Tina TurnerDocumentary 2021 HBO Documentary; Tina Turner Inducted Into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame; Tina-The Tina Turner Musical Returns To Broadway On Friday October 8th
“I am absolutely thrilled to be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame amongst such amazing artists! Thank you for all your continued love and support over the years! Love, Tina”
The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame has announced that Tina Turner will be included in their class of 2021 inductees. The induction ceremony will take place on October 30 at the Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse in Cleveland, Ohio with a radio simulcast on SiriusXM’s Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Radio Channel 310. The induction ceremony will air at a later date on HBO and stream on HBO Max.
Tina will be inducted in the performer category alongside Carole King, The Go-Go’s, JAY-Z, Foo Fighters, and Todd Rundgren; with Clarence Avant (Ahmet Ertegun Award), LL Cool J, Billy Preston, Randy Rhoads (Musical Excellence Award), and Kraftwerk, Charley Patton, and Gil Scott-Heron (Early Influence Award).
Turner and Carole King both join Stevie Nicks as the only women to be inducted multiple times, with Turner previously inducted as part of Ike & Tina Turner back in 1991.
Tina Turner is revered around the world, inspiring millions through her own personal story, her singing, her dancing, and beyond. Her music legacy is a collection of some of the best-known songs of all time, just utter the phrase “You’re simply the best” you’d be hard-pressed to find a person who doesn’t know the next line! She is one of the best-selling artists of all time (200+million records), with multiple #1's, platinum records across the world, 12 Grammy® Awards, a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, a star on both the Hollywood and St. Louis Walk of Fame and so much more.
Tina first rose to prominence in 1958 aged 19 as a duo with Ike Turner, leading to the Ike & Tina Turner Revue. They produced a string of notable hits such as "A Fool In Love" (1960), "It's Gonna Work Out Fine" (1961), "River Deep – Mountain High" (1966), "Proud Mary" (1971), and "Nutbush City Limits" (1973). In 1976, following years of enduring physical, emotional, and sexual abuse from Ike, Tina filed for divorce and pursued a solo career.
In 1977, she went back on stage touring rigorously, releasing a handful of albums but they didn’t match the fanfare or success of her incredible live shows. Then in November 1983, she released a cover of Al Green's "Let's Stay Together" which became a hit. In June 1984 aged 45, she released the album Private Dancer, and its second single "What's Love Got to Do with It" became a global smash as did the album. Private Dancer went 5x platinum in the US and 3x platinum in the UK, catapulting Tina back into superstardom.
Following her lead role in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985) and her Break Every Rule album (1986), Turner embarked on the colossal Break Every Rule World Tour, playing 218 shows including a concert at the Maracanã Stadium, Rio de Janeiro in 1988; a Guinness World Record for the largest concert attendance at the time, at over 180,000 spectators.
Tina’s success followed with the album Foreign Affair (1989) which included one of the biggest songs of the 80s in "The Best. The 90s continued Tina’s storming success, including the 1993 biopic What’s Love Got To Do With It with Angela Bassett depicting Tina, and releasing "GoldenEye" (1995), the theme tune for James Bond film GoldenEye, as part of her 1996 album Wildest Dreams.
Her final studio album Twenty Four Seven came in 1999, with Tina announcing her retirement following the album’s tour. She was honored by the Kennedy Center Honors in 2005, with Beyoncé paying tribute to her idol, Tina, with a rendition of "Proud Mary." Tina would later partner with Beyoncé at the 2008 Grammy Awards in a special performance, often hailed as one of the most iconic Grammy® moments ever. Later the same year, Turner announced she was coming out of retirement for one final tour to celebrate her 50th year of performing on stage.
In recent times, Turner released her poignant, gripping autobiography My Love Story, which was also taken to the stage with the premiere of Tina: The Tina Turner Musical at Aldwych Theatre, London in 2018. A monumental success, the show continues to play and has since opened in Hamburg (2019), Broadway (2019), and Utrecht (2020) to massive acclaim and fanfare.
2020 saw the publication of two other books Tina Turner: That’s My Life and Happiness Becomes You. In the same year, global superstar, producer, and DJ Kygo then remixed Turner's smash hit "What’s Love Got To Do With It," making Turner the first artist to have a top 40 hit in seven consecutive decades in the UK.
Earlier this year, the feature documentary TINA was released to critical acclaim, from Academy Award®-winning directors Dan Lindsay, T.J. Martin and Lightbox, the production company founded by Academy Award-winning producer Simon Chinn and Emmy®-winning producer Jonathan Chinn, together with Emmy-nominated producer Diane Becker.
The film is a revealing and intimate look at the life and career of musical icon Tina Turner, charting her improbable rise to early fame, her personal and professional struggles throughout her life, and her even more improbable resurgence as a global phenomenon in the 1980s. It’s available to watch now on HBO (US), Sky Documentaries, and altitude.film (UK), FOXTEL (Australia).
Tina-The Tina Turner Musical based on the life story of Tina Turner, which opened on London’s West end in April 2018, that starred Adrienne Warren, came to Broadway in November of 2019, just before her 80th birthday.
