Ike Turner Couldn't Beat The Grim Reaper
Thursday December 13, 2007 @ 05:30 PM
By: ChartAttack.com Staff

Ike Turner

Rock 'n' roll pioneer Ike Turner died in his home in suburban San Diego, California on Wednesday at the age of 76.

Here at ChartAttack, instead of mourning a musician's death, we prefer to celebrate his or her life and offer reasons why that artist was cool. But Turner was a cocaine-addicted bastard who was arrested on drug and weapon charges and spent 17 months in prison, and was accused of cheating on and brutally abusing his best known ex-wife, Tina Turner, so it wouldn't be quite right to honour him in that way. So we'll just offer some of his accomplishments and contributions to music:

• Turner recorded a song featuring distorted electric guitar called "Rocket 88" at the famed Sun Studios in Memphis, Tennessee. It's often credited with being the first rock 'n' roll song and became a #1 hit.
• Elvis Presley used to sneak into "blacks only" clubs in Memphis to see Turner perform before Presley became a star.
• Turner worked with such blues and rock greats as Elmore James, B.B. King, Buddy Guy, Howlin' Wolf, Little Walter, Muddy Waters, Little Milton, Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix, as well as more recently with younger acts Gorillaz and The Black Keys.
• Turner discovered an 18-year-old singer named Anna Mae Bullock, who he married and helped refashion into Tina Turner.
• The Ike And Tina Turner Revue's 1966 hit, "River Deep, Mountain High," was one of the finest achievements in the career of producer Phil Spector (another abusive bastard), although it's been reported that Spector wouldn't let Ike into the studio with Tina.
• Ike and Tina's cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Proud Mary" is thought by many to be better than the original, and it won them a Grammy Award for best R&B vocal performance by a group.
• Turner's songs have been sampled by a number of hip-hop artists.
• Ike and Tina were inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in 1991, but he couldn't attend the ceremony because he was behind bars.
• Turner won a best traditional blues album Grammy Award this year for his final LP, Risin' With The Blues.