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Transcript

Ike and Tina Turner: The Inventor and Queen of Rock ‘N’ Roll · DISGRACELAND

0:00
Speaker 1: Disgraceland as a production of Double Elvis.
0:16
Speaker 2: The stories about rock and roll pioneer Ike Turner are insane,
0:20
Speaker 2: as are the stories about his volatile relationship with his wife,
0:23
Speaker 2: Tina Turner. I claim to have been married more than
0:27
Speaker 2: a dozen times and to have spent more than eleven
0:29
Speaker 2: million dollars on cocaine over the course of his life.
0:33
Speaker 2: He once fired Jimmy Hendrix from his band, and he
0:36
Speaker 2: discovered Tina Turner, who, among her many other accomplishments, top
0:39
Speaker 2: McJagger to dance. During their marriage, Ike Turner grew heavily
0:44
Speaker 2: addicted to coke, and as a result, his natural rough
0:47
Speaker 2: and tumble demeanor intensified. He beat his wife, a musical partner, Tina, mercilessly.
0:53
Speaker 2: Tina Turner was a raw talent whose singing style fit
0:57
Speaker 2: naturally into Ike's patented rough take on rhythm and blues,
1:00
Speaker 2: a style that befittes demons. Together, they were, as Tina
1:04
Speaker 2: would later proclaim, nice and rough. But with or without Tina,
1:08
Speaker 2: Ike Turner was mean and dangerous, the epitome of the
1:11
Speaker 2: bad bad man. While married to Tina, he built a
1:15
Speaker 2: sexual layer over his studio for his groupies and hangers
1:18
Speaker 2: on kept a gun on him almost always and grew
1:21
Speaker 2: accustomed to making his own drug runs in the Hollywood
1:23
Speaker 2: Hills and his rolls Royce by himself. Ike and Tina
1:28
Speaker 2: Turner had one of the most violent and volatile relationships
1:31
Speaker 2: in rock and roll history. But they made great music.
1:34
Speaker 2: And that music you heard at the top of the
1:35
Speaker 2: show that wasn't great music. That was a preset loop
1:39
Speaker 2: from my melotron called Melo Sachs bossa BK one. I
1:44
Speaker 2: played you that loop because I can't afford the rights
1:46
Speaker 2: to kiss and Say Goodbye by the Manhattans. And why
1:50
Speaker 2: would I play you that specific slice of deep throated
1:53
Speaker 2: slow jam cheese.
1:54
Speaker 3: Could I afford it?
1:55
Speaker 2: Because that was the number one song in America on
1:58
Speaker 2: July twenty seven, teen seventy six, And that was the
2:02
Speaker 2: day Tina finally split from Ike, severing one of rock
2:05
Speaker 2: and roll's most talented couples forever, and took our first
2:08
Speaker 2: triumphant steps towards cementing her own legacy as one of
2:12
Speaker 2: pop music's greatest icons. On this episode, mellow Sax's Deep
2:17
Speaker 2: Throated Cheese and the rough music and relationship with Ike
2:21
Speaker 2: and Tina Turner.
2:22
Speaker 3: I'm Jake Brennan in This This Disgraceland.
2:38
Speaker 2: The show that night was at Caesar's Palace, but the
2:40
Speaker 2: cocaine was at the International Hotel Las Vegas. Gigs started
2:45
Speaker 2: early and so they then ended early, which meant Ike
2:49
Speaker 2: Turner world class night. Owl needed to find a way
2:52
Speaker 2: to occupy himself for the rest of the night, and
2:55
Speaker 2: that meant sex, and if he was going to take
2:58
Speaker 2: advantage of all that Vegas had to offer for then
3:00
Speaker 2: cocaine was necessary for stamina. Not that Ike Turner needed
3:04
Speaker 2: motivation for sex, but coke got them high and had
3:07
Speaker 2: the added benefit of not derailing him sexually like most
3:11
Speaker 2: other drugs.
3:13
Speaker 3: When his show business workloads.
3:14
Speaker 2: Started to pick up back in the fifties, Ike was
3:17
Speaker 2: so anti drug that he fired members of his band,
3:20
Speaker 2: The Kings of Rhythm if they were even suspected of using.
3:24
Speaker 2: Ike had seen dope heroin creep into the scene and
3:26
Speaker 2: start to cause real problems. Heroin was originally a jazz
3:30
Speaker 2: man's drug. Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, and Miles Davis were
3:34
Speaker 2: all known users, but as various styles of American roots
3:39
Speaker 2: music filtered into one potent mix to become rock and roll,
3:42
Speaker 2: various drugs of choice from various musicians affiliated with those
3:45
Speaker 2: styles came along for the ride. Ray Charles was hooked
3:48
Speaker 2: on heroin by the late nineteen forties and rock and
3:51
Speaker 2: roll was still a decade away, so dope wasn't going
3:55
Speaker 2: to cut it for Ike Turner. He had too much
3:58
Speaker 2: to do dealing with his band members. It was a
4:00
Speaker 2: full time headache, and there was always a record label
4:02
Speaker 2: calling and harassing him for the latest overdue single or album.
4:07
Speaker 2: Ike worked hard. His schedule, like him, was rough when
4:11
Speaker 2: not writing, recording or blowing off steam. There were the
4:14
Speaker 2: live shows during the first part of his career, six
4:16
Speaker 2: to seven nights a week of hard work. Some of
4:19
Speaker 2: those early Chitlin circuit gigs literally went all night long.
4:23
Speaker 2: Ike and Tina began to find success with their first
4:26
Speaker 2: singles think It's Going to Work Out Fine and I
4:28
Speaker 2: Idolize You in the early sixties, but now, due in
4:31
Speaker 2: part to Tina's growing domesticity, I cut the touring schedule
4:35
Speaker 2: back to three to five shows a week. Still, the
4:38
Speaker 2: schedule was relentless, just as Ike liked it, so heroin
4:42
Speaker 2: wasn't going to cut it. Something else was needed, something strong,
4:46
Speaker 2: where the desired effect was mania, not oblivion. That was
4:50
Speaker 2: sort of the pitch King Curtis made the Ike some
4:52
Speaker 2: years ago backstage after a gig. Ike, Man, you're right
4:56
Speaker 2: not to mess with that brown stuff. It'll make you soft.
5:00
Speaker 2: This stuff, it'll make you go, go go all night long.
