Happy Trails........Ike Turner

We bid a fond farewell to Rock & Roll Hall of Famer Ike Turner. Turner died in his California home yesterday at the age of 76.

Born in Clarksdale, Mississippi, in 1931, Turner began his show biz career at the startling age of 8. Said Turner,

"I got a job driving the elevator in the Alcazar and the radio station was on the second floor. It was very exciting to me, a radio station. I'd run up to the second floor and look through the window at the guy spinning records. He saw me and tole me to come in and showed me how to 'hold a record.' I'd sit there and hold it until the one playing stopped, then I'd turn a knob and the one I was holding would play. Next thing I know, he was going across the street for coffee and leaving me in there alone. I was only eight. That was the beginning of my thing with music."

It was in a small southern town.....Nutbush, Tennessee......Turner met a teenage singer named Anna Mae Bullock. Within a year, her name was changed to Tina Turner, and the band ...."The Ike and Tina Revue" was formed. The rest....as they say ......is .......well .....history.

Personally, I never liked the movie, "Whats love got to do with it".......based on Tina's autobiography. I thought it was very one sided. But Ike didn't help his cause when he had this to say in his 2001 autobiography, "Sure, I've slapped Tina... There have been times when I punched her to the ground without thinking. But I never beat her." Huh?

Ike.......you lived a long, prosperous life. You gave the masses music to enjoy for a life time.......Rest in peace, 'bro.