Warren later reprised her role at the Lunt-Fontaine Theater in New York. The West End show was directed by Phyllida Lloyd (Mamma Mia!). Playwright Katori Hall (The Mountaintop) collaborated on the book with Frank Katelaar and Kees Prins. On October 8th, the play returns to Broadway.
On her official website, Turner displayed a statement about Tina.
“It’s really important to me to have the chance to share my full story. This musical is not about my stardom. It is about the journey I took to get there. Each night I want audiences to take away from the theatre that you can turn poison into medicine.”
Tina Turner was Ike Turner’s protégé long before establishing her own identity, following well-chronicled deadly domestic abuse from Ike Turner, who she divorced in 1978, to an inspirational comeback saga, further explored in her 1986 international best-seller autobiography, I. Tina: My Life Story, published by William Morrow & Company. Ike and Tina Turner were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991. And now Tina is an inductee as a solo artist.
In 1993 the biopic What’s Love Got to Do with It, loosely based on Turner’s life became a film directed by Brian Gibson, which starred Angela Bassett as Tina. Ike Turner was portrayed by Laurence Fishburne.
On October 19, 2018, My Love Story, a second memoir from Turner was published by Atria, a division of Simon & Schuster. It revealed more confessions and explosive details about former husband Ike Tina’s solo musical recordings, concert triumphs and romantic bliss over the last few decades.
In this autobiography Tina Turner reveals she was battling kidney disease in 2016 and underwent a kidney transplant in Switzerland during 2017 and the donor was her husband, Erwin Bach, a German record executive. They were married in 2013.
In 2018 Tina Turner was honored with the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
In the sixties and early seventies before Tina’s chart success with “Private Dancer” and her Capitol Records-birthed music videos on regular rotation on MTV in the eighties, I witnessed The Ike & Tina Turner Revue dynamic performances many times around Southern California.
Ike & Tina opened for the Monkees at the Hollywood Bowl in 1967. I caught them in June 1969 as one of the support acts for the Jimi Hendrix Experience at the Newport ’69 pop festival in Northridge, California. In November 1969 I watched their show twice in one very long night on November 8th when the Rolling Stones ’69 US tour rolled into Inglewood at the Fabulous Forum.
During 1970 I was present at one of their intimate Whisky A Go Go bookings, and on July 4, 1975 I saw Ike & Tina at the Concerts at The Grove nightclub on Wilshire Blvd., formerly The Coconut Grove venue, at The Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles.
I reviewed it for the July 26, 1975 issue of Melody Maker. I wrote, “Tina, clad in a revealing black dress, stomped and romped in front of Ike’s impressive funky rhythms on guitar. Tina is on the brink of well- deserved solo success, and her forthcoming solo LP, along with her Tommy performance. Only makes her career with Ike even stronger.”
I really admired bandleader Ike Turner as a talent scout, guitarist, record producer/arranger and founding father of the rock ‘n’ roll and dug the way Tina and the Ikettes moved on stage and delivered their Ike-picked repertoire.
I was an avid collector of the recordings by the duo on the record labels Sue, Modern, Kent, Tangerine, A&M, Loma/Warner Bros., Blue Thumb, Minit, Liberty, and United Artists.
In 2021 I fondly remember a 1975 interview I did with Tina Turner, following a delightful chili-driven dinner I had with her at Chasens restaurant in Beverly Hills.
My 1975 conversation with Tina was done just before she fled from Ike, in the summer of 1976, after enduring years of emotional and physical abuse from him.
Our interview was first published in the October 11, 1975 issue of Melody Maker. The headline read Tina Turner: Acid Queen.
It was at a time when Tina wasn’t on a record label, but soon to be supported by devoted UK music stars like Rod Stewart who would give her a helping hand in their concert appearances and studio productions for that devoted passionate consumer market.
It was a few years before Tina’s recording career was rescued by a fan named David Bowie. He touted her commercial potential and potent live performances, along with Keith Richards, to Capitol/EMI record executives in January of 1983 at Jerry Brandt’s rock club The Ritz in New York City who eventually signed Turner to the label.
A 1983 cover version of Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together” yielded a Top Ten hit in the British sales chart and then the company demanded a full album, subsequently titled, Private Dancer. The following year Tina’s next single “What’s Love Got to Do With It,” written by Terry Britten and Graham Lyle, went to number 1.
In our 1975 dialogue, Tina was quite impressed when I told her I initially heard Ike & Tina Turner 45RPM’s in the very early sixties on the AM radio station KGFJ as a youth with my family in Culver City. We previously lived in Crenshaw Village neighborhood nearby Ike’s Bolic Sound recording studio in Inglewood where she and Ike now worked.
Wearing a white jumpsuit, Tina was sharp, articulate and candid in our interview session.
"I've talked to a lot of reporters lately because of the Tommy movie and we decided to call the album, Acid Queen, to help capitalize on my role in the movie," suggested Tina Turner inside the Bolic Sound complex.
Brownsville, Tennessee, is the birthplace of Tina and she's come a long way since she started her career singing as Annie Mae Bullock in talent shows and the gospel choir in Knoxville. In the mid-Fifties, Annie Mae moved to St. Louis with her sisters, and subsequently met Ike Turner. Tina soon joined Ike's group, the Kings of Rhythm.
