Ike & Tina Turner - Wanna Take You Higher '2022

Tracks list

Tracklist:

1. Please Leave Me Alone (03:19)
2. Nutbush City Limits (02:54)
3. Bootsey Whitelaw (04:41)
4. Bolic (02:27)
5. Golden Empire (03:42)
6. Rockin' & Rollin' (02:58)
7. I Wanna Jump (02:34)
8. Sexy Ida (02:25)
9. Living For The City (03:26)
10. Come Together (03:36)
11. Proud Mary (04:55)
12. River Deep, Mountain High (03:27)
13. I Want To Take You Higher (02:51)


 moreIzear Luster "Ike" Turner, Jr. was born in Clarksdale, MS, in 1931;
initially a pianist, he formed his first band in high school and put together
the Kings of Rhythm in the late '40s. In 1951, that group cut the pivotal
"Rocket 88," a tune often pinpointed as the first ever rock & roll record;
however, since sax player Jackie Brenston took the vocal, the song was credited
to Brenston & His Delta Cats rather than Turner & the Kings of Rhythm. Not long
after, Turner switched from piano to guitar, and he and his band became a
prolific session outfit in Memphis, backing various Sun artists and bluesmen
during the early '50s. Turner moved the Kings of Rhythm to East St. Louis in the
mid-'50s, where they became kingpins of the local R&B circuit. In 1956, he met a
teenage, gospel-trained singer from Nutbush, TN, named Anna Mae Bullock, and
promised her a chance to sing with his band. That chance kept failing to
materialize, until one night Bullock simply grabbed the microphone and started
belting. Impressed, Turner made her a part of his revue, changing her name to
Tina. After Tina became pregnant by the band's saxophonist, Raymond Hill, she
moved into Turner's house, an arrangement that led to their own relationship;
the two were married in 1958 and soon had a child of their own.

In late 1959, Turner's band entered the studio to cut a song called "A Fool in
Love" for the Sue Records label. The scheduled male vocalist failed to show up
for the session, and Tina was pressed into service. Released in 1960, "A Fool in
Love" shot to the number two spot on the R&B charts, also making the pop Top 30.
Tina was now clearly the focal point of the act, which Turner rechristened the
Ike & Tina Turner Revue; with a large, horn-filled ensemble and a group of leggy
backup singers dubbed the Ikettes (who complemented Tina's short-skirted,
uninhibited gyrating), the Revue eventually developed a reputation for putting
on one of the most exciting live shows in R&B. The R&B-chart hits came fast and
furious during the early '60s: 1961's "I Idolize You" (number five) and "It's
Gonna Work Out Fine" (number two), 1962's "Poor Fool" (number four) and "Tra La
La La La" (number nine). It was an impressive run, but the well went dry over
the next several years; Ike supplied much of the band's original material, and
although he was responsible for many of the early successes, he simply wasn't a
world-class songwriter who could deliver hit-caliber tunes with regularity. Much
of the Revue's repertoire consisted of bluesy, chitlin circuit R&B that wasn't
exceptionally memorable. Ike & Tina branched out from Sue Records and spent the
next few years issuing records on additional labels, including Kent, Modern, and
Loma. While they had some undeniable high points and several chart entries, none
reached the level of their initial run of Top Ten hits.

In 1966, the Turners worked with legendary producer Phil Spector, who was
seeking a way to restore his artistic and commercial standing at the forefront
of pop music in the wake of advances by the Beach Boys and Beatles. The powerful
instrument that was Tina's voice appealed to Spector's sense of grandeur, and he
conceived of a massive-scale production framing that voice that would rank as
his greatest masterpiece. Ike already had a reputation for demanding control,
and Spector struck his deal accordingly: although the records would be fully
credited to Ike & Tina Turner, Ike would not be allowed to enter the studio or
alter the finished recordings (in effect, Spector was paying him not to meddle).
The centerpiece of Spector's collaboration with Tina was "River Deep - Mountain
High," a monumental pop symphony that cost over $22,000 to produce (in 1966,
this was a whopping sum for an album, let alone a single). The single
represented Spector's so-called Wall of Sound style at its most gloriously
excessive, and Tina's was one of the few voices in popular music strong enough
to cut through the monolithic orchestral backing. With the high cost and his own
slipping stature, Spector was betting the farm on "River Deep - Mountain High,"
and although it rocketed into the British Top Five and made Tina a star in the
U.K., it flopped in America, where its mixture of Black and white musical
aesthetics was still slightly ahead of its time. A crushed Spector retreated
from the music business not long after, and his Philles label yanked the
accompanying album of the same name from American release (Spector wound up
producing only five of the 12 cuts). Although some critics dismiss "River Deep -
Mountain High" as overproduced bombast, many still consider it one of rock's
greatest singles; George Harrison famously described it as "a perfect record
from start to finish."

After the Spector deal fell through, Ike & Tina returned to their somewhat
mercenary recording habits, cutting songs for Modern and Innis, then moving to
Minit and Blue Thumb in 1969. That year, they went on the road as the opening
act for the Rolling Stones, and Ike slightly retooled the Revue's sound to
appeal to white rock audiences in addition to their core Black following. In
1970, they signed with Liberty/United Artists and recorded Come Together, which
incorporated contemporary rock & roll covers into their repertoire; versions of
the Beatles' title track and Sly & the Family Stone's "I Want to Take You
Higher" made the R&B Top 30. Released later that year, Workin' Together became
the most popular album of their career, making the Top 25 on the strength of a
storming reinterpretation of CCR's "Proud Mary." Featuring a notorious spoken
intro by Tina, the "nice...and rough" version of "Proud Mary" gave Ike & Tina
their first Top Five hit on the pop charts, and returned them to the same
heights on the R&B side as well; it also won them a Grammy. The covers gimmick
couldn't last forever, though, and their formula soon grew predictable; their
last major success was 1973's "Nutbush City Limits," a semi-autobiographical
song written by Tina that made the R&B Top 20 and just missed that placing on
the pop side. By that point, Tina had grown increasingly uninterested in the
duo's well-established act, and was tiring of the largely unchallenging material
she continued to perform.

Unfortunately, the music itself wasn't the only factor in Ike & Tina's downturn.
As a bandleader, Ike had long been a disciplinarian, but during the '60s he
developed severe addictions to alcohol and, especially, cocaine. Wanting to
maintain control over the star of his show at any cost, Turner kept his wife in
line through an increasingly violent pattern of emotional and physical abuse;
often drug-related, his flights of rage could result in severe beatings or burns
that pushed Tina to attempt suicide in 1968, according to her autobiography. She
continued to endure Ike's dominance through the early '70s, and her performances
were clearly weary by the end; finally, she walked out on her husband and
generally declined to pursue claims for financial compensation from their work
together. Their divorce became official in 1976. After a long period of
struggle, Tina re-emerged triumphantly in the '80s as a superstar solo act; Ike,
meanwhile, ran his own recording studio for a time, but his drug problems
worsened, resulting in several arrests. Sadly, and perhaps fittingly, he was
serving prison time when he and his former wife were jointly inducted into the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991, and was unable to attend the ceremony. ~
Steve Huey

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