“The Soul Of Ike & Tina” by Ike & Tina Turner (1961)

This early and probably most exciting chapter in career of dynamic husband & wife duo has all their early hit singles collected on explosive debut LP that unleashed their combined talents into the world. Ike Turner have been in music business for a good decade, always playing second fiddle to other people who would leave him to pursue solo careers and he probably couldn’t believe his good luck when planned demo for “A Fool In Love” turned out smash hit with girl singer who was just a substitute in the studio. As we all know now, she was quickly re-named, re-modelled and placed in the spotlight of his touring soul revue that featured many other artists, almost like a travelling circus with various attractions. 

As excellent peak into the early days of R&B, this album brings bluesy, growling sound that Turner perfected during previous decade, combined with gospel shouts and female backing trio The Ikettes that cleverly emulates Ray Charles and his The Raellets (if you don’t know any better, you would believe this were The Raelettes with different producer). Majority of songs here still reflects sound of previous decade - “Letter From Tina” for example, is pure doo wop harmony and “If” is big band swing - what makes it fascinating and so interesting is main girl singer who despite her kittenishness clearly followed instructions and leaned not towards typical female cooing of the day but towards hard, shouting and bluesy sound of guys like James Brown and she was damn good at it. Sure, they were many bad Blues mamas before her who did the same thing (Big Maybelle and Big Mama Thornton for example) but this girl had her own lusty, uninhibited sex appeal and self-confidence that didn’t hurt live performances and hubby cunningly exploited this fierce energy that was natural and could have never been taught. By far closest they would ever be to that first, primeval and raw sound of R&B which they helped to put on the map, this album presents Turners as pioneers in a field which would soon drastically change but they will stick with the same formula for few more years, before they turn to cover versions of white artists and finally cross over in bigger market - this is authentic, black sound of early 1960s.