In 1959, Ike wrote a number entitled “A Fool in Love” for a singer who never showed up for the recording session. But Tina was familiar with it and stepped in, since studio facilities were paid for in advance. It became a gem on Sue Records.
“River Deep, Mountain High” was a smash in England and the Come Together LP, which contained the hit Beatle tune and their cover of “Honky Tonk Woman,” climbed high on the national charts. Following successes have included the million-selling “Proud Mary” single, a gold album What You Hear Is What You Get (Live At Carnegie Hall), and the hit single and album, Nutbush City Limits.
"We toured for years with all the English groups and I always liked what they were singing about,” enthused Tina, who in 1966 at Colston Hall in Bristol, England in a hallway corridor taught Mick Jagger an interpretation of the sideways pony dance in front of Marianne Faithfull, Brian Jones, and Keith Richards.
"I've wanted to do an album like Acid Queen for some time," she explained. "There's a lot of Mick Jagger's songs that we haven't gotten around to doing. The concept of the album came from my producers, Denny Diante and Spencer Proffer. At first the album was going to be called, The British Album, with the whole album full of British songs.”
There are four other English numbers on the album: “Under My Thumb,” “Whole Lotta Love,” “'I Can See For Miles,” and “Let's Spend The Night Together,” which complete the first side. Side two features five original compositions, with “Rockin' And Rollin'' and “Baby – Get It On” the most striking.
"But Ike sent out word that he wanted the album out immediately,” said Tina, “so after I did a commercial for Dr. Pepper, earlier in the day, I did the vocals at nine o'clock in the evening and hardly got a chance to learn the songs.
"The album was a bit rushed, but I've done it this way before. We've done a lot of albums without spending that much time on them. All that was left was for me to cut the vocals 'cause Ike, Denny and Spencer got everything else together.
"We were in Seattle a few years ago in a record store and I heard this bass riff opening on ‘Come Together.’ I said ‘I had to do that song,’ the same with 'Proud Mary.’ I've been trying to get Ike for two years to record it. We've always done other people's songs successfully and it's not uncomfortable doing songs by the Who, Led Zeppelin and the Stones.
"Ike and I haven't got the time to develop as songwriters 'cause we spend so much time in the studio and on the road. And there's a lot of good music to be covered."
She's very much a singular force these days, and for the first time there are press kits with pictures of Tina sans Ike. "It's still the Ike and Tina show," she reinforced. "Ike and I are singing a bit more together on stage, and maybe all the Tommy promotion has put a bit more of the focus on myself,” explained Tina.
"We've been trying all these years to get to the point where the whole show is sharp. When we went into Las Vegas we changed the show around and the Ikettes added six songs to the repertoire. They're much better now. All these years we've wanted the whole package to be good. Ike selects the songs and there's a tremendous amount of preparation for our tours."
Tina’s Tommy cameo appearance seemed to get the most applause from theatre patrons. Ike & Tina's previous celluloid performances. The BigTNT Show, Gimme Shelter, and Soul To Soul, just mirrored the show act.
"Tommy was a whole new trip for me, getting into a room and turning into a mad woman. At first I didn't want to play the part of a prostitute. But it was a challenge and it called for drama. That's what acting is all about.
"Travelling across the country now people are beginning to know me as the 'Acid Queen.’ The audience is screaming for the song when we perform live."
Sexuality has become a trademark of the Ike and Tina spectacle. Her use of bold expression, unlike most performers, goes beyond the tease category. Some felt the show exploits sex. Whatever, no-one talks when she performs.
The show is toned down for the supper club circuit; a slight degree of hesitation, but there's always a huge amount of suggestiveness.
But, she sternly says: "I never felt we've used sex as a gimmick in our program. It's important today because, people who pay to see a show want a little of everything.
"The sexual portion of our show isn't planned; it just happens. It works out well visually and it always seems to get the most audience response. Everybody needs an image. There's a million groups out today; flipping, smoke bombs, dancing – fortunately, everybody can't be sexy. We've discussed it a thousand times, the mini skirt and see-through dresses.
“People's minds do wander… We may do a song like 'I've Been Loving You Too Long,’ and work with it. Every time we do it, the song changes. Sometimes I really have a lot of fun with that song because people expect something to happen.
"For years we've gotten reviews that seem to dwell on the sexual aspect of the show. I've never felt people gaining sexuality after seeing our show. But I like them to remember what they have just seen. I've never really thought of our show as being aggressive. Even as wild as I am I know that I maintain my femininity. People have always told me that.”
In 1975, Tommy brought a rash of talk show interviews for Tina Turner, and worldwide media coverage bloomed. The press in general, however, has chronicled the Turners, while turning up nasty rumors and juicy gossip.
"I'm not a worrier. I've read a few things over the years that I laugh about. 'She must be over 50' or, 'Ike messes around with the Ikettes.' It goes in one ear and out the other. We laugh about it. If it’s really shocking you can't let it bother you."
Then she grins. "Some of it is true. There are a few incidents that I can't live down, like the time in Las Vegas when I was running around the stage in my heels and I slipped because we were using the bubble machine. Wham!
