Ike Turner indicates that he wasn't a nice man. Most of his bad reputation stems from the way he treated his longtime partner Tina Turner, but he had plenty of other troubles. He did time in jail on drug and weapons charges and eventually died of a cocaine overdose. His name has become a synonym for what Steely Dan's Donald Fagen called, in an obituary published after Turner's death, "blow-addicted megalomaniacal black wife-beater."

But we are not here to dwell on that. Turner was present at the birth of rock 'n' roll, a role he was preparing for almost from his own birth, this week in 1931. He claimed that at age eight, he had already landed a job at a radio station in Clarksdale, Mississippi, as a record turner (the person who ran the turntables for the DJs). He met several early blues performers who played at the station. One of them, Pinetop Perkins, taught him to play the piano.

Turner formed the Kings of Rhythm in the late '40s. In 1951, they recorded a song called Rocket 88, which was released under the name of Jackie Brenston and His Delta Cats, and is considered by many to be the first rock 'n' roll song. Turner eventually went to work as a talent scout based in St. Louis, where he helped advance the career of some of his childhood idols, including Howlin' Wolf, Elmore James, and Sonny Boy Williamson, and played with them as a sideman on guitar. It was in St. Louis that he met Anna Mae Bullock, a powerful singer he soon renamed Tina Turner. Ike and Tina were reportedly married in 1962, although in later years, Ike denied he was ever legally married to Tina.

By the mid '60s, Ike had developed a taste for cocaine, and an abusive temperament. It was so bad that when Phil Spector wanted to work with Tina, he made Ike a deal -- his name would be on the records and he'd get paid, but he was not to set foot in the studio, and he would not be permitted to meddle with the finished product. Despite the offstage turmoil, the Ike and Tina Turner Revue became more popular than ever, opening for the Rolling Stones on their 1969 tour and scoring their biggest hit, Proud Mary, in 1971. But when Tina left Ike in the mid '70s, his career fizzled. When he and Tina were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991, he couldn't attend because he was in prison.

After getting out, Ike remained sober for a time. His 2001 album Here & Now was nominated for a Grammy; in 2007, his album Risin' With the Blues won the Grammy for Best Traditional Blues Recording. He was reportedly planning a collaboration with the Black Keys and producer Danger Mouse at the time of his death last December. In all its colorful history, popular music hasn't produced many characters like Ike -- with such a vast array of experiences, so many intersections with other legendary figures, and such spectacular vices acted out in so public a manner.

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