Ike Turner Spouse, Meme, Net Worth, Death, Children

Ike Turner made a string of R&B hits with singer and wife Tina Turner. He struggled with drug addiction and died of an accidental cocaine overdose. R&B legend Ike Turner was born on November 5, 1931, in Clarksdale, Mississippi, and grew up playing the blues. In 1956, he met a teenager and singer named Anna Mae Bullock. He married her and helped create her stage persona, Tina Turner.  The two became the Ike & Tina Turner Revue and created several R&B hits, including “I Idolize You,” “It’s Going to Work Out Fine” and “Poor Fool.” The duo’s cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Proud Mary” earned them their first and only Grammy Award together in 1971. Their last hit together was “Nutbush City Limits,” written by Tina and released in 1973. Turner died of a cocaine overdose on December 12, 2007, in San Marcos, California.

Turner began playing piano and guitar as a child, then formed a group, the Kings of Rhythm, as a teenager. He employed the group as his backing band for the rest of his life. His first recording, “Rocket 88” (1951) (credited to “Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats”), is considered a contender for the distinction of “first rock and roll song”. During the 1950s, Turner also worked as a talent scout and producer for Sun Records and Modern Records. He was instrumental in the early careers of various blues musicians, such as B.B. King, Howlin’ Wolf, and Bobby “Blue” Bland. When Turner relocated to East St. Louis in 1954, his Kings of Rhythm became one of the most renowned acts on the local club circuit. There, he met Ann Bullock who he renamed Tina Turner. He then formed the Ike & Tina Turner Revue, which over the course of the 1960s became a soul/rock crossover success. Turner recorded for many of the key R&B record labels of the 1950s and 1960s, including Chess, Modern, Trumpet, Flair, and Sue. He progressed to larger labels such as Blue Thumb, Liberty, and United Artists with the Ike & Tina Turner Revue.

Ike Turner Wiki/Bio

Family, Education & More

Ike Wister Turner was born on November 5, 1931, in Clarksdale, Mississippi. His mother was a seamstress and father was a Baptist minister. In his childhood, Turner witnessed his father being tortured and left for dead by a white mob. Upon his father’s death, his mother remarried and his step-father turned out to be an abusive alcoholic. Turner and his step-father often had arguments and fights and once he hit him a wooden piece and ran away. He had a quite rough childhood before he visited the local Clarksdale radio station and gained his first job related to music. He soon was offered a Disc Jockey job by the station manager and the job meant he had access to all the new releases.

Ike Turner And Tina Turner Love Story

Born Anna Mae Bullock in 1939, the woman who would become known as Tina Turner had a rough family life. Her parents were poor sharecroppers, who split up and left Turner and her sister to be raised by their grandmother. As a teen, Tina immersed herself in St. Louis’ R&B music scene.

While at local nightclub Club Manhattan, Tina crossed paths with Ike Turner, the leader of Kings of Rhythm, who are credited as one of the first groups to introduce rock and roll the world with their song “Rocket 88.” Tina, who was in her teens, was not particularly drawn to Ike romantically upon first sight and in fact, found him unattractive. (But she did admit that she was drawn to his voice.) She got up to sing his version of B.B. King’s “You Know I Love You,” and their musical bond was instantly formed. With Ike taking to her powerful voice, they soon became the Ike and Tina Turner Revue. The act scored their first R&B hit in 1960 with “A Fool in Love,” reaching No. 2. The couple had also become intimately entangled, and with Tina having a child from a previous relationship with his bandmate Raymond Hill, the two would have a son of their own and reportedly married in 1962 in Tijuana, Mexico. Tina would be a mother figure to Ike’s other two sons as well.

Ike Turner Net Worth

It has been claimed that the overall amount of Ike Turner net worth reaches 500 thousand dollars. Ike Turner was mostly known for his career in music, but he was also a talent scout and record producer. Ike Turner is credited with being one of the first people who started to play the fifties rock and roll music. Ike Turner was married to Tina Turner and in the 1960s as 1970s the duo was very well known. The duo had their own production called Ike and Tina Turner Revue. Thus, music has been one of the main sources not only of his fame but also of Ike Turner’s net worth.

