Rock and Roll; Interview with Ike Turner [Part 1 of 3]

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We started you know it was like bebe you know you he's going to be became my mother raised you know she didn't raise him you know but you know he came up with this and he ran off from home so he went to Memphis and I found him down there in the plane in chambers Mississippi. So he made a play for me a Sun Studio. FRAZIER I love shack. Tell me a little bit about what kind of music you grew up with. What did you hear in Senegal Williams And can I ask you to start again I just think that music I listened to when

I was a kid okay was you know that. The music I listen to when I was a kid was sent to Bo Williams and pant up Panta Perkins. He's the one that had the most influence on my plane. I saw him through a window playing piano man and I thought it was unbelievable somebody could move the thing is that famous you know and so this is how I got interested in piano and finally he saw me looking to the window and he invited me in. We you know our kids are you know a little bit into doing a little bit further as a family. He starts showing me how to do the left hand but I was busy he just fascinated me and so in a week he started showing me so then a few weeks later I think I think in those days our parent up in sort of a weird name was broadcasting from hell in Arkansas. I don't remember the call of the radio station there but anyway. So we met Robert Knight Hoke which was also in competition in those days you know.

Robin and I was in competition like with you know in a way a Robin I don't broadcast radio station in Clarksdale so we used to have him carry his guitar to the radio station you know just just to be around music you know. And so this is how I got really interested in music from the beginning. You're for. Me a little bit about you know days earlier when you had a program. What was what were the white stations play with black that really separated was a separate. Yes I would look at the now closed the hotel in Clarksdale as I drive an elevated end to Beale and.

And which is the same station where Rob and I hope would broadcast and he was broadcast in the same dealing. And anyway why does jacket name John first kill is he. He was playing I don't know. He wouldn't claim but it would be a prop the public groups in those days was Jim a little jaded to Milligan's Joe leggins. All of the old stuff. Oh man. Well anyway I've put that go back I go back to lean on me which he dissed on the weather and all this kind of stuff man. LIKE I WAS THAT WAS HE WAS LIKE MY MY. I was just in love with that lady man you know. And in a way this guy Jennifer skillet did you did this Jackie at the radio station. Well in there he had two turntables there and I. He finally let me down every day when I get out of school looking looking at me so finally let me come inside and he would have me hold a record of me OK when this would stop this from go and start a

disco so you know this is point to me you know so I found a man he will cross streets to get coffee and a manager to station caught me and then he went over and over me. But anyway he I guess he got ball out of nothing about it. They started me. I put in the commercials and they start teaching me stuff to do that station and then finally they gave 15 minutes more per day to do it and then they let me when I get out of school every day to let me come by and gave me half an hour to just play records you know. But when we were playing I was just playing stuff by Roy Milton seaman as a long time ago and trying to remember you know what 40 50 years ago or more anyway. But I remember them because they had a specialty.

I get up you know just to kind of just explain a lot of young people you know the fact that White Well I'm like okay okay example if you watch and if you get into the black radio station they were doing more stuff like. More blues like I would say. Something like. I don't want a woman if I have to keep reading leaves all the time. And if you did it the way that you didn't

just get to my favorite music is country. You know but then you had bad whiskey. But in a way it's like the music was different because in those days you found a piano player. It would want to gad I just played this. Get. A man stay around a lot of guys that can really play a song like down or do you want to play it for you maybe you play just a little of it. Just like Nashville in Nashville Tennessee this is like you can hear all over the complete south in the early 50s.

This guy is resisting a song from Nashville Nashville Tennessee. You know I just love the right hand with the left hand. You've got to have a rhythm station. You've got to have one gap a bass player to play the bass for another gotta play the right hand you know you can't get one. You know like nobody had a part to play. You know I think get back around to the music again. That's what I came from yeah yeah.

General. Guy's slogan Nashville Tennessee. You know most do yeah yeah okay yeah right right right do you know it was even when you want to. You know what I mean you know what I'm going to thank you. Why stop before that. What actually happened I left Mississippi man and went to Memphis. This was a time when I record Rocket 88 right back during that time I went to West Memphis. Well first of all I ran into a modern record company Joe Barry and

he saw me play piano he was around 5 finest pianist Newman and the Father the Son and run this bunch. Anyway he moved over in the West Memphis man and started playing with little Junior Parker. Next we all would just go. Get a good time if you have it where we would operate a weapon would do in a time that Elvis Presley was driving a gravel truck and we were playing on Eleventh Street. They did allow whites into this club where we were when it was all because the whole black street they gamble on that one street there and in a way this guy man. I but at the time I know who have expressed it with I mean the guy was a musician it was just a guy that I like. He liked music so I liked him cause he like music I'm just assuming that I was there but in a way we had some formal report together. So apple slipped him into the back of a club man into the back. The piano was set like this and the back