5:04
Speaker 2: Ike was impressed. King Curtis blew hard just like Ike's
5:08
Speaker 2: Idyl Louis Jordan and the cocaine. The way it looked
5:11
Speaker 2: it was almost pretty white, pure looking, packaged up like
5:15
Speaker 2: a little pillow inside of King Curtis's saxophone case. Three
5:19
Speaker 2: thousand dollars worth. That was a lot of money for
5:21
Speaker 2: a lot of cocaine. Ike was flushed, so what the hell?
5:25
Speaker 2: It was an investment. He thought he'd share it with
5:27
Speaker 2: the band get him going for real cooking. Ike pulled
5:30
Speaker 2: out a stack of hundreds and peeled off three k
5:32
Speaker 2: for Curtis. He grabbed the massive bag of coke and
5:35
Speaker 2: stuffed it into his own bag and hit the street
5:37
Speaker 2: in search of his hotel. Forty five minutes later, he
5:41
Speaker 2: was sprinting out of that same hotel and back toward
5:43
Speaker 2: the venue to lay and asked looking on King Curtis,
5:46
Speaker 2: the likes of which he'd never seen. The coke wasn't coke.
5:50
Speaker 2: It was dreno or baking soda or flour, or some
5:52
Speaker 2: impure combination of the three. He'd been had by the
5:56
Speaker 2: sax man, who by now was nowhere in sight, long
5:58
Speaker 2: gone in the wind. Ike learned a lesson that night.
6:04
Speaker 2: Never trust no one, especially not a dealer. From then on,
6:08
Speaker 2: Ike made as many deals as he could by himself,
6:11
Speaker 2: no matter how famous he got, and he always always
6:14
Speaker 2: sampled the product before purchasing it, so he was super
6:19
Speaker 2: high when he exited room three zero zero nine on
6:21
Speaker 2: the thirtieth floor of the International Hotel that night in
6:24
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy one. The dealer had set him upright. Ike
6:29
Speaker 2: paid more than three grand and ended up with less
6:31
Speaker 2: coke than Curtis tried selling him back in the day.
6:34
Speaker 2: But Ike, despite the inflation, was happy, if not satisfied.
6:39
Speaker 2: Satisfaction would come later in his suite back at Caesar's.
6:42
Speaker 2: While Tina slept in her suite quietly on another floor
6:46
Speaker 2: of the hotel, Ike and a few select male members
6:49
Speaker 2: of his band would party their way into the morning
6:52
Speaker 2: through a mountain of cocaine in a rhythm King's harem
6:54
Speaker 2: of Vegas showgirls. But at the moment, Ike was moving
6:58
Speaker 2: quick down the hall on his brain as usual. He
7:02
Speaker 2: heard the familiar ding of the elevator and then a
7:04
Speaker 2: loud gaggle of slow moving Southern voices surrounding the entourage
7:08
Speaker 2: exited through the elevator doors. The group of men moved
7:12
Speaker 2: toward him, all dark shades, brill cream and pinky rings,
7:16
Speaker 2: the smell of cheap cologne and bad barbecue making its
7:18
Speaker 2: way out in front of them and down the hall
7:20
Speaker 2: toward Ike. In the middle of the gaggle, Ike recognized
7:24
Speaker 2: a distinct laugh, deep resonant, raspy, infectious. As Ike approached,
7:31
Speaker 2: the entourage split, revealing in its center the one and
7:34
Speaker 2: only King of rock and Roll, Elvis Presley. Ike Turner,
7:39
Speaker 2: not one to be easily impressed, was, for a split
7:41
Speaker 2: second anyways, shocked, not by Elvis's celebrity but by his size.
7:46
Speaker 2: Ike hadn't seen the King since the sixty eight Comeback
7:49
Speaker 2: special on NBC a couple years prior, where Elvis presented
7:53
Speaker 2: a morse s felt, if not more seasoned, version of
7:55
Speaker 2: himself in an effort to reclaim his crown from the
7:58
Speaker 2: hippies who'd stolen the throne, turning on and tuning out.
8:02
Speaker 2: But here now was Vegas Elvis, and to Ike he
8:06
Speaker 2: was one fat looking motherfucker who looked like he'd seen
8:08
Speaker 2: better days. He certainly didn't look like no king king
8:12
Speaker 2: of rock and roll shit. Rock and roll was a genre.
8:15
Speaker 2: Ike Turner had every right to claim he invented. So
8:18
Speaker 2: called experts debated the subject, but the fact was that
8:21
Speaker 2: there was no rock and roll before Rocket eighty eight,
8:24
Speaker 2: and it was Ike Turner's mind that launched Rocket eighty eight.
8:27
Speaker 2: That song had that boogie woogie rock and roll vibe
8:30
Speaker 2: before any of that hip shaking, hillbilly shit Elvis put out.
8:33
Speaker 2: That brought him to the attention of Colonel Parker, who
8:35
Speaker 2: eventually brought Elvis to RCA, into Hollywood, and thus rock
8:38
Speaker 2: and roll to the world over, making teenagers piss their
8:42
Speaker 2: pants and screamed so loud that they drowned out the
8:44
Speaker 2: reverberations of Rocket eighty eight, and Ike Turners claimed any
8:47
Speaker 2: sort of throne. But to Ike Turner, a man who
8:51
Speaker 2: knew a thing or two about a thing or two,
8:53
Speaker 2: number one being rock, number two being roll, Elvis Presley
8:56
Speaker 2: was as much a king as king. Curtis was a
8:58
Speaker 2: coke dealer despite whatever coked up look of shock Ike
9:02
Speaker 2: Turner had on his face there in the hallway of
9:05
Speaker 2: the thirtieth floor of the International Hotel. There was no
9:08
Speaker 2: mistaking who he was, Ike motherfucking Turner, and Elvis was
9:11
Speaker 2: happier than a pig and shit to see him. A
9:14
Speaker 2: big smile broke over his fat face. Oh man, Ike Turner,
9:19
Speaker 2: can you believe it? Boys? Elvis went straight at Ike.
9:23
Speaker 2: Ike stiffened his backbone, clenched his fists, and steeled himself.
9:26
Speaker 2: He was about to lay a hard ride on the
9:28
Speaker 2: king when Elvis offered his hand to shake Ike's.
9:31
Speaker 3: Man, it's good to see you. Do you recognize me?
9:35
Speaker 2: Ike give him a puzzled look, stared said nothing, but
9:38
Speaker 2: thought recognize you, motherfucker? I have eyes, don't I? Elvis Presley.
