The Rolling Stone interviews

by edited by Jann S. Wenner

  I guess that’s what kept you alive.

  I had no care for the consequences; the idea of dying didn’t bother me. Dying from drugs didn’t seem to me then to be a terrible thing. When Jimi died, I cried all day because he’d left me behind. But as I grow older, as I live more, death becomes more of a reality, something I don’t choose to step toward too soon.

  So then, in January 1973, Pete Townshend organized a concert for you at the Rainbow in London, with Ron Wood, Steve Winwood and others.

  I did that very much against my will. I wasn’t even really there. It was purely Townshend’s idea, and I didn’t know what I’d done to earn it. It’s simply that he’s a great humanitarian and cannot stand to see people throw their lives away. It didn’t matter to him if I was willing or unwilling; he was making the effort so that I would realize, someday, that someone cared. I’m always indebted to him for that.

  If that didn’t draw you out, what did?

  Carl Radle sent me a tape of him playing with Dick Sims and Jamie Oldaker in Tulsa. I listened to it and played along with it, and it was great. So I sent him a telegram saying, “Maintain loose posture, stay in touch.” And at some point after that, I started to get straight.

  Then you made ‘461 Ocean Boulevard,’ your resurrection album. Are you happy with that record?

  Yeah, very. I’d wanted to do “Willie and the Hand Jive” since my childhood, and the Robert Johnson song [“Steady Rollin’ Man”] and “Motherless Children” for almost as long. George Terry was there [in Miami], and when we were hanging out before the band arrived from Tulsa, he played me this Bob Marley album, Burnin’, and “I Shot the Sheriff” was on there. I loved it, and we did it, but at the time, I didn’t think it should go on the album, let alone be a single. I didn’t think it was fair to Bob Marley, and I thought we’d done it with too much of a white feel or something. Shows what I know. When I went to Jamaica after that, a lot of people were very friendly because of the light it had thrown on Bob Marley, and Marley himself was very friendly to me as well.

  Your Tulsa band could play everything from reggae to blues to pop. What happened to that band?

  Toward the end of that particular band, we were gettin’ out of it again, and I was in the lead. I started to get straight, but I was drinking maybe two bottles a day of whatever hard stuff I could get my hands on. And there was real bad tension in the band that was aimed at me. Then I hired Albert Lee. We became friends, and there was a division between these two Englishmen and the Tulsa boys. And at the end of this particular tour, I think it was in ’78, I fired everybody. Not only that, I didn’t even tell them—I fired them by telegram. And I never saw Carl again. He’d saved me at one point, sending me that tape, and I turned my back on him. And Carl died. It was, I think, drugs, but I hold myself responsible for a lot of that. And I live with it.

  Bobby Whitlock is a songwriter in Nashville, right? And I read recently that Jim Gordon had been convicted of murdering his mother [RS 449]. I heard that you were among the few people from his past who got in touch and tried to help.

  I did try. When I was last in L.A., I kept making inquiries about how to get in to see him. But then I spoke to [drummer] Jim Keltner about it, and Keltner said it probably wouldn’t be a good idea, that they had him on so much Thorazine he didn’t really know what was going on.

  I remember your coming to America in 1981 for a tour and landing in the hospital about eight days into the tour. Was that when your drinking started to come to an end?

  Not quite. But it was pointed out to me while I was in hospital that I had a drink problem, and I think that was the first time anyone had ever said something like that to me. But I was still happy drinking and actually quite terrified of not drinking. I had to go further down that road to complete insanity before I stopped. It wasn’t until it finally hit me in the head that I was killing other people around me, as well as killing myself and going insane, that I decided to stop.

  What is the lure there, the attraction, of addictive behavior, whether it’s using dope or booze?

  It’s obsessive. Part of my character is made up of an obsession to push something to the limit. It can be of great use if my obsession is channeled into constructive thought or creativity, but it can also be mentally or physically or spiritually destructive. I think what happens to an artist is, when he feels the mood swings that we all suffer from if we’re creative, instead of facing the reality that this is an opportunity to create, he will turn to something that will stop that mood, stop that irritant. And that would be drink or heroin or whatever. He won’t want to face that creative urge, because he knows the self-exploration that must be undertaken, the pain that must be faced. This happens most, or very painfully, to artists. Unless they realize what it is that is doing that to them, they’ll always be dabbling in something or other to kill it.

  TINA TURNER

  by Nancy Collins

  October 23, 1986

  You’ve come a long way in life, Tina. You must feel very satisfied in how you’ve pulled yourself together in the last ten years since leaving Ike.