"I fell, spread out across the floor, with my crotch to the audience. Luckily I wasn't hurt."
Throughout 1965 the Ike & Tina Turner revue were often on local Los Angeles-based rock ‘n’ roll television programs including Shindig! and Hollywood A Go-Go. They even appeared on Dick Clark’s American Bandstand.
However, it was sad period where black musicians and entertainers were still victims of overt racism especially on the road. Tina cited some previous horrible scenes and often miserable gigs where there weren’t places to sleep, the tour bus never got a chance to stop and band members were subjected to numerous racial incidents.
"The biggest change started happening when we were working around L.A. in 1966 and ran into Phil Spector,” underscored Tina. “He wanted to record me and when we cut 'River Deep, Mountain High' Mick Jagger, who was visiting Phil at the time, was in the studio.”
In a 1988 Goldmine interview with arranger Jack Nitzsche at his Hollywood Hills residence, Jack discussed “River Deep, Mountain High” and the landmark recording session at Gold Star studio.
Brian Wilson, Dennis Hopper, Mick Jagger and Rodney Bingenheimer were in attendance. The song written by Jeff Barry, Ellie Greenwich and Spector, was released initially in the US on Spector’s Philles Records.
“Phil was the co-writer on the song. Phil embellished the song and was the producer. I’ve talked to Gerry Goffin about that a lot; Phil co-writing songs that he would produce. Phil would always have the writers come over and write in the room with him, and I knew he directed it. They all say the same thing; that without Phil Spector in the room that song wouldn’t have been that way. He helped. He knew what he wanted it to be.
“I know Phil Spector helped write ‘River Deep, Mountain High.’ Phil said, 'I've got a song for Tina.' I went over to Phil's house and went over the arrangement note by note. When Phil played me ‘River Deep, Mountain High’ on the piano I knew it was a great song.
“We did the rhythm track in two different three-hour sessions. Even during the cutting of the track, when she was putting on a scratch vocal, Tina was singing along as we cut it. Oh, man, she was great, doing a rough, scratch vocal as the musicians really kicked the rhythm section in the ass.
“Tina was the vocalist. Background groups doubling and tripling so it would sound like two or three dozen voices. Phil would spend a lot of time with the singers. I would split and he’d still be working on lines with the singers. The rhythm section and the horns were done together. Vocals and string parts were overdubbed later,” detailed Jack.
“Once in a while a vocalist would run through a song, but this time Tina made everybody play better. When I first heard the intro I didn't like it very much, but once it was being recorded it all made sense. It was real good.”
“I like to have all the musicians there at once,” Spector stressed to me in a 1977 interview conducted with him inside his Beverly Hills mansion for the new defunct Melody Maker.
“I put everything on 24 tracks just to see if it’s plugged in. The finished track never ends up on more than one track. I record basic tracks and then put it all onto one track or maybe two. The musicians I have never outdo me. I’m not in competition with them. I’m in complete accord with them. Then I condense. I put my voices on. Singers are instruments. They are tools to be worked with.
“You tell me how many names you immediately remember in the cast. One? Two? It's the same with Fellini, and that's what I wanted to do when I directed a recording.”
“Our echo chamber gave it the wall of sound feel,” Gold Star co-owner Stan Ross reinforced in a 2002 interview now incorporated in my 2020 book, Docs That Rock, Music That Matters.
“Dave (Gold) built the equipment and echo chamber and personally handcrafted the acoustical wall coating. We had so much fun with that echo chamber; it never sounded the same way twice. We kept tubes on longer than anyone else. Because we understood that when a kick drum kicks into a tube microphone it’s not gonna distort.”
“I used to have a theory,” Gold Star staff engineer Larry Levine mentioned to me in a 2002 interview, “that in recording songs Phil needed to tire out the musicians, or they got to the point where they were tired enough so they weren’t playing as individuals. But they would meld into the sound more that Phil had in his head.
“As far as the room sound and the drum sound went, because the rooms were small, with low ceilings, the drum sound, unlike other studios with isolation, your drums sounded the way you wanted them to sound. They would change accordingly to whatever leakage was involved.
“Phil once said to me the bane of his recording existence was the drum sound. A lot of people attribute to echo what Phil was doing. The echo enhanced the melding of the wall of sound, but it didn’t create it. Within the room itself, all of this was happening and the echo was glue that kept it together.”
Rodney Bingenheimer, before he held a weekly Sunday deejay spot on SiriusXM satellite radio this decade, as a teenager went to the recording session of "River Deep, Mountain High."
"I saw Ike & Tina Turner at The Big T.N.T. Show filming on November 29, 1965 in Hollywood at the Moulin Rouge venue on Sunset Blvd that Phil Spector produced and was the music coordinator,” Rodney proudly recalled.
“Ike & Tina were great! They did ‘I Think It’s Going to Work Out Fine’ and ‘A Fool in Love.’ Donovan, Joan Baez, the Byrds, Ray Charles, the Lovin’ Spoonful, Roger Miller, the Ronettes, Petula Clark, Bo Diddley and MFQ were also taped.
