Roger L. Simon: Ike Turner Dies

Look, we all know Ike was a bad guy. He beat Tina and all that and it's inexcusable. But he was a great musician, no doubt about it. In fact, he never got the credit he deserved, undoubtedly in part because of what he did.

I remember once, maybe thirty years ago, walking into a casino in Vegas. Suddenly I heard some fabulous music and quickly left the craps tables for the nearby lounge. To my amazement, it was Ike and Tina with the Ikettes, doing their classics like "I Idolize You." I stood there mesmerized. It was one of the greatest sets I ever heard. And Tina then was about the sexiest woman performer I had ever seen in my life. You know the rest.

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"Man,my mother was a woman..."
Ike should have been a writer,Roger!....And let's see,he slapped and punched Tina,but he never beat her.
Ike should have been a politician,too!

This is the first thing you've ever written that seriously pisses me off. Tina Turner is somebody's daughter, ROGER.

I think I'll marry your daughter and slap the sh*t out of her. I'm a talented musician. I mean, I'm a bad guy and all that. I hurt your daughter on multiple occasions, ROGER. Bruised her. Hurt her. Gave her black eyes. Knocked her down. But I also made a lot of enjoyable music. Like Marvin Gaye and Ike Turner. So it'll be inexcusable, but still somehow -- well, not okay, but... *sort* of okay in retrospect. Not evil. Merely objectionable. To your little girl. And to you. We can whitewash it after I'm dead.

There's a such a thing as separating an unlikable man from his art (Kurt Cobain, Jim Morrison, etc.) It's another thing entirely to let a violent criminal off the hook, ROGER. Think about it a little, and see how fast his music sours for you.

Jay -- there is perhaps no crime that I vicerally despise more than beating one's wife or partner. However, the fact is that more than a few great artists were assholes in this same fashion. Miles Davis, in particular, one of the top four or five geniuses of the jazz art, talks openly in his autobiography about how he used to hit and otherwise bully his women.

The universe of men who have hit women is unfortunately a very large one, large enough to include more than a few people, like Ike Turner and Miles, who also managed to accomplish quite a lot in life.

I'm confused. Roger said that Ike Turner was a bad man who was a good musician. This is obviously true. So why has Jay gone bonkers?

When a physically stronger individual uses a defenseless weaker person as a punching bag on a regular basis over the years, being a good or even a great musician (or anything else great) doesn't seem to make up for the harm and hurt done to another (or more than another) person.
(The same can be said for clergymen who abuse children.) It just ain't right and nothing can redeem these sorry excuses for human beings.

And judging from Ike's own comments in reference to his own mother, I can safely judge that he was not remorseful or even close to wanting redemption.

He was both a loathsome individual and a great musician, as important as Sam Phillips to the birth of Rock and Roll. As Roger and others have pointed out, being an asshole and making great music are not mutually exclusive.

December 12, 2007: Ike Turner Dies

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