Tina’s tunes

Tonight on The Midnight Tracker, we catch Ike and Tina Turner just past the peak of their popularity.

They’d hit it big with covers of Sly Stone’s “I Want to Take You Higher” in 1970 and John Fogerty’s “Proud Mary” and the Phil Spector-produced “River Deep, Mountain High” in 1971.

But by 1972, when “Feel Good” was released, their career arc was headed downward. By 1976, it was over for Ike and Tina.

Tonight’s album strays from the formula that put Ike and Tina on top of the charts and returns to their R&B roots. Whether that was the record company’s idea or Ike and Tina’s idea, who knows?

“Feel Good” has only one cover — the Beatles’ “She Came In Through the Bathroom Window” — and nine songs written by Tina Turner.

Though it apparently didn’t make much of a dent in the charts, “Feel Good” holds up nicely. Ike orchestrates a blistering mix of soul, R&B and early funk, and Tina’s voice oozes sizzle and sensuality as always.

Though it’s barely two minutes long, the fourth cut, “I Like It,” manages to work in some nasty Hammond organ, a solid bass line, energetic horn charts and plenty of wah-wah guitar.

Other highlights of Side 1: The sound of a big Harley drowns out the greasy guitars at the end of “Chopper;” the near-gospel sound of “Feel Good,” a song about — what else? — sex; and the joyous revival of a dance from the early ’60s in “If You Can Hully Gully (I Can Hully Gully Too).”

“Chopper,” “Kay Got Laid (Joe Got Paid),” “Feel Good,” “I Like It” and “If You Can Hully Gully (I Can Hully Gully Too),” Ike and Tina Turner, from “Feel Good,” 1972. It runs 14:19.

(The album link is to a 2006 Australian release that puts this album and the “Nutbush City Limits” album from 1973 on the same CD.)

Explore posts in the same categories: February 2008

Tags: 1972, Ike and Tina Turner

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