door was saddened and in a way I was sad him and have him behind a piano because you know that I was going to play the piano and I would be playing the piano backwards and clowning with the piano. And but I never knew that this guy was even an entertainer. So meantime I'm just assuming a year so whatever could been months or whatever but I had this blue suede shoes but I don't never put this with this guy you know and I don't even connect the two. And then what does a guy named if they played it played boogie woogie piano man. Now I'm no good at names. Did he do. Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah. Ok ok ok with me I mean in a way the head of a right hand and left an on piano but in a way. Yeah start a plane like the way that I was playing but it will be just something that I thought just

a wee piano was supposed to be play you know I wasn't trying to do nothing different when I could rock and it was just that instrument was part of the play. So in a way next thing I know. He was in the Peabody Hotel there and they were playing all of this stuff. It sounds like me and it took it took just recorded part of the sound of me playing it. But that's the way I'm a clown and it is almost like he was taking what I would do him in and he would put the radio station away I'd stay to Memphis you can hear that stuff. Nobody I even you know it's like what you said we had to pull it away but the but the but. But that station where you can hit it to 300 miles away when in a way they had a cloud. So in a way.

Name and record company. And so he wanted me to tell him the song yesterday. I think like this it fits exactly on a piano. Exactly. Oh I do it. I'm in a movie about how to be midnight and that's when they started to play a lot of other stuff. Ten years later in Las Vegas I was playing the main room in international

and I have a special was in the main room one night man I want 490 some Tylenol not coming out of the bag had already begun to record chips and stuff and if a white guy would just call I knew others was in the main room you know I never was interested in any other acts you know it just I was interested in my video like if I get to know you OK but it was in the lounge also at that time. And here we are walking out today pushing it right with all of these chips on that I want tonight. And these guys say you don't remember me. That's what he told me that he was the one that used to come to Will Smith and I had behind a piano. You know it was it was amazing. OK. Make sure you know this. I never

said second wife type. We were like you know I'm serious here why would you tell me again just fairly briefly how you snuck Elvis into the black club. Well the club the other was it was an alley in the bag you 11st street. There's the alley in the back a sort of a row clubs there. And he was able to park his truck in the alley behind the club. I'm going to ask you could use his name so here we know. Oh OK OK OK OK we're going away on 11th Street in East St. Louis where they gamble and they have clubs black clubs stay away. I just want to make sure we get it. OK in West Memphis Arkansas right across from Memphis Tennessee where

we were playing it all with their own eyed Eleventh Street where the way they gamble and they have a little juke joint clubs where would explain one junior partner at a nearby was playing with Elvis Presley which is known today as Elvis Presley he was driving a gravel truck and he used to come around to the alley to the back of his place. And Mike P.A. they're not just the old upright piano was sitting right by the door and I had it pull out from the wall to where I could kind of faced the audience to go to try to get to what I be looking straight across. So I want to see the audience try to pull out. Well the gist is that I would pull it from the wall where he would be behind the piano. And when he watched me play this way he when you see him stand I'm he doing his legs when he be playing with all this came from. From back in those days you know a white person well I guess a white person to go away you

want to but if you're black you go where you want to go. Away. You know blacks out of blacks in the south we've never been like that towards white white. In other words like I say like there's a white male going away he want to go. Like you could go away and he could say he want to talk about me. I mean as you know but but no mom I'm not going to use it. I don't I know that blacks had prejudice towards whites in the south. Only later in later years when you when you came up with Michael and and Muhammad Ali we were in was all this stuff came up in the 60s we start the Freedom Riders stuff like that but back in the day we wouldn't think it a race. We just accepted that we are black and then

you know why it is so in other words if I went away I don't think I just want to go and I'm not going to do I went thinking that I would at the bank. Like that is an insult to even suggest something like that but. But then when it was something that was accepted you know. And him being white. What were they going to tell him if they caught him in the club anyway. I mean I mean just look at it as a concern when somebody would say I would be a policeman he wouldn't say anything you know. Talk about. It When You know it's like I know Richard maybe 18 months ago. If. He tells me he stole it from me is on one of his records I don't know if that's the same.

Well I never you know but I will be stealing off of whatever I hear because I never read music. So whatever I hear have a play in it so it was like you just do what it sounded good and feel good. Well you know I was just saying I really see different is different used to be a punch up set on a corner when you come by a big baritone a big bass saxophone said in wonder. But you know basically what I want to be. Basically I don't I think it still feels kind of the same I'm not sure I don't know.

I can't really say but I do know that you know coming from Mississippi which is 61 miles from there and it's like going into a city where you know you know like today they may have been all over the world and look at Memphis I think I can compare my feeling about it you know just and that's just another club to me you know. Because back in those days we played. I think that's going to first big job that played out of forget way it was in Memphis but it was fun.