  I don’t have one debt at the moment. I have a home now. I always wanted a home, but I didn’t have one because my parents broke up. I was determined to have that foundation. So I bought my mother a house, and now we all go there—my sons, my sister, her daughter. I’m reliving something I wanted when I was a child. The principal’s daughters had homes, and now I have a home. I’ve made that dream a reality.

  I’m self-made. I always wanted to make myself a better person, because I was not educated. But that was my dream—to have class. My role model was always Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Now, you’re talking about high stuff, right? [Laughs] My taste was high. So when it came to role models, I looked at presidents’ wives. Of course, you’re talking about a farm girl who stood in the fields, dreaming, years ago, wishing she was that kind of person. But if I had been that kind of person, do you think I could sing with the emotions I do? You sing with those emotions because you’ve had pain in your heart. The bloodline of my family didn’t come from that kind of royalty. Why I relate to it, I don’t know. That’s the class I wanted to be.

  Basically, your family were sharecroppers. Do you feel you were middle-class?

  We were well-to-do farmers—that’s as close as I can get to explaining it. To me, it seemed as if we lived well. My sister and I had our own room. Each season we’d get new clothes, and I was always fresh and neat, especially compared to a lot of other people around me. We were never hungry. Of course, we knew the difference between our family and, say, the daughters of schoolteachers—those people were educated. My parents weren’t, per se, but they had a lot of common sense and spoke well. We weren’t low-class people. In fact, my parents were church people; my father was a deacon in the church.

  Both of your parents deserted you at different points in your childhood. Didn’t they have a tumultuous marriage?

  My mother and father didn’t love each other, so they were always fighting.

  Your mother left when you were ten. Did you have any idea that she was going to leave?

  No, but when she was gone, I knew she was gone. She’d left before, but then she’d always taken us with her, because she would go to her mother’s. Daddy would come and talk her into coming back home. But this time he knew she was really gone. He knew it was the end. I thought she was going to send for me, but she never did. She didn’t have the money to take my sister and me with her, because she was going to St. Louis, where she’d have to live with people herself.

  How old were you when your father left you?

  I was thirteen. But Daddy and I weren’t that close, so that was fine. I didn’t mind. I was a little bit afraid of him. He wasn’t friendly. He was friendly with everybody else but not with me.

  My parents weren’t mine, and I wasn’t theirs, really, so when they left, it was as if they had always been gone as far as I was concerned.

  Although you’ve said you were surrounded by
white people, you attended all-black schools. Do you recall the first time you felt any prejudice because of race?

  No. The only thing I remember is the first time I ever felt like I wanted to be white. There was this pretty little white girl whose name was Puddin’. She had short blond hair and wore a ballerina skirt and shoes. I was in the fourth grade and a tomboy. Suddenly, here comes this golden little fairy, bouncing along, looking pretty, and I thought, “That’s what I’d like to look like.” It was the first time I remember ever thinking about race. Of course, when we went into town, we’d have to use the back door at many places, but you really didn’t want to go into a place where you had to use the back door, because you felt the presence of not being wanted.

  It hurts to be a minority. I am looked down upon because I’m black. It’s forever. It’s like a curse on you. We’re moving out of it, of course. We can stand now, but it’s still there—it’s a memory, because you are branded. It’s wishing that we, as a black people, had had a chance to be as fantastic as we were before being knocked down and made slaves. It goes way back, this thing of wanting to be proud, wanting not to feel second-class.

  After your parents left, you started working for a white family, the Hendersons, doing babysitting and housework, did you not?

  Yes, I was finally being taught. I would sit with them, and she’d teach me manners. She was young, but she almost felt like my mother. And I saw love in the Henderson household. They were very affectionate. They were always just like a couple who were really in love. It was a perfect marriage scene: the house, the baby, the car. And they never fought. Mrs. Henderson was my role model. I took every mannerism she had.

  But there were times I was put in my place. One time—when it was very hot—I took the child walking. I stopped, knocked on a door and asked for a glass of water from the lady who answered. She slammed the door in my face. Suddenly, I remembered, “Don’t get that comfortable. You can’t just stop at someone’s door and ask for water.” But in the Hendersons’ house, I didn’t feel any discrimination at all.

  You were left by not one parent but two. I’m surprised that that didn’t leave you more disillusioned, even bitter.

