Tina Turner [extended]

• River Deep--Mountain High [A&M, 1969] A-
• Come Together [Liberty, 1970] A-
• Her Man . . . His Woman [Capitol, 1970] C
• Workin' Together [Liberty, 1970] B
• What You Hear Is What You Get [United Artists, 1971] B+
• Nuff Said [United Artists, 1971] C+
• Feel Good [United Artists, 1972] B-
• Nutbush City Limits [United Artists, 1973] B+
• Acid Queen [United Artists, 1975] B
• Greatest Hits [United Artists, 1976] A-
• Private Dancer [Capitol, 1984] A-
• Break Every Rule [Capitol, 1986] B+
• Tina Live in Europe [Capitol, 1988] B
• Foreign Affair [Capitol, 1989] B-
• Simply the Best [Capitol, 1991] A-
• Proud Mary--The Best of Ike and Tina Turner [Sue, 1991] A-
• What's Love Got to Do With It [Virgin, 1993] A-
• Wildest Dreams [Virgin, 1996]

See Also:

• Ike & Tina Turner
• Ike & Tina Turner and the Ikettes

Consumer Guide Reviews:

Ike & Tina Turner: River Deep--Mountain High [A&M, 1969]
Since I have been known to make grumbling noises about Ike and Tina Turner albums and Phil Spector albums, I thought I ought to exempt this one, which is both. Much of it is in a class with the title cut, though not up to it. The problem insofar as there is one, is that that kind of intensity can't sustain itself for the length of an album. A-

Ike & Tina Turner and the Ikettes: Come Together [Liberty, 1970]
Tina is more convincing when she's growling out Ike's songs about her sexual appetites (I sure couldn't handle her) than when she's belting out Ike's songs about the social fabric ("Why can't we be happy like we used to be"). She's also more convincing when she's growling out a Stones song about her sexual appetites than when she's belting out a Sly Stone song about the social fabric. Still, their vogue has been good for their music--the level of effort here is so high that the sole throwaway works as a coda and brings the record back down. And the rock covers take some strain off Ike--especially when Tina sings a Beatles song that's about both her sexual appetites and the social fabric. A-

Ike & Tina Turner: Her Man . . . His Woman [Capitol, 1970]
Elevated by the Rolling Stones into mythic status among white people, the Turners are now haunted by their profligate recording habits--Capitol is the tenth label to release an I&TT LP in the past two years. Granted, most and maybe all of them are better than this, a humdrum blues runthrough (with big-band horns and fake-symph strings) on which Ike claims authorship of such works as "Dust My Broom" (here yclept "I Believe") and "Ten Long Years" (here yclept "Five Long Years"). Apparently it was cut some years ago for Cenco (?) Records. The Turners are currently contracted to Liberty, have authorized product out on A&M and Blue Thumb, and caveat emptor. C

Ike & Tina Turner: Workin' Together [Liberty, 1970]
There's a pretty fair remake of "Ooh Poo Pah Doo" in between the two great cuts on this album--the easy-to-rough "Proud Mary" (with Ike rolling in back) and their first successful "peace and love" "generation" song, appropriately entitled "Funkier Than a Mosquita's Tweeter." Someone named Eki Renrut contributes a pretty fair do-right-man song. And Tina tries valiantly to sing her way out of some gunny sacks. B

Ike & Tina Turner: What You Hear Is What You Get [United Artists, 1971]
Those who regard Tina as Aretha with good legs should listen to her rasp through "I've Been Loving You Too Long" and "Respect" for the finale of this live-at-Carnegie double--her true grit isn't good for much power or warmth. But she and Ike really put their increasingly unfashionable rough-and-greasy notion of soul out there, and despite the speeches, backup singers, and guitar demonstrations a lot of their show is captured in disc. The band crackles, Tina is more intense than in the studio versions, and Ike provides basso humoroso commentary. And not only that but they eat each other! Right on the stage! B+

Ike & Tina Turner: Nuff Said [United Artists, 1971]
The title tune is performed by the Family Vibs, formerly Ike & Tina's Kings of Rhythm, formerly Ike Turner's Kings of Rhythm. They deserve the honor. Here Tina's screeching becomes painful, not because it's rough but because it's out of tune. As for Ike, he's out of tunes. C+

Ike & Tina Turner: Feel Good [United Artists, 1972]
In which Tina finds her more-than-match in all-night bikers, gentle pimps, and other wonders of nature--what, no strong-but-silent bandleaders? And then demonstrates that equality is more than Writing Your Own Songs. B-

Ike & Tina Turner: Nutbush City Limits [United Artists, 1973]
Tina hasn't regained her voice, which makes this recovery a certain rather than a likely fluke, but I find happy accidents in every cut except maybe "Drift Away." Highlights include the nutball title hit, a stripped-down "River Deep, Mountain High," a tribute to East St. Louis's "Club Manhattan," and "That's My Purpose," keyed to a line I happen to be a sucker for: "Let your face be the last I see." B+

Acid Queen [United Artists, 1975]
Her rock myth reconfirmed cinematically, Tina quickly turns out two from the Who (only fair), two from the Stones (who else?), and one from Led Zep ("Whole Lotta Love," brilliant, I trust R. Plant has his big twelve-inch in a sling at this very moment). With bass lines lifted whole from the originals the singing almost doesn't matter. And what rocks most mythically? I. Turner's cleverly entitled "Baby--Get It On." B

