Ike Turner Quotes

They have all different names for music. I think the music I'm going to change the style with is going to be really, really big-years and years after I'm gone.

They'll probably start working on my movie sometime... They are doing a complete movie of my life story. It will not be based on any negativity. It will be more about my life, from a kid, how I came up and why I came through.

Stay in school, stay off drugs, don't make the same mistakes I did, respect yourself, and others will follow.

I'm using Fender Twin Reverbs and Fender Blues Devilles on stage.

The music I listened to when I was a kid was Sonny Boy Williams and Pinetop Perkins. He was the one who had the most influence on my playing. I saw him through a window playing piano and I thought it was unbelievable somebody could move their fingers that fast. And this is how I got interested in piano.

Either accept people for what they are, or don't. So, in other words, man, if people don't know me, I think they do themself an injustice. Because, as a whole, I think I'm a good person.

I'm not gonna try to defend, or undo what's been done. All I could say about whatever's been done, it's been done, and it's water under the bridge. I have no regrets of my life.

I miss riding those fast trains in Japan... 'cause I'd never seen a train that fast in my life.

I'm just beginning to develop callouses on my fingers, because I haven't played a lot.

In those days, man, in the '50s, black people in the South... We didn't recognize contracts that much. And we didn't recognize marriages that much, either.

When I met her she was Anna Mae. I was the one who turned her into Tina Turner. I had to tell her how to dress, how to walk and how to talk on stage. I told her how to stand and how to look, the whole thing, man, I mean from the wig down.

When you think of blues, all you think about is crying guitar like B.B. King's guitar. You think about someone crying that their woman's gone. And how bad life is and all that. Why can't it be something happy with the blues? Why can't it have a hip-hop beat to which you can do the dances of today?

I wanna record these girls individually. And then, I wanna cut a blues album on me. But all of it, original stuff, you know. When I listen to the blues today, it's like they all sounds similar. I wanna do something different, to try to add to the blues flavor.

I still play Strat, I don't know nothing else. Strats and Telecasters.

I can put a hip-hop beat to reggae. That is, I can have real reggae in the drums and in the rhythm, and on top of it I can put The Rolling Stones' feeling, anyone's feeling on top. Nobody has ever done this before, man.

Rock'n'roll is nothing but Boogie Woogie with stuff on top of it. And if you're black, they name it rhythm'n'blues, and if you're white, they name it rock'n'roll. So, I don't give a... You know.

Walt Disney got away with portraying me in the light that they were portraying me in. I have always been a fighter, so... But I have no regrets, man. It's just like God brought me through the drugs, I know he'll bring me through this.

I believe I was ahead of my time.

They would come down in Mississippi, they hired me as a talent scout. And I would go all over Mississippi, Alabama, Texas, and find out different artists for them.

In China, when you get to the airport everyone be talking in American slang.

I always considered myself being an organizer. I'm very good at teaching singers, I'm very good at staging a show, to entertain people. But I never included myself. I never applied this to me as an artist.

They used to say it was bad for Indians to drink, but it's bad for anybody. When they drink they lose their cool, a lot of us. Like when we played with Sonny Boy, I would never get paid, you know. He would drink up all the money.

I'm very fast on teaching guys. Like, when I came over here, I only had two rehearsals with the band. I wondered when I first got here... but it sure came up great.

I really enjoy myself in Norway. Because I had started losing confidence in my ability of what I do. But sometimes, man, you just get tired of fighting and trying to prove yourself.

I'm really thankful to God, man. Like now, I'm really making a real comeback with my group. With or without a record, with or without a movie. And behind all the negative press behind this movie.