Ike Turner, the rhythm and blues musician, songwriter, bandleader, producer, talent scout and former husband of Tina Turner, died Wednesday at his home in San Marcos, California, a San Diego suburb. He was 76.
His death was announced by Jeanette Bazzell Turner, who married Turner in 1995. She gave no cause of death, but said he had had emphysema.
Turner was best known for discovering Anna Mae Bullock, a teenage singer from Nutbush, Tennessee, whom he renamed Tina Turner. The Ike and Tina Turner Revue had a string of hits in the 1960s before the Turners broke up in 1975. Tina Turner described the relationship as abusive in her autobiography, "I, Tina," which was adapted for the 1993 film "What's Love Got to Do With It?" and made Turner's name synonymous with domestic abuse.
"I got a temper," he admitted in 1999 in his autobiography, "Takin' Back My Name: The Confessions of Ike Turner." But he maintained that the film had "overstated" it.
Turner's career extended back to the 1950s, when he played with pioneering Mississippi Delta bluesmen and helped shape early rock 'n' roll as well as soul and R&B. "Rocket 88," a song his band released in 1951 under the group name Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats, is regularly cited as a contender for the first rock 'n' roll record for its beat, its distorted guitar and its honking saxophone.
Ike and Tina Turner were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991.
Ike Turner, whose full name is variously given as Izear Luster Turner Jr. and Ike Wister Turner, was born in Clarksdale, Mississippi.
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