Ike & Tina Turner: Greatest Hits [United Artists, 1976]
I prefer Come Together, which this duplicates only on the title cut, but I like the way the sides are split between rock and soul/r&b here. Best moments: the Ikettes harmonizing on "A Fool in Love" and Ike and Tina slurping on "I've Been Loving You Too Long." A-

Private Dancer [Capitol, 1984]
Her voice was shot even before she split with Ike, ten years ago now, and videotaped evidence belied the dazzled reports that filtered in from the faithful when she began her comeback, two and a half years ago now. Less than converted by her reverent reading of the Reverend Green's "Let's Stay Together," I noted cynically that the album lists four different production teams, always a sign of desperation. Which makes its seamless authority all the more impressive. The auteur is Tina, who's learned to sing around and through the cracks rather than shrieking helplessly over them, and who's just sophisticated (or unsophisticated) enough to take the middlebrow angst of contemporary professional songwriting literally. Also personally--check out how she adapts the printed lyrics of Paul Brady's "Steel Claw" to her own spoken idiom. A-

Break Every Rule [Capitol, 1986]
Charges that Tina has betrayed her precious heritage come twenty years too late--not since she and Ike reeled off five straight r&b top-tens between 1960 and 1962 has she pursued the black audience with any notable passion. Her benefactors of the late '60s were Phil Spector, Bob Krasnow, the Rolling Stones, and the Las Vegas International Hotel, where she and Ike were fixtures at the time of Elvis's comeback; their big numbers of the early '70s were the totemic rock anthems "Come Together" and "Proud Mary." That she should now realize the pop fabrications of white svengalis is just a couple more steps down the same appointed path, and she's damned good at it, even an innovator--Private Dancer remains the archetypal all-singles all-hits multiproducer crossover, and Whitney Houston should be so soulful. Unfortunately, the follow-up musters no archetypal crossover singles, and no totemic rock anthems either (Bryan Adams induces her to go metal, which is more than Bowie or Knopfler can claim). Fortunately, ranking svengali Terry Britten gets his own state-of-the-pop-art side. If he and Tina can't convince you that rich people have feelings too, you're some kind of bigot for sure. B+

Tina Live in Europe [Capitol, 1988]
Almost two hours of double-LP, with an extra half of covers on cassette and CD, and not as pointless as you think. It's interesting to hear songs originally crafted for 64-track crossover streamlined or steamrollered by the gruffly inexorable forward motion of a crack road show, and sometimes--a "Break Every Rule" with that live elle-sait-quoi followed by a sharply funky "I Can't Stand the Rain," or most of side three, from Pickett parlay to Cray and Clapton cameos to the inevitable "Proud Mary"--there are transformations or revelations. Then there's the Bryan Adams cameo. And before that there are the David Bowie cameos--two of the ugly things. B

Foreign Affair [Capitol, 1989]
Crossing Josephine Baker and Grace Jones in a magisterially self-possessed style of "blackness," Tina's a full-fledged superstar in Europe. In the U.S. she's more like Ray Charles or Tony Bennett--her iconic clout is heaviest when she's selling products other than her own expertly sultry recordings. And since chances are Plymouths make her just as hot as romantic sensuality, maybe this is as it should be. B-

Simply the Best [Capitol, 1991]
With its hyperstylized soul and dominatrix shtick, Tina's pop-queen phase is recommended to Madonna fans who fancy a more serious grade of schlock. Except on straight love songs, which are rare, her production values will titillate your sensorium even if you're not in the mood--the dream hooker of Mark Knopfler's sexist fantasies come "true." A-

Ike & Tina Turner: Proud Mary--The Best of Ike and Tina Turner [Sue, 1991]
Seven early-'60s hits, two or three of them classic, constitute their authentic stage. Then there's a hiatus when they record for at least four other labels (cf. Tomato's typically patchy Great Rhythm & Blues Sessions quote unquote). Then there are Beatles, Stones, and Sly covers, followed by Eki Renrut's "Workin' Together," followed by the Creedence cover that breaks them pop. After which they return to authenticity at a higher (that is, less authentic) level of consciousness, like "Funkier Than a Mosquita's Tweeter" and their second-biggest pop record, "Nutbush City Limits," which reached number 22. Excellent stuff in general, don't get me wrong. But legendary? This woman really knew how to show off her legs. A-

What's Love Got to Do With It [Virgin, 1993]
This respects literal chronology even less than the movie, which has her doing "Proud Mary" before Creedence released it. But there's a logic to the willy-nilly segues--in which, for instance, two glossily intelligent new products of her pop-diva phase, the thematic "I Don't Wanna Fight" and the pneumatic "Why Must We Wait Until Tonight?," flank B.B. King's 1964 "Rock Me Baby" and the Trammps' 1978 "Disco Inferno," neither of which has ever had her name on it before. In essence, she's reenacting her career as timeless myth, submitting every brilliant exploit and humiliating compromise to the unmatched lust and lustre of her 54-year-old pipes. She's never sounded more beautiful or more alive. Or more enigmatic--it's as impossible as ever to glimpse what she might be like in "real life," or even to pin down an artistic appeal that at this point seems to inhere in the raw fact of her survival. As for the sex, it's more abstract and calculated than ever. And right--love has nothing to do with it. A-

Wildest Dreams [Virgin, 1996]