  I never allowed that to happen. I was never that person. I made a world for myself. I searched for what I wanted, and when I found it, I patterned myself after another class. When I went to school, I didn’t observe the misfortunate ones, I observed the fortunate ones, people with manners, educated people. So I never became what I was. It’s the same thing that I did with Ike. I never did the drugs, never drank, never stooped to his level. No one, even now, can get me to stoop to be anything I don’t want. I’ve always held my head high. I might not have dressed as nice as the principal’s daughters, but what I had I kept neat and clean. Once at school, I was being naughty, and the principal called me over. He said, “I’m surprised at you. You’re different. You should know better.” I didn’t know what he meant, but I felt it was a compliment. I was very happy that he saw something different.

  Were you a good student?

  No, I was a dumb girl. I wasn’t interested in school. I’m sure there was some psychological factor about my home life. Without knowing it, I was afraid and embarrassed, which is why I wasn’t as good in school as I wanted to be. But I was always promoted, because I had manners and personality and I tried. I turned in my homework, even though it was most times wrong. I took hard stuff, like French—anything that would make me a better person. But what I did was the common-sense thing—that’s surviving [laughs]. I was always worried I wouldn’t pass, but I felt I had to graduate, because that was the respectable thing to do.

  That’s very admirable, since you must have known that if you did drop out, no one would really have cared.

  Except me. I was the only one who saw my report cards. I knew the difference between the girls who got A’s and B’s and me. And it hurt. I did get the occasional A in drama and gym, and those were wonderful! I also worked through high school, for the Hendersons. I had planned to move into the city, I had already found a house, but then I went to St. Louis to live with my mother.

  What was she doing at this point?

  She was doing day work—cleaning. She came home for her mother’s funeral, and I decided to go back with her. My mother and I didn’t get along, but I went because it was my way out of the South.

  Once I got to St. Louis, I still had to stay away from our house a lot because we argued so much. I had become rebellious. Plus, she was taking care of me, and I didn’t like that because I had gotten used to taking care of myself.

  It was in St. Louis, while you were still in high school, that you met Ike Turner, wasn’t it?

  Yeah. I started going to clubs with my sister, Alline. She was a barmaid, and one of the tops. My sister was really pretty. I was skinny, with long legs, and not really attractive. To be attractive with black men, you had to be heavier . . . sexier looking. Alline had big boobs, black, black skin and the same features as mine, but smaller. She had a lot of style. She always wore stilettos and black stockings with a seam. Her hair was soft, while my hair was very full and thick. Alline was really sexy.

  Do you recall the first time you laid eyes on Ike?

  I thought he was terribly ugly. There had been such a buildup about him because he had the hottest band around. When I first saw him, I remember thinking that I had never seen anyone that skinny. He was immaculately dressed, real clean and all sculptured—the bones and the hair. He wore his hair processed. I didn’t like processed hair, so I didn’t like his hairdo. But when he walked out, he did have a great presence . . . although you have to realize that I was a schoolgirl looking at a man. I was used to boys in jeans and short-sleeved shirts. But, boy, could he play that music. The place just started rocking. I wanted to get up there and sing sooooo bad. But that took an entire year.

  One day [during one of the band’s breaks], the drummer came up and set the microphone down in front of me, and I started singing. Well, when Ike heard me, he rushed over to me and said, “Girl, I didn’t know you could sing!” The band came back, and I kept singing, and everybody came around to see who it was. Everybody was real happy for me because they knew I was Alline’s little sister who wanted to sing. I was a star. Ike went out and bought me all these clothes. I had a fur and rings and [motions to elbow] gloves up to here. I was driving a Cadillac and I was still in school. I started dating one of the boys in the band, named Raymond. We didn’t fool around right away, because I was so unsophisticated.

  But eventually you got pregnant. Did it occur to you to have an abortion?

  I didn’t know about abortion, and I wanted the baby. After my mother found out, I went to stay with Raymond. I did feel ashamed and afraid, because I didn’t think my mother would help me. But she did. Raymond broke his foot when I was living with him and had to go home to his family, so she said I could come home. So then I took care of her house, did all the cleaning, washing and cooking for the family.

  How did you plan on taking care of your baby?

  Well, I went to a city hospital for unwed mothers, so there wasn’t a hospital bill. My mother and sister supported us for a while, so I was taken care of in my early stages. But I didn’t plan on hanging around; I planned on getting a job—which I did, in a hospital. I found a babysitter, and I did all right. At the time, I wasn’t a show person. I was planning on going to school to be a practical nurse, because the club thing was still a bit shaky. Then Ike lost his singer and asked me if I would sing.

  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.