“I spent some time with the host, the actor David McCallum. We talked about music. His father was a classical musician in England. The Ronettes were amazing. The whole taping was an incredible cosmic event.
“A year later PF Sloan and I saw Ike & Tina at a club on Sunset Strip called The Galaxy. Tina did a stage trick pulling her dress above her knees as the band played. Now that was rock ‘n’ roll!
“A little later in March of ’66, I was in Hollywood and went to the Wallichs Music City record store on the corner of Sunset and Vine. I was listening to records in one of their booths and ran into Brian Wilson, who was also in the store. I told Brian that Phil was doing a session at Gold Star down the street. He said, 'Let's go!' So we walked down the block from Sunset to Santa Monica Blvd. where Gold Star was located.
“The first person I saw was Mick Jagger. He was wearing a mink fur-coat. And he sat behind the console next to Phil. Mick kept leaving the booth to use the telephone where he called a girl. I took pictures with my Brownie Instamatic camera. Mick told me I should save film and take a photo of the girl!
“Brian and I sat by the window in front of the booth in the studio during the recording of 'River Deep.' You don't leave when you're at something like this. We were transfixed. Brian didn't say a word. He soaked it in and sat there stunned. The engineers were Larry Levine and Stan Ross. Phil was in control!
“Jack Nitzsche and Phil were very tight. They were like co-pilots on the Concorde from a flight from France.
“Phil was screaming like a madman during the sessions. Tina was loud and sexy. She was wearing a wig and Go-Go boots, very sixties. Tina's vocals kept on soaring. Dennis Hopper showed up. He later took photos and did artwork for the River Deep, Mountain High album that came out much later. He was very quiet.
“Some of the musicians wore Alpaca sweaters. Phil and Jack dressed like kids. They wore clothes from DeVoss and Beau Gentry, where the Beach Boys, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones shopped. And everyone wore Caesar cologne. Even the diamond-shaped bottle looked great. They wore dark glasses and puffy-sleeve shirts, boots. They didn't look like record company people. They were listening to the song as it was played over and over. It was in the pocket.
“The single of ‘River Deep, Mountain High’ didn’t get much radio airplay on the Los Angeles stations,” lamented Rodney in January 2021.
“In late 1966 I bought the River Deep, Mountain High LP on London Records as an English import on Hollywood Blvd. at Lewin Record Paradise. Tony Hall of Decca Records did the liner notes. I love ‘I Idolize You.’”
“I did four or six tracks on that Ike and Tina Turner [River Deep, Mountain High] album, including ‘A Love Like Yours (Don’t Come Knocking Everyday),’” volunteered engineer and record producer Bones Howe to me in a 2014 interview.
“I didn’t get to know Phillip [Spector] in the late fifties and early sixties ‘cause he was working at Gold Star and I was at Radio Recorders and then I went to United.
“I knew who he was. I met him a couple of times. And then in 1966 he called me up and was doing a Tina Turner album and wanted to do the whole orchestra live and Larry Levine at Gold Star couldn’t do it. So Larry called me and asked ‘Do we think we can do this at Studio A at United?’ ‘Absolutely.’
“And I had worked with Ike and Tina at Studio B at Radio Recorders and Ike used to pay in cash. Ike had the girls and he paraded the girls. I liked Ike. He was a good guy and I had a good time working for him,” remembered Bones.
“Larry came over and clued me in on how to set up the wall of sound tape reverb echo and all that stuff. I had some idea what Stan Ross and Larry Levine had to go through at Gold Star to make Phil’s records. It was tape reverb and the chamber. I knew what it was. But doing it and finding a way to make it work on a record is a different thing. I knew what it was technically.
“For one thing, Phil had this vision of what the sound should be like. And it was his sound. And you’d hear a baritone saxophone suddenly would pop out. It just had all of these wonderful things happening in his tracks that worked with his recordings and his artists. And Phil knew the song meant something. People were buying songs not sound.”
“River Deep, Mountain High” only reached number 88 in the US Billboard singles chart, but a number 3 position in the UK market.
John Lennon called “River Deep, Mountain High” a “masterpiece.” George Harrison provided a front jacket blurb on the Spector produced Ike & Tina Turner River Deep, Mountain High album: "It is a perfect record from start to finish. You couldn't improve on it."
“River Deep, Mountain High” also impressed Mick Jagger.
In our interview, Tina reminisced, “After hearing the song he wanted us to tour England in 1966 with the Rolling Stones. The English weren't used to seeing girls with high-heeled shoes and I think they were shocked a bit.”
In 2007 I asked Andrew Loog Oldham, who managed the Rolling Stones and produced their 1963-1967 recordings, about that fabled 1966 12-date tour which started at the Royal Albert Hall on September 23rd.
In ‘66 Oldham hailed “River Deep, Mountain High” in his own paid-for advertisement in the weekly Disc and Music Echo periodicals.
“The '66 tour with Ike & Tina Turner and the Yardbirds was a give something-back-to-the- fans-type of thing. Ike & Tina were a 17-piece review; you were not making money putting them on the bill.