9:44
Speaker 2: Elvis kept at it. Hey, do you remember me? Ike's
9:48
Speaker 2: expression softened to touch. Elvis is getting more excited from
9:52
Speaker 2: back in Memphis. Man the juke joined on eleventh used
9:54
Speaker 2: to let me in the back door. Ike remembered. Now
9:58
Speaker 2: it was distant button Elvis's fat mug. I could see
10:01
Speaker 2: back twenty years to another time, a time when only
10:04
Speaker 2: one of the two men had made a name for himself,
10:07
Speaker 2: and it wasn't the white man with the entourage looking
10:09
Speaker 2: at him funny. It was Ike Turner, who back in
10:12
Speaker 2: nineteen fifty one was enjoying the success of Rocket eighty eight,
10:16
Speaker 2: knocking him dead alongside Little Junior Parker and Willie Nicks
10:19
Speaker 2: and whatever bucket of blood could afford him. That night.
10:23
Speaker 2: Ike was on piano back then at those West Memphis gigs.
10:26
Speaker 2: At the gig on eleven, the piano was set up
10:28
Speaker 2: at the back of the stage, right next to the
10:30
Speaker 2: exit door which led to the alley out back, where
10:33
Speaker 2: on most knights, a good looking kid with a bad
10:35
Speaker 2: complexion and silly looking sideburns would double park his work
10:38
Speaker 2: truck and do his best to sneak into the All
10:40
Speaker 2: Black Club through the back. He had a friendly enough
10:43
Speaker 2: demeanor and for whatever reason, didn't rub Ike the wrong way,
10:47
Speaker 2: so Ike would let him in to watch the show
10:49
Speaker 2: from behind his piano, where Ike would mess around playing
10:52
Speaker 2: while standing up, googly eyeing the crowd, dancing like a fool,
10:56
Speaker 2: purposefully knocking his knees together and shaking his hips all
11:00
Speaker 2: abandoned all R and B and the teenage truck driver
11:03
Speaker 2: studying it all behind the piano none other than the
11:06
Speaker 2: pubescent would be king of rock and roll himself, Elvis Presley.
11:11
Speaker 3: It all came back to Ike. Now.
11:13
Speaker 2: He had no idea back then, no idea that the
11:16
Speaker 2: young kid who would blanket airways with blue suede shoes
11:19
Speaker 2: and melt teenage hearts on the big screen in Blue
11:22
Speaker 2: Hawaii was the same kid who I gave incidental rock
11:25
Speaker 2: and roll lessons to back in West Memphis at fifty one. Yeah,
11:30
Speaker 2: I recognize you, Ike said flatly, Now, if you'd excuse me,
11:34
Speaker 2: I'm late for my date. And with that Ike paraded
11:38
Speaker 2: past Elvis's entourage and down the corridor with all the
11:41
Speaker 2: entitlement of a pavity hotel, duck into the elevator, down
11:44
Speaker 2: into the lobby, and off into the night. As the
11:48
Speaker 2: elevator descended, I couldn't help but think about those days
11:51
Speaker 2: back in Memphis. But his mind took him further back
11:54
Speaker 2: past Memphis to Clarksdale, Mississippi, where he grew up in
11:57
Speaker 2: a modest house on Washington Avenue, a house that, back
12:01
Speaker 2: in the late nineteen thirties was nothing more than a
12:03
Speaker 2: house of horror for the young boy Ike Turner. The
12:07
Speaker 2: first thing he heard were the trucks screeching up out front.
12:11
Speaker 2: There wasn't a lot of traffic in Ike's childhood neighborhood,
12:14
Speaker 2: especially not at night. Then the voice is angry, excited,
12:18
Speaker 2: and unmistakably white. Then the door busted open and broke
12:22
Speaker 2: and clean off its lock and loudly puncturing the wall
12:24
Speaker 2: with the backside of the doorknob. The man entered the
12:27
Speaker 2: Turner home with bats, loudly forcing themselves in through everything
12:31
Speaker 2: in their way. Ike rose up out of his bed
12:33
Speaker 2: and ran to his doorway to see what was happening.
12:36
Speaker 2: And that's when he saw his father being dragged, kicking
12:38
Speaker 2: and screaming down the hall by a small mob of
12:41
Speaker 2: white men. And they were gone almost as quickly as
12:43
Speaker 2: they came, stealing away his father in the dead of night,
12:47
Speaker 2: leaving behind his mother hysterical, screaming, crying, horrified. Ike was petrified,
12:52
Speaker 2: unable to move, unable to cry, scared in the stillness,
12:56
Speaker 2: hardened in that one moment, like a rock a stone
12:59
Speaker 2: result to make sure nobody ever came into his house
13:02
Speaker 2: again like that, not without a fight. An hour or
13:06
Speaker 2: so later, there was the sound of familiar tires rumbling
13:09
Speaker 2: down the dirt road and squealing to a stop in
13:12
Speaker 2: front of their house, voices a loud thud, the acceleration
13:16
Speaker 2: of the truck once again, and then nothing. Ike with
13:19
Speaker 2: his mom and toe, ran out to the front yard,
13:21
Speaker 2: and there, lying on the grass was what remained of
13:24
Speaker 2: the man of the house, Ike's dad, a mangled mess
13:28
Speaker 2: of broken bones, blood and bruises, unconscious but breathing, barely
13:32
Speaker 2: dead quiet. Serious medical treatment for African Americans and segregated
13:40
Speaker 2: nineteen thirties Clarksdale, Mississippi was poor at best. Extended hospital stays,
13:45
Speaker 2: even for the near dead, were not allowed, so the
13:48
Speaker 2: Board of Health built a tent, a tent in the
13:51
Speaker 2: Turner's backyard for Ike's dad to convalesce.
13:54
Speaker 3: There.
13:54
Speaker 2: He remained for several years, immobile in a near vegetative
13:58
Speaker 2: state in a tent backyard. The beating, it was later learned,
14:03
Speaker 2: was because Ike's dad had supposedly been sleeping with a
14:06
Speaker 2: white woman. Whatever the reason, the state he was in
14:10
Speaker 2: in his presence in the backyard was a constant reminder
14:13
Speaker 2: of the brutally racist and rough reality Ike Turner lived
14:16
Speaker 2: in mercifully. Ike's father, after a few years, finally succumbed
14:21
Speaker 2: to his wounds and died. Ike's mom remarried, and from
14:25
Speaker 2: there things somehow got worse for Ike. His stepfather drunk
14:29
Speaker 2: most of the time, violent all of the time, beat
14:31
Speaker 2: young Ike regularly, and by age six, Ike was sleeping
14:34
Speaker 2: with an adult neighborho would invite the boy into her
14:36
Speaker 2: yard to feed her chickens and proceeded to take advantage
14:39
Speaker 2: of him. He was also raped repeatedly by two other
14:43
Speaker 2: local adult women, a charge that in adulthood, Ike didn't
14:46
Speaker 2: seem to mind and used to burnish his manly image.
