The Rolling Stone interviews - Jann Wenner [112]
When was the turning point, professionally speaking?
Ike recorded a demo, and I sang on it. He wasn’t trying to sell my voice; he was trying to sell stuff as a producer. The record company said, “Why don’t you record it with the girl’s voice?” As a result, I became, officially, a professional performer. I was twenty, and my kid was about two. Ike said, “Now we have to make up a name.” And that’s when Ike and Tina started. He wanted his name there because he’d always produced people, only to have them get record deals and leave.
When did your sexual relationship with Ike begin?
He had broken up with the mother of his two sons, who I ended up raising. He was without a girlfriend. One of the musicians said he was going to come to my room and have sex with me. I couldn’t lock the door, so I went to sleep with Ike, thinking he would protect me. Shit! [Laughs] It happened then, but I thought, “Well, okay, I’ll just do it once.” [Laughs] I didn’t really know what to do because I wasn’t turned on to him, even though [laughs] it was good. I did enjoy the physical part, but I didn’t love him, and I didn’t like it because of that. But I didn’t know how to handle it because I also didn’t want to lose my job. I knew he wasn’t right for me. He was a man, he did serious things, like going to clubs and talking business. I was still used to going to movies and playing basketball. I had a kid, but I was still hanging out with high school friends.
Who was the Ike Turner whom you knew?
Ike was the son of a preacher and a seamstress. He didn’t like school, so he wasn’t an educated person. I don’t think he even finished grade school. He had a complex about how he spoke. A lot of his fight came because he was embarrassed about his manners and not being educated. So Ike had a built-in anger. And the drugs just magnified that.
I always knew that Ike had talent and was a great musician. He was not a great songwriter, though, because all of his songs were about pain or women—that was his life dilemma. I hated those songs. I knew he was writing about other women. Psychologically, you have to try and make yourself think you like a song when you sing it. When he sensed I was delivering it poorly, he blamed me for not getting involved in the work. He said he couldn’t make hit records because of my lack of involvement. All the blame was put on me. It was all this suppressed anger he had.
Did Ike have lots of other women?
He always did; he never stopped that. I didn’t like it, but I was trapped. We had a hit record [“A Fool in Love,” 1960], and I was the star, so he just grabbed on because he was afraid of losing me. The success and the fear came almost hand in hand. When I finally went to tell him that I didn’t want to go on . . . that’s when he got the shoe stretcher.
And beat you for the first time?
Yeah. I said, “I cannot travel with you, I cannot sing these songs.” So he said, “Okay, we’ll make some allowances, give you a certain amount of money,” and I said okay. That was the trick. So we started traveling, and that’s when I got involved. I didn’t plan it, because he said he was going to pay me, and when he didn’t, I was afraid to ask for the money because I was living with him. I got involved before I knew what to do about it.
That, of course, began sixteen years of beatings. You were a battered wife, controlled by fear.
It was a thoroughly unhappy situation I was in, but I was too far gone. I was trapped into really caring about Ike. If I left him, what was he going to do? Go back to St. Louis? I didn’t want to let him down. As horrible as he treated me, I still