[Dixielandjazz] Interesting article on another American Musical Legend

[tcashwigg at aol.com]

Hi folks:

Note the quotes form Ike about his OKOM roots.  And those that he 
influenced with his interpretations of them.

Cheers,

Tom Wiggins






Zoho Roots Is Pleases To Announce Their Second Zoho Roots Release:

Ike Turner
Risin' with the Blues
Zoho Roots 200611
Street Date: September 14, 2006

There is no denying Ike Turner’s place in musical history. While the 
general public may know about his heyday with the Ike & Tina Turner 
Revue during the ‘60s (a meteroic rise to fame that peaked with their 
early ‘70 hits “Proud Mary” and “Nutbush City Limits”), only hardcore 
Ike fans and jump blues enthusiasts are aware of him spearheading the 
formative years of rock ‘n’ roll with the 1951 hit “Rocket 88”(cut in 
Memphis by his Kings of Rhythm but issued on Chicago’s Chess Records 
label under the name Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats). Few know of 
Turner’s role as a kind of super talent scout of the South during the 
1950s for both the Chess brothers of Chicago’s Chess Records or the 
Bihari brothers of Los Angeles’ Modern/RPM Records. Fewer still know of 
Ike’s participation on several early ‘50s RPM recordings by B.B. King 
(including his piano accompaniment on King’s 1951 hit “Three O’Clock 
Blues” and his 1952 followup “You Know I Love You”), his playing second 
guitar on classic 1958 Cobra sessions for Buddy Guy and Otis Rush 
(including Rush’s signature pieces “Double Trouble” and “All Your Love 
(I Miss Loving)”), or hammering the 88s behind the likes of Howlin’ 
Wolf, Muddy Waters, Elmore James, Little Walter, and Willie Dixon 
during the 1950s.

  While playing as a house pianist in West Memphis "blacks only" blues 
clubs, Ike often snuck in a young white truck driver to sit next to the 
piano to study Ike's boogie style and dance moves: that kid was Elvis 
Presley.

  In the 1960's, Ike's influence on several of the most recognized names 
in Rock continued: Janis Joplin sought Turner for vocal coaching, and a 
young Jimi Hendrix played in Ike's Kings of Rhythm for a time. As a 
teenager, Bonnie Bramlett was briefly a member of the Ikettes, prior to 
starting her own rise to stardom a few years later.

  In retrospect, Ike’s early innovations seem to have been overshadowed 
by his notoriety in later years. Following the breakup of Ike & Tina in 
1976, Turner entered a dark period of self-imposed exile marked by his 
heavy cocaine addiction. “I just went into a 15-year party,” is how he 
put it. The ‘90s were further marred by his incarceration for cocaine 
possession at the outset of the decade and the public besmirching of 
his name by the 1993 movie What’s Love Got To Do With It?, which 
portrays Tina’s take on their tumultuous 18-year relationship. But like 
the mythical phoenix, Ike would eventually rise from the ashes of his 
fallen career and begin life anew.

  With 2001’s triumphant Here and Now, one thing was eminently clear: 
the swagger was back in Ike Turner’s stride. That comeback album took 
critics by surprise,
  proving that, at age 70, he still had plenty of fire left to give. The 
album received a GRAMMY nomination for "Best Traditional Blues album" 
in 2001, and a 2002 W.C. Handy Blues Award in 2002.

  On Risin' with the Blues, the R&B icon and Rock & Roll Hall of Famer 
takes the intensity level up a notch or two with typically 
slashing-stinging guitar work, rollicking boogie woogie piano 
flourishes and some of the nastiest, rawest, most potent vocals he’s 
ever summoned up in a fabled career that dates back more than 50 years.

  “All my life I was afraid to come out front and sing,” says the 
longtime bandleader who throughout his career stood behind a dynamic 
front person, whether it was Jackie Brenston, Billy Gayles or Clayton 
Love in the early years or Tina Turner during the ‘60s and ‘70s. “I 
don’t know whether I was too bashful to sing it myself on stage, I just 
liked it better in the background.”