“On top of that, Tina had had the Phil Spector record in July, ‘River Deep, Mountain High,’ that we had championed and if we, the Stones and I, were not going to bring them over-- nobody else was. And the UK deserved to see what we had been fortunate enough to witness in the US. Long John Baldry was the host of that tour. We had so much music on the bill we could only offer him the compere spot. John was the beginning for so many- the hope. We wanted to honor that by having him on the tour.”
“Mick then came to the States in 1969 and asked us to tour America with him later in the year,” confirmed Tina in our 1975 chat. “That's when it happened.
"We played the Forum, Madison Square Garden, and all the big arenas. Like Vogue said it best: ‘They came to see Mick Jagger but they saw Ike and Tina and they've been comin' ever since.’ From there on we crossed over to the pop market and it's been that way ever since.
"Every night on our tour in Southern France we got three, four and five encores. We're much bigger in Europe than here in America. We'd need a lot of hits to be as big here. I feel we're totally accepted in Europe. I'll always remember Europe and England for making 'River Deep, Mountain High' a hit.’”
I attended college with Tony Funches. In 2016 I interviewed Tony, who in late 1969 served as Mick Jagger’s bodyguard and headed security for the Rolling Stones’ ’69 US tour.
Tony is seen in the documentary Gimme Shelter atthe ill-fatedAltamontfree concertandinside recording sessions at Muscle Shoals watching the band cut “Wild Horses” “Brown Sugar” and “You Got to Move.” During 1970-71 Funches was hired to “protect” the Doors’ Jim Morrison.
I asked Tony about Ike & Tina Turner on the US. ’69 trek.
“The Stones always supported black talent. I’ll give Keith and Mick props on this. Along with Charlie Watts and Mick Taylor, Ian Stewart, all of the Stones very early on, when I became associated with them, had no problem standing on their hind legs in front of me and extolling the virtues of all these artists that they had idolized as kids. And that impressed me quite a bit to hear that coming from them.
“Remember, at the time, as kids, England was listening to this stuff and England was still a bombed out war zone from World War 2. Rationing was still on. Everybody was dirt poor. Here are these kids in a bombed out nation that had no intra structural left and still on rationing were listening to old rhythm and blues and old acts. And when they find success they feature the original guys to do stuff?
“Ike Turner led that band every night. Absolutely. A consummate professional. Ike had been in the business before I was born. He was part of the St. Louis and Chuck Berry rhythm and blues community. As opposed to Chicago and Los Angeles. He wound up in LA in the sixties.
“Anna Mae Bullock, who became Tina Turner and her hometown was Nut Bush, Tennessee. Ike had his initial success as an arranger. And here they are, in View Park, the Baldwin Hills area, on the whole tour.
“The Rolling Stones are tied to the musical legacy of Los Angeles Modern and Kent Records. Ike and Tina along with B.B. King had been on both of those record labels.
“They are a product of Los Angeles but no one but you and I and a few homies talk about this fact. Look at the album credits in the sixties and early seventies.
“Backstage Tina was busy. Don’t mess with that woman. Leave her alone and stay out of her way. Yes she was gorgeous, but any woman who has that much energy and commands a room the way she can, give her space and peace. Stay out of her way. ‘Yes ma’am.’
“Besides, Ike had a straight razor and a derringer on him at all times. (laughs). I ain’t ready to die over this.
“B.B. King was a gentleman, wonderful cat. I was aware of his manners, his professionalism, how kind he was to everybody. Not arrogant or rude. Gracious, polite, well spoken.”
The Rolling Stones, Ike & Tina Turner, B.B. King November 8, 1969 two shows at the Fabulous Forum venue in Inglewood were monumental sonic moments in the musical history of Southern California. Terry Reid was also on the 1969 jaunt and did a set on the first show that memorable evening.
The first show started on November 8th at 11:45 pm and the second one spilled into November 9th ending at 5:15 am.
B.B. King’s “Paying the Cost to Be the Boss,” on the Bluesway/ABC record label, was a Top 10 R & B hit in 1968, and it was popular on the KGFJ-AM radio station. King’s opening slot at the Rolling Stones’ November 8, 1969, shows at the Forum was a career-changing opportunity.
B.B. wailed in front of music reviewers, rack jobbers, AM and FM deejays, booking agents, and paying folks who had never heard, let alone seen, him in action. King was worshiped on stage. It was a moment in which he knew that, by the following Christmas, his next forty five years of studio dates and jobs were going to be well taken care of.
Looking back now after a half century at that collective life-altering experience, I think Tina Turner also knew her name would be on a marquee or at least a television screen in 2020.
My fellow Forum concert attendee Paul Body is a drummer, writer and poet. We were both in that huge room alone, but together. He emailed me earlier this century.
“It was a cold November night in 1969. It was way past 12 in the morning and the first show was still going on. Man, the Stones made you wait. It was their first tour and they were way past the British Invasion, they were way past that whole English mop top thing. This was 1969, and they were the STONES. They were the World’s Greatest Rock and Roll Band. We had to wait until 2 in the morning to see if they lived up to that moniker.
“First things first, missed the opener Terry Reid, I can’t remember why. Maybe we were eating at the House of Pancakes across from the Forum. Anyway, we did get to see B. B. King do his thing. It was a slick chitlin’ circuit set. Remember this was just before ‘The Thrill Is Gone.’
