“Tina: The Tina Turner Musical,” has been well-received by reviewers since opening on Broadway in October, 2019. Critics have especially praised Adrienne Warren in the title role. Warren reprises her performance in the London West End production that opened April, 2018.
A major musical number in the first act is “River Deep – Mountain High,” recreating on stage a Phil Spector production from 1966.
The Ike & Tina Turner Review had been electrifying audiences since the mid-1950s. They had several hits on Billboard magazine’s Rhythm & Blues charts. Ike’s controlling and physical abuse of Tina became known later. Their career plateaued with the arrival of the Beatles and so-called British Invasion of the U.S. music scene.
[Ike Turner digression… Ike was twenty years old in 1951 when he and his Kings of Rhythm recorded “Rocket 88” at Sam Phillips’s not-yet-famous Sun studio in Memphis. Saxophonist Jackie Brenston provided the lead vocal. The recording, released under Jackie Brenston & His Delta Cats, went to the top of the R&B charts. “Rocket 88” is considered by many critics to be the very first rock ’n’ roll recording. (Other contenders in that endless debate are Fats Domino’s “The Fat Man” and “That’s All Right Mama” — also recorded at Sun — by Elvis Presley.]
Phil Spector was the boy wonder responsible for hit records by the Ronettes, the Crystals and others. Densely-layered musical arrangements, recorded in mono — Spector eschewed stereo — became his signature. What is known as the Wall of Sound was the work of Los Angeles session musicians. They became identified as the Wrecking Crew, purportedly because of an older musician’s complaint that these young players’ embrace of pop and rock was “wrecking the music.” (The Wrecking Crew played on literally thousands of hit records. Glen Campbell, Leon Russell, Cher, Dr. John were among the many who came out of that scene.) In spite of major successes with the Righteous Brothers, Spector’s career had also stalled at the same time and for the same reason as Ike & Tina’s.
Ike & Tina Turner and Phil Spector got together out of a mutual desire to revive their sluggish careers. Because of Ike Turner’s earned, though possibly exaggerated, reputation as a mysogynistic abuser, and Spector’s perception of him as the less-talented of the duo, Ike and Phil made a deal. Ike would receive full credit and billing on the records, but he would not be allowed in the studio or to meddle with the finished recordings.
“River Deep – Mountain High” came from stalwart Brill Building songwriters Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich, who, like Ike and Tina, were a married team. Spector gave the song his full Wall-of-Sound treatment. Released as a single, it did well in England but sank without a ripple in America. Spector had considered it to be his masterpiece. He was so disturbed by its reception, or lack thereof, he went into seclusion. The Ike & Tina Turner album was never finished and so not released.
Despite later work with John Lennon and others, Spector’s career and life was in a downward, and well-documented, spiral. He currently resides in a California state prison, serving time for second-degree murder of actress/model Lana Clarkson.
Once unshackled from Ike, Tina Turner’s life and career soared, reaching new heights as a performer, recording artist, film actress and memoirist. The Rock ’n’ Roll Hall of Fame inducted Ike & Tina Turner in 1991. Tina accepted the accolade alone. Ike was not available, incarcerated as a result of drug problems. Tina Turner is reported to have selected Adrienne Warren as her personal choice to portray Tina Turner on stage.
Most critics consider “River Deep – Mountain High” one of rock ’n’ roll’s greatest singles. (It is.) George Harrison described it as “a perfect record from start to finish.”