14:50
Speaker 2: But his childhood was a nightmare until he found music
14:54
Speaker 2: over at Clarksdale's local radio station WROX, where Ike Turner,
14:59
Speaker 2: by the time he was eight years old, would spend
15:01
Speaker 2: most of his days at first running errands for the
15:04
Speaker 2: local DJs, and eventually subbing for them when they needed
15:07
Speaker 2: time off. It was during this time that Ike met
15:10
Speaker 2: piano player pine Top Perkins and convinced his mother to
15:13
Speaker 2: pay for piano lessons. Ike graduated from Pinetop anyway, having
15:19
Speaker 2: learned piano, he moved on to teaching himself guitar. It
15:22
Speaker 2: moved into the Riverside Hotel in Clarksdale, the local establishment
15:26
Speaker 2: that hosted most of the day's prominent touring musicians, Duke
15:29
Speaker 2: Ellington and Sonny Boy Williamson among them. The Riverside, along
15:33
Speaker 2: with downtown Clarksdale, was Ike Turner's campus. His education was
15:38
Speaker 2: in full swing, his professors some of the greatest blues
15:41
Speaker 2: and jazz men of all time.
15:43
Speaker 3: Ike took his.
15:44
Speaker 2: Education and formed the Ike Turner Kings of Rhythm his
15:47
Speaker 2: master's thesis, Rocket eighty eight, a single that sold close
15:50
Speaker 2: to half a million copies, but only made Ike im
15:53
Speaker 2: easily twenty dollars due to the fact that Ike wasn'tcredited
15:56
Speaker 2: on the original recording. But the song did make Ike
15:59
Speaker 2: Turner one of the most happy being musicians in Memphis
16:01
Speaker 2: at the time, and that was something money couldn't buy.
16:05
Speaker 2: But Ike quickly outgrew Memphis. New gigs were needed and
16:08
Speaker 2: new digs desired, so Ike Turner and his Kings of
16:11
Speaker 2: Rhythm headed north about three hundred miles to Saint Louis,
16:14
Speaker 2: where he would discover the raw talents of seventeen year
16:17
Speaker 2: old Anime Bullock, who Ike would soon make known to
16:20
Speaker 2: the world over as Tina Turner. Tina Turner grew up
16:42
Speaker 2: as Anime Bullock in a one horse town in Tennessee
16:45
Speaker 2: called Nutbush, with a population of two hundred and fifty
16:48
Speaker 2: nine and exactly one road running through it. The town
16:52
Speaker 2: had a church, a post office in a schoolhouse with
16:55
Speaker 2: a single room, where Anime studied until the ninth grade.
16:58
Speaker 2: Nutbush was deep cotton country, a place where African American
17:02
Speaker 2: sharecroppers tended fields that were once worked by their slave ancestors,
17:08
Speaker 2: Floyd and Zelma Bullock. Anime's parents were a sharecroppers, and
17:12
Speaker 2: while Tina would later say she never felt poor, there
17:15
Speaker 2: was always food on the table when sometimes even new clothes,
17:19
Speaker 2: But life in the Bullock household was far from happy.
17:22
Speaker 2: Annime and her sister were routinely shuttled among the homes
17:25
Speaker 2: of grandparents and cousins in and around Hayward County, but
17:28
Speaker 2: even still, that was a lot better than being around
17:31
Speaker 2: when their parents were fighting. Oftentimes the spats turned physical.
17:35
Speaker 2: Divorce was inevitable. When her mother, Zelma had had enough
17:39
Speaker 2: of being a wife and mother enough of Nutbush in
17:42
Speaker 2: its one horse, she packed up and lit out of
17:45
Speaker 2: town on her own without her eleven year old daughter Anime,
17:49
Speaker 2: without even saying goodbye. For Anime, this was a hurt
17:52
Speaker 2: that was never going to go away, and for the
17:54
Speaker 2: next few years she was raised by her grandmother in
17:57
Speaker 2: a tidy house with a large garden. She loved her grandmother,
18:01
Speaker 2: and her grandmother loved her, and life was as good
18:03
Speaker 2: as it could be for her parentless child until suddenly
18:05
Speaker 2: her beloved grandmother died and Anime Bullock, who was still
18:09
Speaker 2: in high school, was suddenly on her own, so she
18:12
Speaker 2: moved to Saint Louis to live with her unloving mother.
18:16
Speaker 2: A lot of things about Tina's years with Ike Turner
18:19
Speaker 2: make more sense if you remember this. When she met him,
18:22
Speaker 2: she was seventeen years old. With her big sister Aileen,
18:25
Speaker 2: she hit the Manhattan Club in East Saint Louis, where
18:28
Speaker 2: Ike and his band played. When Tina got her chance
18:31
Speaker 2: on stage, it turned out to the delight of the
18:34
Speaker 2: Manhattan Club that Aileen's little sister could sing, and Little Anne,
18:38
Speaker 2: as she was then known, loved singing and dancing and
18:40
Speaker 2: connecting with the crowd. As for Ike, he did a
18:43
Speaker 2: double take. He liked what he heard because what he
18:46
Speaker 2: heard was the sound of money. So he did what
18:48
Speaker 2: I like usually did, threw his money around like a fool.
18:51
Speaker 2: He bought Anime clothes jewelry, a fur coat. Before long
18:55
Speaker 2: she was driving a cadillact to school, and Little Anne
18:58
Speaker 2: admired the man's music and charisma and liked the idea
19:01
Speaker 2: of a career he could give her.
19:02
Speaker 3: She just had a change of name.
19:04
Speaker 2: Little Anne wasn't powerful enough for her voice, so at
19:07
Speaker 2: the age of twenty, convinced by Ike that it was
19:10
Speaker 2: the right thing to do, she took the professional name
19:12
Speaker 2: Tina Turner. Now that sounded more powerful, she went along
19:16
Speaker 2: with it. The man a good show, biss since she thought,
19:19
Speaker 2: even though when she first laid eyes on him on
19:21
Speaker 2: stage that night, she said she couldn't help thinking, God,
19:25
Speaker 2: he's ugly. At that point, Tina didn't know just how
19:29
Speaker 2: ugly it would get. Ugly and rough go hand in hand,
19:33
Speaker 2: and life with Ike was rough. The way Ike chose
19:36
Speaker 2: to live. He had a way of sapping the joy
19:38
Speaker 2: out of everything. Case in point, Ike in Tina's wedding,
19:42
Speaker 2: it was transactional, no heart, and pulled off on the
19:45
Speaker 2: fly over the border in Tijuana, Mexico. For Tina, the
19:50
Speaker 2: wedding was a straight up humiliation in the heat in
19:54
Speaker 2: the filth of the office of the very First Justice
19:56
Speaker 2: of Peace that they found Tina batted away the flies
19:59
Speaker 2: and on the dotted line. There was no bridle dress,
20:03
Speaker 2: no you may now kiss the bride, no wedding cake,
20:07
Speaker 2: just sweat, grime and a very horny Ike. Horny for what.