The Couple had a string of top 10 hits all while Ike was abusing Tina

Backed by a band and the singers/dancers dubbed the Ikettes, the couple had more top 10 R&B hits with “I Idolize You,” “It’s Gonna Work Out Fine,” “Poor Fool” and “Tra La La La La.” In the mid-1960s, Tina worked with Phil Spector to create the track “River Deep, Mountain High,” which didn’t do well in America but flew to the top five in the U.K.

Ike and Tina didn’t break into the upper echelons of the domestic pop charts until 1971 with their cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Proud Mary,” which also earned the act a Grammy for Best R&B Vocal Performance by a Group. Tina would later pen a bouncing, up-tempo ode to her roots, 1973’s “Nutbush City Limits,” that hit both the pop and R&B charts and became a long-time favorite. “Proud Mary” was a cornerstone of the act’s live shows, with a spoken intro that Tina made up on the spot when Ike first introduced the song into the band’s repertoire. And the high energy, intricate dance moves — high kicks, twirls and spins, deep diving, and swimming motions displayed by the wigged out Tina and the Ikettes further cemented the revue’s reputation for serving up legendary, must-see performances.

Tina tried to Suicide

Though there was a certain amount of success that the act had, music observers and Tina herself lamented that the band wasn’t able to reach even bigger milestones due to Ike’s self-sabotaging and violent behavior, with Tina often the focal point. With Ike having survived deep trauma from his childhood, Tina lived through regular physical and emotional abuse from her spouse for years, sometimes forcing herself to sing and dance after being battered. The domestic situation was relentlessly permeated with fear and pain as Ike abused drugs and openly paraded around mistresses. Tina later recounted in her 2018 memoir, My Love Story, that sexual encounters with her then-husband were “an expression of hostility a kind of rape especially when it began or ended with a beating.”

Ike Turner Memes/Meme

Ike Turner Death

In the weeks leading up to his death, Turner became reclusive. On December 10, 2007, he told Falina Rasool that he believed he was dying and would not live until Christmas. As he predicted, Turner died two days later, on December 12, at the age of 76, at his home in San Marcos, California, near San Diego. He was found dead by his former wife Ann Thomas. Rasool was also in the house and administered CPR. Turner was pronounced dead at 11:38 am.

On January 16, 2008, the San Diego County Medical Examiner’s Office reported that Turner had died from a cocaine overdose. “The cause of death for Ike Turner is cocaine toxicity with other significant conditions, such as hypertensive cardiovascular disease and pulmonary emphysema”, Supervising Medical Examiner Investigator Paul Parker told us. His daughter Mia was said to be surprised at the coroner’s assessment, believing his advanced stage emphysema was a bigger factor.

Turner died without a valid will. Less than a week after his death, his former wife Audrey Madison Turner filed a petition stating that he had penned a handwritten will naming her as a beneficiary. In 2009, a judge ruled that the handwritten will was invalid and that by law, Turner’s children were the direct heirs of his estate.

Ike Turner Funeral

Ike Turner funeral was held on December 22, 2007, at the City of Refuge Church in Gardena, California. Among those who spoke at the funeral were Little Richard, Solomon Burke, and Phil Spector. The Kings of Rhythm played versions of “Rocket 88” and “Proud Mary”. Turner was cremated after the funeral service.

Ike Turner Laurence Fishburne

hen last seen together on screen, Angela Bassett and Laurence Fishburne were a divorced couple engaged in a civilized discussion of their son’s future in Boyz N the Hood. Fishburne, then billed as Larry, was a star of John Singleton’s acclaimed South Central Los Angeles story; Bassett was a newcomer who disappeared after that early scene. Now, however, they share top billing and screen time in What’s Love Got to Do With It, the Tina Turner biopic that is essentially a portrait of a stormy show-biz marriage.