  Ike is in the background no more. Throughout Risin'with the Blues, he 
wails with ferocious authority as the vocal front man while wielding a 
wicked ax and pumping the piano keys with the energy of a man half his 
age. On an ultra-funky update of Hound Dog Taylor’s “Gimme Back My 
Wig,” he snarls his way through the humorous lyrics while on a powerful 
horn-fueled reading of Eddie Boyd’s “Five Long Years” (retitled here as 
“Eighteen Long Years” to commemorate the span of Ike’s marriage to 
Tina), he screams with cathartic abandon. On the infectious shuffle 
blues “Tease Me,” Ike gets downright menacing, then turns around and 
delivers the country flavored ballad “A Love Like Yours” with rare 
poignancy and emotional depth.

  Turner cuts a wide stylistic swath on this powerhouse outing. There 
are bits of jazz extrapolation here in his instrumental “Mix It 
Up/Jazzy Fuzzy” and also on a faithful reading of Horace Silver’s 
“Senor Blues.” The urgent “I Don’t Want Nobody” is a dance floor number 
coming directly out of the Zapp-Bootsy Collins playbook while the 
(country blues) gospel flavored “Jesus Loves Me” has Turner testifying 
with evangelistic zeal. As he says of that confessional offering, 
“Behind all the crap that they said I been through, it’s like, ‘You can 
call me a bad boy, but when you get to calling me a bad boy, Jesus 
loves me anyway.’ And that’s the truth.”

  On a rousing rendition of Louis Jordan’s 1946 hit “Caldonia” (cut when 
Ike was an impressionable 15-year-old growing up in Clarksdale, 
Mississippi), he pays tribute to a jump blues hero of his youth. 
“That’s my favorite guy, Louis Jordan,” he says. “I grew up with his 
music -- all those tunes I heard on the jukebox like ‘Caldonia,’ “Let 
The Good Times Roll’ and “Choo Choo Cha Boogie.’ That was a golden era, 
man! I was born in 1931 so I came up with all those great tunes by cats 
like Joe Liggins (1945’s “The Honeydripper”) and Jimmy Liggins (1947’s 
“Cadillac Boogie”), Roy Brown (1947’s “Good Rockin’ Tonight”), T-Bone 
Walker (1947’s “Stormy Monday Blues”) and Amos Milburn (1948’s “Chicken 
Shack Boogie”). That was my music, man! And when I finally formed the 
Kings of Rhythm, we were doing our own versions of all that stuff, just 
trying to put our own twist on it.”
  Elsewhere on Risin' with the Blues, Turner’s guitar stings with a 
vengeance on “Rockin’ Blues,” he belts out vocals in robust style on 
“Goin’ Home Tomorrow” (a New Orleans flavored stroll reminiscent of 
Earl King’s “Those Lonely, Lonely Nights”) and digs into some downhome 
fingerstyle blues guitar work on the humorous “Big Fat Mama.” The funky 
instrumental “Bi Polar” showcases both Ike’s guitar and piano prowess 
while the organ-fueled closer, “After Hours,” is an Erskine Hawkins 
slow blues that highlights Ike’s soulful restraint on the ivories.
  “Everything you hear on this record comes directly from the heart, 
man,” maintains the man who has been firmly rooted in the real-deal for 
over 50 years. “This whole album is about feeling.”
 Amen to that. -- Bill Milkowski

  Bill Milkowski is a regular contributor to Jazz Times and Jazziz 
magazines. He is also the author of “JACO: The Extraordinary and Tragic 
Life of Jaco Pastorius” (Backbeat Books) and “Swing It! An Annotated 
History of Jive” (Billboard Books)


Label Website: www.iketurner.com/

ZOHO™ is distributed by Allegro





________________________________________________________________________
Check out AOL.com today. Breaking news, video search, pictures, email 
and IM. All on demand. Always Free.