20:10
Speaker 2: Tina didn't know, but she could tell Ike had his
20:13
Speaker 2: thoughts on more than just her. Once the transaction was complete,
20:17
Speaker 2: Ike decided it was time to celebrate, so naturally, he
20:20
Speaker 2: took his newlywed bride to a live Tijuana sex show.
20:26
Speaker 2: Superman was his name, and he was part Carney's side
20:30
Speaker 2: show and part Central American legend, a freak show, and
20:34
Speaker 2: a main attraction twelve inches below the belt, flaccid, unbelievable
20:39
Speaker 2: to the naked eye. The rumor was that he took
20:42
Speaker 2: his name from the original Superman, not the George Reeves
20:45
Speaker 2: character from the popular American television series, but from the
20:49
Speaker 2: Cuban sex worker who worked two, sometimes three, live sex
20:53
Speaker 2: shows a night in a musty old Havana theater and
20:55
Speaker 2: went by the name Superman. Tijuana Superman, a journal or
21:00
Speaker 2: not was about to horrify the newly minted missus Ike Turner.
21:04
Speaker 2: The audience, drunk and giddy with anticipation, shifted anxiously on
21:08
Speaker 2: their beer stained wooden chairs. Dank smoke hung low throughout
21:12
Speaker 2: the club. Ike sipped his drink expressionless, a cold, flat
21:17
Speaker 2: stare fixed upon his wife, who sat quietly in fear
21:20
Speaker 2: of protesting, knowing that any complaint would invite Ike's fists
21:25
Speaker 2: to rain down upon her.
21:27
Speaker 3: As much as she didn't.
21:28
Speaker 2: Want to bear witness to a live sex show hours
21:30
Speaker 2: after getting married, or at all, for that matter, she
21:33
Speaker 2: sure as hell did not want a black eye on
21:35
Speaker 2: her wedding night, so she sat quiet, uncomfortable, scared. The
21:41
Speaker 2: music hit and the audience turned their attention to the
21:44
Speaker 2: tiny stage.
21:50
Speaker 3: MC curtain was drawn back.
21:51
Speaker 2: At center stage, there was a loosely bound female sex
21:54
Speaker 2: worker wearing next to nothing, her binds tended to by
21:58
Speaker 2: too scantily clad wind in veils made it look like
22:01
Speaker 2: traditional belly dancers. Then, from stage left, Superman appeared, wearing
22:11
Speaker 2: a dark red velvet cape. His black hair and oil
22:14
Speaker 2: slick combed straight back over his head to the nape
22:16
Speaker 2: of his neck, his skin caramel colored with beads of
22:20
Speaker 2: sweat obvious to those in the first few rows. He
22:23
Speaker 2: was tall, homely, menacing. He slowly walked the stage circling
22:29
Speaker 2: the women, before stopping and turning to the audience. He
22:33
Speaker 2: dropped his cape and robed and revealed his superpower to
22:36
Speaker 2: the crowd. Short gasps and applause spread and burst throughout
22:40
Speaker 2: the moon. The few women who were in the audience
22:42
Speaker 2: looked horrified, most of the men smiled in disbelief, and
22:46
Speaker 2: a few did their best to secretly suppress their arousal.
22:49
Speaker 2: Superman turned toward his partner in this unholy union. What
22:53
Speaker 2: came next was rough. Tina Turner covered her eyes and
22:57
Speaker 2: her husband, White Turner, held back a devilish smile. Wow
23:00
Speaker 2: sipped his drink slowly. Somehow with more menace than Superman.
23:08
Speaker 1: We'll be right back after this word word word.
23:13
Speaker 2: Back Before Tiajuana, Superman, mister and missus, Ike Turner had
23:17
Speaker 2: a different kind of relationship. Ike was betting on Tina's talent,
23:21
Speaker 2: and in the beginning it was a risk born more
23:24
Speaker 2: out of necessity and circumstance than foresight and faith. Art
23:29
Speaker 2: was late for the recording session. Ike was pissed. It
23:33
Speaker 2: was a power move. Ike knew it. Art wanted more money,
23:36
Speaker 2: but fuck that. Ike was the star. Ike was the
23:39
Speaker 2: band leader, even if he didn't sing lead. Art was
23:42
Speaker 2: only fronting the Kings of Rhythm because Ike Turner led.
23:44
Speaker 3: Him front the Kings of Rhythm.
23:46
Speaker 2: If Art wanted more bread, he could go out and
23:48
Speaker 2: get it himself, just like Ike had done. This was,
23:51
Speaker 2: after all, still America. Ike would be damned if he
23:54
Speaker 2: was going to let some glorified backup singer leverage him
23:56
Speaker 2: into increasing his salary, especially when said singer had no
24:00
Speaker 2: real leverage.
24:01
Speaker 3: So fuck them.
24:03
Speaker 2: When Art didn't show for the session, Ike simply called
24:06
Speaker 2: up one of his female backup singers into the vocal booth.
24:09
Speaker 2: Little Anne could handle the tune, I thought. He just
24:11
Speaker 2: switched the lyrics around so it could be sung from
24:14
Speaker 2: a female's perspective, and the result a rhythm in blues explosion.
24:18
Speaker 2: A Fool in Love written and recorded by Ike Turner's
24:21
Speaker 2: sung by Anime Bullock aka Tina Turner and released in
24:24
Speaker 2: July nineteen sixty on the Sue Records label. Jumped off
24:28
Speaker 2: of the vinyl and stirred listeners at their core. Tina's
24:31
Speaker 2: sultry gospel vocal intro quickly gives way to an r
24:34
Speaker 2: and b rave up that is nothing short of exhilarating.
24:37
Speaker 2: The song cooks and it quickly ascended the charts. A
24:41
Speaker 2: Fool in Love crossed over from the R and B
24:43
Speaker 2: charts to the pop charts and became a million seller.