“I remember that his band, Sonny and the Unusuals, had these shiny jackets on, and they were swaying to the grooves. They were super pros, and they made us forget the hours that we had spent waiting. We went to the school of blues that early morning at the Forum. Of course, he did ‘Sweet 16’ and he made ‘Lucille’ sting and bite.
“It was even later by the time the Ike and Tina Turner Revue came on complete with funky dancing Ikettes and super sexy Tina. 199 She wasn’t a lady from the canyon or anything like that. She was the sexiest thing on Prairie Avenue. This wasn’t bobby soxer or going to prom music. This was music for and about the midnight handicap. I couldn’t keep my eyes off the stage. I had seen them a few months earlier at the Rose Palace in Pasadena but they were a lot more sweaty opening for the Stones.
“By the time the Stones came on, it was real late. This was their second show of the night and from the opening riff of ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash’ they were cooking the gator, they were lean, clean, and oh so bluesy.
“You have to remember this must have been about four in morning. When they did ‘Carol,’ I thought the Forum was going to lift off. They sounded like a locomotive pulling into Barstow. They weren’t jiving.”
“As for Ike & Tina Turner, proclaimed record producer and songwriter Kim Fowley in a 2008 interview I had with him, “after touring with the Stones in 1969, the drawing power of both acts went up. New people got to see them nightly in big joints. Both B.B. and Ike & Tina went to Las Vegas. Someone is getting paid.
“I will say this: Ike Turner was the real Sam Phillips. And Ike Turner produced ‘Rocket 88.’ He was the leader of the band and he produced the record. And that was the first rock ‘n’ roll record ever and never got the credit for it. Ike Turner was the father of rock ‘n’ roll the recording studio version and he is also the father of rock ‘n’ roll guitar. Before Chuck Berry showed even showed up in a studio Ike Turner was cutting hits.”
March 2019 also marked the 50th anniversary of Ike & Tina Turner’s Outta Season album released on Blue Thumb Records in 1969. It was largely a collection of singles assembled. Tina and Bob Krasnow were the producers of the disc that spawned the a cover of Jerry Butler/Otis Redding “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long” that landed in the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The track was regularly on FM radio rotation in the Los Angeles region on KMET-FM. In addition, also check out Tina’s live “performance art” rendition of the song in Gimme Shelter.
“I met Bob Krasnow when he worked at Buddah Records,” recollected respected artist manager and record producer, Denny Bruce.
“He had started a new record label, Blue Thumb, and he gave me a call. ‘I understand you manage Magic Sam and I want to sign him.’
“I agreed to a meeting with him in his new Beverly Hills office, on Canon Drive. He was financed by GRT Tapes and had big plans for signing big acts. But he really wanted to start out with good blues acts, to keep the ‘blue’ in Blue Thumb. I told him Magic Sam was not ready, due to previous deals, for ‘awhile.’ But Mike Bloomfield and Nick Gravanites are going to produce his album, and they have good acts now looking for deals.
“I also managed Albert Collins and was able to lease his best album to Blue Thumb, Truckin’ With Albert Collins. Magic Sam and Charley Musselwhite were touring together, and I made a deal for The Chicago Blues All-Stars which was Charley and well known bluesmen as his band. Mike and Nick produced Sam Lay (original drummer of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band). I leased A Best of Clifton Chenier album, and another client of mine, Earl Hooker, came on board.
“Krasnow had been in talks with Ike Turner about a deal for Ike and Tina. Bob called me and said he needed my help in explaining to Ike how a good, raw, bluesy album is not going to make his fans turn on him. He was blunt in saying black people don’t want to hear the blues anymore.
“I met with them on Canon Drive and told Ike they were the first concert I saw when I moved to LA in 1963. Los Angeles Valley College in the girls’ gymnasium at 11 am.
“Their white bus was parked at the rear entrance. It was a yellow school bus, but now was white, with ‘The Ike & Tina Turner Revue’ painted in red on both sides. And at 11 a.m. the show began, with a comedian. Then a singer came out and did ‘Stand By Me.’ The Ikettes did two songs. Then the band plays an instrumental and Ike joined in and did some nice guitar work before saying ‘It’s star time, ladies and gentlemen.’ Tina maybe got to do three songs before the school shut them down. It was time for the next class.
“I had a nice talk with Ike about his role in blues history, and how he keeps his music and show, current. I explained the concept of the album would be in picking good songs, showcasing how good Tina sings them. I told him all of my friends love them, and want to see them playing places like the Fillmore in San Francisco, promoted by Bill Graham. The record will be promoted to FM radio and if it goes the way it should they will sharing large concert stages all over the world. Groups like the Stones want them.
“He asked me why am I so sure they are ready to play concerts? I said ‘You have Tina and the girls out front and you lead a kick-ass band.’
“Bob is telling him I’m right. Ike said ‘OK. Let’s talk about money. I have another label that wants me, and has given me a good offer. I will show it to you. I want you to match it, and then kick in 5 k more than them, and pay me in cash by this Friday night!’
