Live music makes the
world go round, and while you can't beat being there, there are
number of reasons why sometimes you can't make it, in the case of
this show by The Ike and Tina Turner Revue, I wasn't born so I think
I can be forgiven.
The Spectacular Performances series will look
at some of the highlights from all those shows that leave me a little
bit spellbound when I watch the footage.
I'm blessed to have
music lovin' friends and sometimes we have been known to have a
little boozy evening playing 'Youtube DJ'. Basically the wireless
keyboard gets passed around in a circle and we all select a track,
and then congratulate each other on our choices by shouting a round
of approving 'Chune....yeah man, total chune'.
That's how I first
discovered this performance of Proud Mary by The Ike and Tina Turner
Revue in Holland 1971, and it has since become my favourite
performance of the song, by anyone, ever.
These lovely friends of
mine, they know I like to dance. I mean all the ladies like to dance
but I LOVE to dance and have been known to exhaust two or three dance
partners over the course of a night. Proud Mary by The Ike and Tina
Turner Revue gets everyone up without fail, even the most rigid of
the fellas stands up and does a terrible dad-dance impression of an
Ikette. But who cares? As long as everyone is having fun.
This performance is
wild, energetic and fun. Just like us. Just like us after a few
jars anyway.
I just want to state here that I am a huge Creedence Clearwater fan. The
Dude in Big Lebowski has nothing on me, I can't overstate this and I
love the original version. You can see Creedence do it live a few
years earlier, in 1969, here. Lets face it these guys are rock gods,
their rythm is impeccable, John Fogerty's voice is effortless and I
love that cheeky grin he sports all the way through.
I've tried over the
years to pick a favourite, the original or this cover. I can't - so
don't ask! Let's just say I do believe that the Ike and Tina Turner
Revue nailed Proud Mary, never more so than at their 1971 show in Holland:
Tina starts with the
now well known and loved 'nice and easy, nice and rough' speech, she
is playing with the audience and what's more is she's enjoying it.
She opens like she is going to tell you a story, looking out at the
audience and enticing them, bidding them 'Listen....'.
Ike's deep as the ocean
vocals are in the back there reminding you that this is a song and
not Tina breaking into a storytelling session. This is actually not
how the song was intended, Ike insists that on the original recording
he is just singing as a prompt to Tina but that the producer of the
song didn't edit his voice out and it became part of the show.
Cue soulful serenade
that carries you through the first, or 'nice and easy' part of the
song. Tina's charisma and huge personality make sure you feel every
word.
Then Ike counts the
ladies in...2,3,4 and bam - in kicks the gravel and crazy energy.
Tina and the Ikettes start to spin. Tina's purple tassled dress
showing those world famous legs to their fullest potential, anyone
who knows about dancing will know that tassles and dangly bits add to
a sense of movement, as if Tina needed assistance!
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| Tina and The Ikettes doing their thang |
The horns are crooning
at you, the bass is taking over your heartbeat, the guitars are
screaming out 'get up and dance' or clap, or stomp your feet but for
Christs sake move about people. The Kings of Rhythm and their
instruments are whipping up a fit of frenzy and commanding you to
take part.
About six minutes in
you think they've finished. The audience are satisfied but then they
slam straight back into it. The changes in pace are so theatrical
and contribute to making this show a true spectacle, keeping your
eyes glued on Tina and the girls.
And the Ikettes,
swinging in pink, they deserve serious props, they are beautiful and
strong. Even though he steps into the background as a performer,
most sources back up the fact that Ike was the auteur of anything you
ever see from the Ike and Tina Turner Revue. Ike later said that he
believed that the Ikettes were the inspiration for the earliest Go Go
dancers. As musical director of the Revue, Ike controlled the
wardrobe, every note and every step of dancing and says that the
moves which look so wild and rough are strictly choreographed. They
finish like fucking superman, one arm shooting up in the air and I am
almost as breathless as them by this point.
The idea of rigid
choreographing on this performance has troubled me, I find it hard to
reconcile my perception of the show being so raw feeling and yet
being rehearsed in minutiae. Ike has claimed that Tina's persona in
the band was modelled on a female Tarzan type figure from a movie
he'd seen as a boy, and that the Ikettes were 'trained' to be wild on
stage. There is a similar contrast in the persona of Tina herself,
she is deemed to be one of the most sexual performers of the day, yet
both Ike and Tina have later explained that Tina isn't like that at
all, she's actually not a seductress in the least.