24:46
Speaker 2: Ike and Tina Turner were suddenly stars. Tina, at twenty
24:50
Speaker 2: years old and with Ike at her side, made her
24:52
Speaker 2: first televised appearance on American Bandstand.
24:55
Speaker 3: She was nine months pregnant at the time.
24:58
Speaker 2: Ike wasn't gonna let a little thing like his a
25:00
Speaker 2: baby mama getting the way of his success. It had
25:03
Speaker 2: been a long time since his first and only hit,
25:05
Speaker 2: Rocket eighty eight, a hit he did not benefit from financially,
25:09
Speaker 2: so there was no way he wasn't going to milk
25:11
Speaker 2: this run a success for all it was worth. Tina
25:14
Speaker 2: could holler pregnants up on stage and shake it. Preggers
25:17
Speaker 2: are not And Tina brought it, sang her ass off.
25:20
Speaker 2: It was heavy, deep, and she shook it with the
25:22
Speaker 2: power of a thousand suns and let the world know
25:24
Speaker 2: that there was more than one badass on stage that night.
25:27
Speaker 2: The last name of Turner, A Fool in Love was
25:30
Speaker 2: followed by more hits, but Ike did not rest the
25:33
Speaker 2: Ike and Tina Turner review played up to three hundred
25:36
Speaker 2: shows a year on their own in support of megastars
25:39
Speaker 2: like the Rolling Stones. Ike made deal a deal writing
25:43
Speaker 2: and recording whenever you get the chance, in order to
25:45
Speaker 2: bring in as much bread as possible. Famed record producer
25:49
Speaker 2: Phil Spector came calling for Tina, not Ike. Phil paid
25:52
Speaker 2: twenty grand to get Ike to fuck off out of
25:54
Speaker 2: the studio so that he could have Tina all to
25:56
Speaker 2: himself while the tape was rolling. The result was the
25:59
Speaker 2: impecct We produced and performed Single River, Deep Mountain High.
26:04
Speaker 3: In the heady days of all of this.
26:05
Speaker 2: Success, after the Tiajuana wedding, Ike and Tina settled into
26:09
Speaker 2: the Baldwin Hills section of Los Angeles, alongside other celebrities
26:13
Speaker 2: like Tina's idol, Gray Charles. Success was sweet, but not
26:17
Speaker 2: sweet enough to mask Ike's rough nature. Ike was relentless,
26:23
Speaker 2: rain or shine, in sickness or in health. He worked
26:27
Speaker 2: Tina in this band like Georgia Mules. For Tina, it
26:31
Speaker 2: wasn't just the travel and schedule of the gigs that
26:33
Speaker 2: was rough, or later, the longer hours and the variety shows,
26:36
Speaker 2: the residency in Las Vegas. Yes, all of that took energy,
26:41
Speaker 2: but Tina herself a perfectionist gave her all on stage
26:44
Speaker 2: without fail, but it was more than the work. Ike
26:48
Speaker 2: wore her down in their private moments. The man was mean,
26:52
Speaker 2: a world class prick. When he had first bestowed the
26:55
Speaker 2: name Tina Turner upon her, she pushed back. He chosen
26:59
Speaker 2: Tina because it rhymed with Sheena of Sheena, Queen of
27:02
Speaker 2: the Jungle, the image he had in mind for his
27:04
Speaker 2: future wife. He'd also trademarked the name. He owned it,
27:08
Speaker 2: but Tina didn't want it. Anime is who I am,
27:11
Speaker 2: she said, resting her hand on her pregnant belly. Ike
27:15
Speaker 2: reacted viciously. First he screamed, Then, to her horror, he
27:19
Speaker 2: picked up a wooden shoe stretcher smacked her across the
27:22
Speaker 2: head with it. He always hit her in the head,
27:25
Speaker 2: and always was something hard and blunt. Ike used to say,
27:29
Speaker 2: a guitar player needs his hands, so he never fights
27:31
Speaker 2: with his fists. So he beat Tina about her head
27:35
Speaker 2: over and over and over until she was bloody. And
27:38
Speaker 2: then he beat her some more for crying about it.
27:40
Speaker 2: And after that he ordered her under the bed, where
27:43
Speaker 2: he would then rape her. And that was the way
27:45
Speaker 2: I turned her. Like to end an argument, piece of
27:50
Speaker 2: shit Ike pushed Tina hard. He had no patience for
27:57
Speaker 2: illness or weakness of any kind. It fucked with his
28:00
Speaker 2: total control. After torn with the rolling stones, Tina was sick.
28:05
Speaker 2: She'd driven herself into the hospital, where she was admitted
28:07
Speaker 2: and treated for TV, an illness that was practically a
28:10
Speaker 2: death sentence.
28:11
Speaker 3: Up until about.
28:12
Speaker 2: Nineteen forty making Keys sent flowers, but Ike nothing, not
28:16
Speaker 2: a He never even visited. Not much later in the relationship,
28:20
Speaker 2: Ike would humiliate Tina daily by openly sleeping with three
28:23
Speaker 2: other women who he kept at their house. At their house,
28:26
Speaker 2: Tina felt powerless and visible. She began to think of
28:30
Speaker 2: ways to escape. She went to the doctor for sleeping pills.
28:33
Speaker 2: After dinner one night, she retired to the master bathroom
28:36
Speaker 2: and swallowed them all.
28:38
Speaker 3: She placed each of the fifty pills.
28:39
Speaker 2: On her tongue one at a time, filled the paper
28:42
Speaker 2: cup with water, and gulped hard. It would be over soon,
28:45
Speaker 2: thank God, she thought. She awoke in the hospital to
28:49
Speaker 2: Ike clutching her shoulders and shaking her, screaming into her face,
28:52
Speaker 2: calling her a failure. She wasn't even woman enough to
28:55
Speaker 2: kill herself to finish the job, Ike repeated to her,
28:58
Speaker 2: over and over again she should just fucking die do
29:01
Speaker 2: him a favor. When she didn't, he told her she
29:04
Speaker 2: better have her ass out of bed on the quick
29:05
Speaker 2: because they had a gig that night. The abuse continued,
29:10
Speaker 2: physical and emotional. As Ike's use of cocaine increased, he
29:13
Speaker 2: took to beating Tina with more regularity, and the beating
29:17
Speaker 2: seemed born just as much from Ike's short coke addled
29:19
Speaker 2: fuse as they were some sick sexual kink. Somehow, Tina
29:24
Speaker 2: held on for dear life, becoming a pro at excuse
29:27
Speaker 2: making and applying makeup and just the right way to
29:29
Speaker 2: mask the darkness she was living through while it manifest
29:32
Speaker 2: about her repeatedly swollen face and head. Until nineteen seventy six, anyway,
29:40
Speaker 2: en route to Dallas from La Tina in a window
29:44
Speaker 2: seat scrunched up uncomfortably next to her husband's new pregnant girlfriend,
29:48
Speaker 2: with Ike in the coveted aisle seat next to them.