Bob says ‘Ike, they have made you a damn good offer. I’m willing to have cash for you this Friday.’ Ike says ‘I want the 5 grand, or no deal.’ Ike says “Take it or leave it.’ Bob laughs and replies, ‘Ike, 5 grand is a good night’s show in your pocket.’
“Now Ike gets mad. ‘Maybe you haven’t noticed but I work six nights a week, with this band, playing one-niters all over SoCal, so we go home and sleep in our own beds. I have 7 or 8 people on stage that must be paid. One cat leaves because he can make more money for less work, I’m screwed. Now, I have a new musician, or female singers, and make the band rehearse so new cats know the show. And we ain’t getting 5 grand playing Pancho’s in Redondo Beach!’
“It was a club in the South Bay area. Ike told me he liked playing there. He and Tina would still be at home when the band started playing. I think he said it took about 30-45 minutes to get there. And the house was always packed!
“I said to Bob “Ike ain’t bull shittin’. This is business.’
“Bob and Ike walked across the street to the bank, on Friday, ten minutes before they closed.”
(Harvey Kubernik is the author of 19 books, including Canyon Of Dreams: The Magic And The Music Of Laurel Canyon and Turn Up The Radio! Rock, Pop and Roll In Los Angeles 1956-1972.
Sterling/Barnes and Noble in 2018 published Harvey and Kenneth Kubernik’s The Story Of The Band: From Big Pink To The Last Waltz. For summer 2021 the duo has written a multi-narrative volume on Jimi Hendrix for the publisher.
Otherworld Cottage Industries in 2020 published Harvey’s book, Docs That Rock, Music That Matters, featuring interviews with D.A. Pennebaker, Chris Hegedus, Albert Maysles, Murray Lerner, Morgan Neville, Dr. James Cushing, Curtis Hanson, Michael Lindsay-Hogg, Andrew Loog Oldham, Dick Clark, Ray Manzarek, John Densmore, Robby Krieger, Travis Pike, Allan Arkush, and David Leaf, among others.
Kubernik’s writings are in several book anthologies, most notably The Rolling Stone Book Of The Beats and Drinking With Bukowski. Harvey penned a back cover endorsement for author Michael Posner’s book on Leonard Cohen that Simon & Schuster, Canada published in October 2020, Leonard Cohen, Untold Stories: The Early Years)
This century Harvey wrote the liner note booklets to the CD re-releases of Carole King’s Tapestry, Allen Ginsberg’s Kaddish, Elvis Presley The ’68 Comeback Special and The Ramones’ End of the Century.
In November 2006, Harvey Kubernik was a speaker discussing audiotape preservation and archiving at special hearings called by The Library of Congress and held in Hollywood, California.
Harvey was also spotlighted in the 2013 BBC-TV documentary Bobby Womack Across 110th Street, directed by James Meycock. Bobby Womack, Ronnie Wood of the Rolling Stones, Regina Womack, actor Antonio Vargas, Chuck D of Public Enemy, Damon Albarn of Blur and the Gorillaz, and Bill Withers are featured.
In summer of 2019, Harvey was interviewed for director Matt O’Casey on his BBC4-TV digital arts channel Christine McVie, Fleetwood Mac’s Songbird. The cast includes Christine McVie, Stan Webb of Chicken Shack, Mick Fleetwood, Stevie Nicks, John McVie, Heart’s Nancy Wilson, Mike Campbell, Neil Finn, and producer Richard Dashut. The premiere broadcast was in September 2020.
In 2019 Harvey Kubernik was an interview subject in the Chris Sibley & David Tourje-directed short documentary entitled John Van Hamersveld:Crazy World Ain’t It. Van Hamersveld designed the iconic Endless Summer visual image and album covers for the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Jefferson Airplane, Grateful Dead, Bob Dylan, the Beach Boys, the Kaleidoscope, and Blondie.
During 2020 Harvey Kubernik served as a Consultant on the 2-part documentary Laurel Canyon: A Place in Time directed by Alison Ellwood. Kubernik is currently working on a documentary about Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member singer/songwriter Del Shannon.
Kubernik also appears as a screen interview subject for director/producer Neil Norman’s GNP Crescendo documentary, The Seeds: Pushin’ Too Hard. Jan Savage and Daryl Hooper ofthe Seeds participated along with Bruce Johnston of the Beach Boys, Iggy Pop, Kim Fowley, Jim Salzer, the Bangles, photographer Ed Caraeff, Mark Weitz of the Strawberry Alarm Clock and Johnny Echols of Love. Narrator is Miss Pamela Des Barres.
This decade Harvey was filmed for the currently in-production documentary about former Hollywood landmark Gold Star Recording Studio and co-owner/engineer Stan Ross produced and directed by Brad Ross and Jonathan Rosenberg. Brian Wilson, Herb Alpert, Richie Furay, Darlene Love, Mike Curb, Chris Montez, Bill Medley, Don Randi, Hal Blaine, Slim Jim Phantom, Shel Talmy, Don Peake, Kim Fowley, Johnny Echols, Gloria Jones, Carol Kaye, Marky Ramone, David Kessel and Steven Van Zandt have been lensed).
