We continue our look back at the music of 50 years ago……
1971 was a busy year for the R&B duo of Ike and Tina Turner. Early in the year they had a Top 5 hit with their re-make of CCR’s “Proud Mary” which appeared on their 1970 LP “Workin Together” which came out in December. In February, Capitol Records re-released one of their earlier LPs and in July they released a live LP called “What You Hear Is What You Get” recorded at Carnegie Hall. They also were part of a movie soundtrack called “Soul To Soul”. And then came “Nuff Said”which had no hit singles and didn’t crack the Top 100 Lp chart.
a great cover….
Here is the live record…
One of the problems for me is that the grooves, while funky enough, seem to repeat themselves. It gets a bit boring despite the gritty yowls from Tina over the rubbery bass and chunky horns. It even has a song called “Moving In A Hip Style- A Trip Child” whose music is almost a direct lift of “Proud Mary”.
There are some good things here too…’What You Don’t See, Is Better Yet” and “I Love What You Do To Me” stand out as do the musical contributions from Warren Dawson on bass and that wah-wah guitar from Jackie Clark (if you didn’t know you were in the 70’s, you do now).
All of the songs were arranged by Ike and he played organ on the record while producing it and helping out on the engineering too. It’s a bit uncomfortable to listen to this stuff now, knowing how much abuse Tina was going through at the hands of Ike. Still, their recorded work and the reputation they built as a live act stands up.
Get your dancing shoes on and dig in!
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