Big band leaders biography

Izear Luster "Ike" Turner Jr. (November 5, 1931 – December 12, 2007) was an American musician, bandleader, songwriter, arranger, talent scout, and record producer. An early pioneer of fifties rock and roll, he is most popularly known for his work in the 1960s and 1970s with his then-wife Tina Turner in the Ike & Tina Turner Revue.

Turner began playing piano and guitar when he was eight years of age. He formed a music group, the Kings of Rhythm, as a teenager.

Big band leaders biography

Turner 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." Relocating to St.

Louis, Missouri, in 1954, he built the Kings into one of the most renowned acts on the local club circuit. There, he met singer Anna Mae Bullock, whom he renamed Tina Turner; the two formed the Ike & Tina Turner Revue, which over the course of the 1960s became a soul/rock c