29:51
Speaker 2: Unfucking believable, Tina thought Ike had some golf and he
29:55
Speaker 2: had zero self awareness. Furthering the insult, Ike stretched himself
30:00
Speaker 2: out and lay his long legs across the laps that
30:02
Speaker 2: both of the women he thought belonged to him. For Tina,
30:06
Speaker 2: there was something about the way he imposed himself, draping
30:09
Speaker 2: his body across her and his girlfriend that got to her.
30:12
Speaker 2: The way I put his big shiny shoes on the
30:15
Speaker 2: freshly pressed slacks of her pretty white suit. The weight
30:18
Speaker 2: of him on her body, the weight of him on
30:20
Speaker 2: her life. At this moment, it was too much. Internally,
30:25
Speaker 2: Tina had reached a tipping point. But on the outside,
30:28
Speaker 2: Tina remained in her seat, still afraid to move. She
30:32
Speaker 2: didn't want another beating. The beatings were bad, but what
30:35
Speaker 2: was almost worse was the time just before the beating,
30:38
Speaker 2: the anticipation, when you felt that dreg when you knew
30:42
Speaker 2: it was coming. Throughout all of the beatings, Tina had
30:45
Speaker 2: managed to acclimate herself to the fucked up ways of
30:48
Speaker 2: her abusive husband. The way she saw it, he was
30:51
Speaker 2: so goddamn mean that once he was around, he didn't
30:53
Speaker 2: want him to leave, because then he'd have to deal
30:55
Speaker 2: with the dread of knowing he was eventually going to
30:57
Speaker 2: come back. But for Tina, in this moment the plane,
31:00
Speaker 2: something was shifting in the limo on the way to
31:04
Speaker 2: the hotel, Ike was feeling playful. He tried feeding Tina
31:08
Speaker 2: some chocolate. Normally, she'd have gone along with it and
31:11
Speaker 2: taken what he offered, even when she didn't want it.
31:13
Speaker 3: But she I kept insisting.
31:16
Speaker 2: And he eventually shoved the melting chocolate into Tina's face
31:19
Speaker 2: and it dripped onto her white suit. Normally should have
31:22
Speaker 2: brushed us off, But not today, I said.
31:25
Speaker 3: No, Tina shouted. Predictably, Ike flew into a rage.
31:32
Speaker 2: But on that day, in that limo, somewhere in the
31:34
Speaker 2: middle of that big state of Texas, Tina Turner did
31:37
Speaker 2: not endure the beating.
31:38
Speaker 3: She fought back.
31:39
Speaker 2: She fought rough and hard with her teeth and her
31:42
Speaker 2: nails and her stilettos. And when the couple emerged from
31:44
Speaker 2: the car at the hotel, they were bloody. Ike's shirt
31:47
Speaker 2: was torn and Tina's white suit was turned red with
31:49
Speaker 2: her blood. Once in the room, he raped her, then
31:53
Speaker 2: fell asleep. Tina, shaken but determined, quietly dressed and gathered
31:58
Speaker 2: a few belongings and escaped. Staggering from her injuries, she
32:02
Speaker 2: split from the hotel across the highway on foot, unafraid
32:05
Speaker 2: of the oncoming traffic. She'd survive worse. At the counter
32:09
Speaker 2: of a small one star motel, she introduced herself as
32:12
Speaker 2: if she needed any introduction. I'm Tina Turner. I need
32:16
Speaker 2: a place to stay. I have twenty six cents in
32:19
Speaker 2: my pocket, but if you give me a room, I
32:21
Speaker 2: promise I will pay it back. The clerk took a moment,
32:25
Speaker 2: surveyed her cuts and bruises, and looked through the eye
32:27
Speaker 2: and said, welcome, missus Turner.
32:30
Speaker 3: Let me show you then room.
32:46
Speaker 2: Back before Tina split from Ike, the two were the
32:49
Speaker 2: picture of domesticity on the outside, despite the horror show
32:53
Speaker 2: that was their actual relationship. Their home near suburban Englewood,
32:57
Speaker 2: with their massive Imperial Oil painting portrait the couple, state
33:01
Speaker 2: of the art, high five high pile shag, elaborate fish tanks,
33:04
Speaker 2: swimming pool, revolving door of coming and going musicians, in
33:07
Speaker 2: a steady flow of children being shuffled to and from
33:10
Speaker 2: sports practices, seemed to say nothing to see here, just
33:14
Speaker 2: a slightly eccentric rock and roll couple living the white
33:17
Speaker 2: picket fence life in our mildly ostentatious way. Tina ran
33:21
Speaker 2: the home, Ike ran the business, and taking care of
33:24
Speaker 2: business at home wasn't going to happen. So Ike built
33:27
Speaker 2: Bullock Sound his studio, a private studio where musicians were
33:31
Speaker 2: welcome and Tina could visit, but never unannounced, and of
33:35
Speaker 2: course Ike's special guests were always around.
33:38
Speaker 3: Ballock was a.
33:38
Speaker 2: Short ride away from the Turner home and operated under
33:41
Speaker 2: the guise of work, but its other purpose was his
33:44
Speaker 2: Ike's own personal clubhouse, or as Tina called it, the whorehouse.
33:49
Speaker 2: Ike had an apartment built upstairs in the studio where
33:52
Speaker 2: he spent most nights. He decorated the joint with his
33:55
Speaker 2: own flare, lots of jungle prints, candelabras, Kamasutra murals, gold
34:00
Speaker 2: played the tables, ten foot tall Romanesque statues, a garish
34:03
Speaker 2: canopied bed, and a sofa with massive hard ons for arms.
34:07
Speaker 2: Ballock Sound had other interesting features as well, like the
34:11
Speaker 2: three inch thick doors that locked automatically behind each visitor
34:14
Speaker 2: and required a secret code to exit, and the elaborate
34:17
Speaker 2: security system. Nothing strange for a recording studio except for
34:21
Speaker 2: the internal eye in the sky cameras I get installed
34:23
Speaker 2: throughout the control room in his second floor apartment. Ike
34:27
Speaker 2: kept himself busy, first with sex near constant orgies, drugged
34:32
Speaker 2: out sex slaves, burned out starlets from Hollywood. On the backside,
34:35
Speaker 2: working girls from the CD motels over by lax aspiring,
34:39
Speaker 2: I gets looking for the next big break, singing back
34:42
Speaker 2: up behind Tina. They all took their turn in Ike's barrow.