The reunion almost didn’t take place. Based on me, Tina – Turner’s as-told-to Kurt Loder autobiography – the film initially was a litany of Tina’s maltreatment at the hands of her Svengali, Ike. “It was pretty one-sided,” said Fishburne, who turned down the project based on the script he first read. “It was very much a tour de force for whoever was going to play Tina.” Ike, Fishburne added, was “obviously the villain of the piece, but there was no explanation as to why he behaved the way he behaved – why she was with him for 16 to 20 years, what made her stay.”

Like most people, Fishburne knew only the most publicized highs and lows of Ike and Tina Turner’s lives together and apart. “I knew ‘Proud Mary.’ I knew that she wrote a book that wasn’t exactly complimentary to him. I knew he was in jail, but that was about it.” Ike is still shown as a pretty despicable sort, but the film offers at least some insight into him – most notably a scene in which Ike recalls watching, at age 6, his father’s death from wounds suffered in a fight over a woman. The changes helped persuade Fishburne to do the role, but he says that Bassett’s casting as Tina played a key part. “She was the deciding factor, really,” he said.

Bassett, who after Boyz N the Hood went on to a pair of highly visible roles in Spike Lee’s Malcolm X and the ABC miniseries The Jacksons, initially thought herself a highly unlikely candidate for the role of Tina Turner. “I didn’t think I had a chance in heaven,” she said. Bassett auditioned for the role last October and was chosen only a month before production began in December. During that time she had to learn not only how to talk like Turner but to dance and move like her. She would have been willing to try to do the singing as well, but “not in the time we had,” she said. “I did think about it for a second, though.” Instead, she lip-syncs to soundtracks recorded by Tina Turner and Fishburne. Bassett worked with Tina Turner, but only “a little bit.” Turner helped most with the re-creations of her famed dance routines.

Some Known Facts About Ike Turner

• He began playing music at the age of 7 when his mother, a seamstress, bought him a piano.
• First commercial success came with the band Kings of Rhythm; their “Rocket 88,” released under the name Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats, is considered one of the first rock songs.
• As the Ike and Tina Turner Revue scored a series of hits with R&B songs and rock covers – including their signature “Proud Mary” – throughout the ’60s and ’70s.
• Career suffered after he was portrayed as a drug addict and wife-beater in ex-wife Tina Turner’s 1986 biography, I, Tina, and the 1993 film What’s Love Got to Do With It?
• He was serving a four-year sentence for cocaine possession when he and Tina Turner were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991.
• Released an autobiography, Takin’ Back My Name: The Confessions of Ike Turner, in 1999.
• Received a Grammy nomination for his comeback album, 2001’s Here and Now.

FAQ’s

What Did Ike Turner Die Of?

Drug Overdose, He Was Sent To Rehab, After Which He Was Declared Clean For 10 Years, But Apparently Had A Relapse, When He Entered A Crack House Laced With Drugs To Save A Friend. Turner Then Died In His Home In San Diego, And The Main Reason For His Death Was Concluded As A Drug Overdose.

What Is Ike Turner Worth?

Ike Turner Was An American Musician, Song Writer And Producer Who Had A Net Worth Of $500 Thousand Dollars. Ike Turner Was Born In Clarksdale, Mississippi To A Baptist Minister. He Is Considered To Be A Pioneer Of The Fifties Rock And Roll.

What Has Happened To Ike Turner?

A Year Later, On December 12, 2007, Turner Died Of A Cocaine Overdose In His San Marcos, California, Home. Contributing Conditions To His Death Included High Blood Pressure And Emphysema. A Blues Legend, Turner’s Impact On The Musical World Continues To Be Felt Even After His Death.

Did Tina Turner Go To Ike Turner’s Funeral?

Tina Turner Will Not Attend Her Ex-husband Ike Turner’s Funeral, Friends Close To The Singer Say. Following Ike’s Death, Tina’s Agent Michele Schweitzer Said: “Tina Is Aware That Ike Passed Away. She Has Not Had Any Contact With Him In 35 Years.