The performance, for
me, is an exemplar of how this song should be done, everything about
it is engaging. Maybe this can be attributed to the fact that the
band had always been better received in Europe than the USA, with
both Ike and Tina giving a lot of lip service to their European fans
and stating that they feel very at home on the continent.
The Revue had been
performing Proud Mary for a couple of years by this set in Holland
1971 and it's true that by watching other videos of the band
performing the song you will come across an almost identical set of
moves and rhythm changes. Tina seems almost lost in the
performance on times, in a Stevie Nicks-esque kind of way. How on
earth can something feel so spontaneous and free when in reality it
is not? They must have been really enjoying themselves, right?
Well not exactly, this
show took place in 1971, five years before Tina left Ike after years
of alleged violence, some of which resulted in Tina doing shows in a
pretty beat up state. The same year, 1971, the newly fledged Rolling Stone magazine had run a feature on the Revue which hinted that
Tina's life was perhaps not a bed of roses. Ike admits to being
'domineering' and 'a disciplinarian' though he has always disputed
the claims that he was abusive.
 |
| The Kings of Rythm |
I can tell you one
thing about myself and that is I am not qualified to be judge and
jury over anyone else - but there are other factors concerning Tina's
physical state that make the performance even more remarkable. At
some point after The Ike and Tina Turner Revue supported the Rolling
Stones on tour in 1969 and before this European tour, Tina had
contracted TB, pneumonia and had undergone an operation to remove
lymph nodes from her neck. The 'hardest working young lady in show
business' had apparently become the most run down young lady in show
business.
The European tour was
almost cancelled as Tina could not sing in her characteristically
belting out fashion without the wounds from the operation reopening.
But luckily for us the tour and this amazing show did take place.
“So we did the
European tour after all. Tina had a cut several inches long in her
neck and when she sang it opened up. She went on stage for everyone
of those twenty five days with that cut in her neck. Tina is a
strong woman.” Ike Turner, Taking Back My Name.
Note Tina's dress in
this video has a really high neckline, I strongly suspect that Tina
was still suffering at the time and yet she is every inch the
superstar, if you read the reviews for this Holland show they are all
Tina, Tina, Tina. Janis Joplin said of Tina in 1969:
So despite the
difficulties the Revue (Ike and many of the Kings of Rhythm were also
in the depth of a monumental cocaine bender) and Tina in particular
were experiencing, this period was a time of ever increasing success
for the band. Their cover of Proud Mary represents a definite
turning point for The Ike and Tina Turner Revue. While they had
always had a reputation as a dynamic live act, their record sales had
never really matched the popularity of their shows. Proud Mary
became their most successful single, bringing them their highest ever
chart position and attracting a number of prestigious awards.
Even though they didn't
record it in a studio until the end of 1970, they were performing
Proud Mary at shows a fair bit earlier and it can be found on their
earlier live album What You Hear is What you Get from the Carnagie
Hall. Tina has claimed that covering the Creedence Clearwater hit
was her idea and that it coincided with her musical awakening.
While Ike is sometimes
credited as the father of rock n roll music, Tina was discovering
more rock rock music, which had emerged as a natural progression
from rock n roll. She cites Come Together by the Beatles and Honky
Tonk Woman by The Stones as influential songs in this transformation
and went on to cover both. Tina claims that getting Ike to agree
to covering Proud Mary was no mean feat, saying that he 'hated' the
Creedence Clearwater version, it took the Checkmates cover version
with its gospel overtones and horn instruments to persuade him.
The whole show at
Holland is worth watching, less than an hour of talent and effort
which packs the punch of a whole tour with inferior bands. Proud
Mary is the climax, pushing the bewitching combination of soul and
rock right into your being. The Kings of Rhythm are some seriously
funky musicians, The Ikettes in this line up are singers and dancers
of a calibre whereby they could probably carry a solo show, Ike is
flawless as a musical director and the springboard from which Tina
leaps to deliver this exceptional performance.
It's one thing to bring
great music to people's ears, but to bring it to their eyes is
something else all together.
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