34:45
Speaker 2: When Ike wasn't partying, he was writing and recording, trying
34:48
Speaker 2: to keep up with the seventies. George Clinton and James
34:51
Speaker 2: Brown did not sleep. They had LSD and PCP, respectively.
34:56
Speaker 2: Ike had to find his own funk. It was a
34:58
Speaker 2: full time job in a assistance was needed, and that's
35:01
Speaker 2: where the cocaine came in. Lots and lots and lots
35:05
Speaker 2: and lots and lots of cocaine. Ike started freebasing in
35:09
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy four and kept a massive stockpile of coke
35:12
Speaker 2: around him at all times, once spending as much as
35:15
Speaker 2: one hundred thousand dollars in a two month period on
35:17
Speaker 2: cocaine to fuel the constant party. In ongoing recording sessions
35:21
Speaker 2: of Bolok later, I would estimate that he had spent
35:25
Speaker 2: eleven million dollars on cocaine over a fifteen year period
35:28
Speaker 2: from nineteen seventy four to nineteen ninety. During that time,
35:33
Speaker 2: he burnt a hole cleaned through his septum and would
35:35
Speaker 2: horrify friends by sticking a pen through it from one
35:38
Speaker 2: side to the other. He was also arrested ten times,
35:42
Speaker 2: convicted twice, and served hard time thirteen months of a
35:45
Speaker 2: four year sentence. The security cameras of Bolock Sound were
35:49
Speaker 2: not apparently cop proof. The voice on the other side
35:53
Speaker 2: of the door was clear, open the fuck up now,
35:56
Speaker 2: or we're coming in. Ike could see them out on
36:01
Speaker 2: the street from his massive wall of video monitors in
36:04
Speaker 2: his control room. Local cops yokels LA's mildless. It wasn't
36:09
Speaker 2: the Feds, so it would take them puttson around for
36:11
Speaker 2: an hour at least to break through the steel doors
36:13
Speaker 2: and find their way to Ike through the studio's maze.
36:15
Speaker 3: Of car doors.
36:17
Speaker 2: Ike, standing in the middle of his control room and
36:19
Speaker 2: nothing but a silk kimono in velvet slippers, calmly sipped
36:22
Speaker 2: his drink. This was the moment he'd waited for all
36:25
Speaker 2: of his life to show the invasive authority figures that
36:28
Speaker 2: he would not go quietly, if at all, he'd make
36:31
Speaker 2: them work for it.
36:33
Speaker 3: This was his fortress.
36:35
Speaker 2: He patted his newest girlfriend on her ass, nearly naked
36:38
Speaker 2: at his side, picked his forty five up off the
36:41
Speaker 2: studio console. The one with the state of the art
36:43
Speaker 2: IBM mixed memorizer, and calmly went about trying to locate
36:46
Speaker 2: the rest of the firearms.
36:48
Speaker 3: And cocaine in the studio.
36:50
Speaker 2: He was able to squirrel most of the contraband wave
36:52
Speaker 2: before the cops finally busted in, But what he forgot
36:55
Speaker 2: the hide were the blue boxes he legal devices that
36:58
Speaker 2: allowed Ike in his boys to place free long distance
37:01
Speaker 2: telephone calls, seemingly harmless compared to the drugs and weaponry
37:05
Speaker 2: Ike had hidden in his possession, but still very much illegal.
37:10
Speaker 3: Ike Turner was busted.
37:14
Speaker 2: It was the first of a series of arrests that
37:16
Speaker 2: would disrupt the rest of Ike Turner's career in personal life.
37:20
Speaker 2: It signaled the end Forbolic Sound, a studio that ultimately
37:23
Speaker 2: caught fire mysteriously and burnt to the ground at a
37:26
Speaker 2: time later in Ike's life when he was in the
37:28
Speaker 2: middle of extreme financial hardship. By the time Tina left,
37:32
Speaker 2: Ike had little but his name, which, by then in
37:35
Speaker 2: the music industry, at least from the perspective of the
37:37
Speaker 2: people who wrote the checks, was mud. Tina, on the
37:42
Speaker 2: other hand, had her name Tina Turner, ironically, a name
37:46
Speaker 2: I had given her a name Ike had trademarked, and
37:49
Speaker 2: a name that Ike had tried to claim was his
37:51
Speaker 2: and the divorce and thus prevent her from using it
37:53
Speaker 2: going forward in her career, a claim he lost. Tina
37:57
Speaker 2: Turner took her name and her immense talent out for
38:00
Speaker 2: under her abusive, controlling, piece of shit husband and turned
38:03
Speaker 2: herself into literally the biggest pop star on the planet,
38:06
Speaker 2: a level of success that Ike Turner, despite whatever claims
38:10
Speaker 2: he had on the invention of rock and roll, would
38:13
Speaker 2: never attain, and it drove him crazy and deeper into
38:15
Speaker 2: a coke field madness. Ike finished as he started on
38:20
Speaker 2: a rough road. His descent ran parallel to Tina's rise,
38:24
Speaker 2: a nice cap to a rough career. Her nineteen eighty
38:27
Speaker 2: four single What's Love Got to Do With It from
38:29
Speaker 2: her solo album Private Dancer, went to number one on
38:32
Speaker 2: the pop charts and won three Grammy Awards for Record
38:35
Speaker 2: of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best Female
38:37
Speaker 2: Pop Vocal Performance. Throughout the eighties and nineties, Tina Turner
38:42
Speaker 2: released several multi platinum albums, appeared in feature length films,
38:45
Speaker 2: and saw her own biopic, What's Love Got to Do
38:48
Speaker 2: With It? Cementer's status as a musical icon these days.
38:52
Speaker 2: At the time of this recording, Tina Turner, the Queen
38:54
Speaker 2: of Rock and Roll, is seventy nine years old, worth
38:57
Speaker 2: over a quarter of a billion dollars in shilling in
39:00
Speaker 2: her Swiss mansion, reportedly planning her own funeral, an affair
39:04
Speaker 2: she claims will be a bigger and better sendoff than
39:06
Speaker 2: that of her one time rival, the recently the parted
39:09
Speaker 2: Queen of Soul Erretha Franklin.
39:12
Speaker 3: Ike Turner won't be attending.
39:14
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39:16
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39:21
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Speaker 2: He then man