My Love Story Page 3

  I enjoyed growing up in Nutbush, a don’t-blink-or-you’ll-miss-it little town on Highway 19 in Tennessee, and I wouldn’t change a thing, except I hated working in the cotton fields. No, thank you, I could live without that. We were comfortable in our shotgun house, one story with all the rooms situated one behind the other, as is the style in the South (the old saying was that you could shoot a gun from the front door straight through to the back). We weren’t poor like some. Our garden was big and plentiful, so we ate well. We were a part of a lively community of family and friends. Everyone worked hard, played hard, and worshipped at church on Sunday.

  I had two grandmothers, my father’s mother, Mama Roxanna Bullock, who was very strict, and my mother’s mother, Mama Georgie Currie, who was kind and fun-loving. There was no question that I preferred spending time with Mama Georgie. The atmosphere at her house was happy and lively, while life at Mama Roxanna’s was harsh and all about rules.

  I loved being a country girl, and that’s how I learned to be independent. My father was the overseer at a farm and my parents left me at home while they went to work in the fields. I was young—small enough to need a chair to get my glass of milk and a snack—but old enough to entertain myself, although not always in the best way. If there was a tree, I climbed it, never giving a thought to falling down. If there was excitement, or danger, I found it. I took chances, and I remember staring death in the face a few times.

  It seemed that on every farm, there was a horse that didn’t like children. We were told to stay away, but one day, I was tired of playing alone and wanted to run across the way to my grandmother’s place. I thought maybe I could sneak past that nasty horse. I opened the door quietly—but you know those animals have another sense. He heard my little steps and came charging after me.

  Mama Georgie’s house wasn’t far, but for a little girl running from an angry animal, it seemed like a mile. I managed to reach the fence, yelling because the horse had gotten to me and was about to pull me down and trample me. Suddenly, one of our billy goats ran over to distract the horse, bleating his little heart out like a Disney character. When the horse looked away, my cousin Margaret rushed in at the last minute to pull me to safety. I don’t know what my father did with the horse, but that goat was my hero. I always believed that he saved my life.

  Danger aside, I was happiest when I was outdoors. Children adapt when life is hard. They find something to help them get through it. I was always out of the house, exploring, playing in the neighboring pastures, fields, and gardens, watching animals, looking at the sky. Home, especially when my mother was there, could be unpleasant. After she left, it was just sad. But nature was my special retreat, a world of love and harmony to me. Even when I went there hurt and angry, it would transform me. “Where have you been all day?” I was asked when I came home, dreamy and disheveled. Where had I been? Nowhere in particular, just being outside made me feel good.

  I did not feel the same way about going to school. Like other rural schools at the time, the Flagg Grove School in Nutbush was one big room, made of clapboard, and shared by three classes that were taught simultaneously. I was not a good student, so I lived in fear of being called to the blackboard. One day, my teacher asked me to come up to solve an arithmetic problem. Panic set in. I freaked out because I had no idea how to do it. I remember falling to the floor, kicking and crying because all eyes were on me, and everyone in the room could see that I didn’t know the answer.

  Looking back, I think the teacher should have intervened, but in those days, I don’t even know if they were aware of children who had learning disabilities, and I was definitely one of those children. I felt totally alone, helpless, embarrassed. Not that I would have said the word “embarrassed” then: I would have said “ashamed”—ashamed that I was standing there in front of all the other kids, failing, with numbers blurring in front of me because of my tears. My brain didn’t have that ability. I called it “not smart,” and I suffered because I believed I had to hide my stupidity from my family and friends and, when I got older, my coworkers and managers.

  My attitude changed later in life, in more informed times, when my doctors told me there was a reason why I had difficulty learning. It had something to do with my frontal lobes. The creative part of my brain was ablaze and working overtime, but I would never be good at counting or reading. I finally got over my lifelong sense of inadequacy when Princess Beatrice, Queen Elizabeth’s granddaughter, discussed her dyslexia in a number of interviews. I know that other people have spoken about this condition, but there was something about the way she explained it that made me pay attention. She said that she wasn’t able to count and that she had a hard time learning how to read. She could have been describing me. For the first time, I truly understood what my problem was, and felt better about myself.

  There’s a Buddhist expression, “turning poison into medicine.” That’s the best way to describe what happened to the Flagg Grove School, the scene of my many humiliations at the blackboard. The historian Henry Louis Gates researched my ancestry on his PBS program African American Lives, and discovered that my great-grandfather, Benjamin Flagg, was the original owner of the property that was the site for the school. He sold the land for less than market value so the school could be built and black children would have a place to go for an education. I was profoundly moved by that revelation.

  Then, a few years ago, I was approached by the West Tennessee Delta Heritage Center. They proposed moving the old school from Nutbush to nearby Brownsville to turn it into the Tina Turner Museum. They wanted to celebrate my career in music and to show people what it was like to attend an African American school in the South in the 1940s. The school had been closed for years (it had become a barn) and needed a lot of work. We raised enough money to transport the building to a new site, where it was painstakingly restored and outfitted with Tina Turner memorabilia. The windows were made to appear as if they were looking out at a cotton field. The museum opened in 2014, with my costumes and gold records standing beside my original wooden schoolgirl desk and, of all things, an authentic chalkboard, just like the one that terrified me when I was a child. It doesn’t scare me anymore. Now I’d like to think it inspires people to overcome whatever obstacles they may experience in life, turning their poison into medicine.

  The Anna Mae who cried in front of the class was one side of me. The other Anna Mae was a born entertainer who, under the right circumstances, would have welcomed the attention and done anything to hold on to it. If at the very moment of my humiliation someone had said, “Wait! Start the music!” I immediately would have jumped up off the floor with a big smile on my face, singing, dancing, and performing like crazy. I was confident and never ashamed to do it—no stage fright whatsoever. Even as a little girl, I knew I could sing better than the grown women around me. I was born with that talent. My voice was my gift and I knew how to use it.

  I have been singing my entire life. Some of my earliest memories are of my mother taking me shopping when she and my father lived in Knoxville. Unlike Nutbush, Knoxville was a big city with all kinds of stores. When the salesgirls found out that I could sing, they put me up on a stool—I was maybe four or five at the time—and listened while I performed my versions of the latest hits. “I was walking along, singing a song,” I sang without hesitation. As soon as I heard a song on the radio, I instantly had it, memorized almost every word on the spot. It was natural and effortless, like a snake shedding one skin for another. I was born with that. The salesgirls thought that I, the little girl with the big voice, was so entertaining they gave me shiny coins, dimes, nickels, quarters, even fifty-cent pieces, a fortune in my eyes, that I kept in a glass bank. They were my first paying audience!

  Knoxville was also the home of the “sanctified church,” where we worshipped whenever we were in town. I didn’t know what “sanctified” meant, but I loved that it was totally different from our Baptist church back in Nutbush. When the congregation got what they called the “Spiri
t,” they danced, clapped their hands, and sang at the top of their lungs. They were possessed by God and music. I sang and danced right along with them. It felt like being in a show, especially when it got loud and fast. I didn’t understand the particulars of their religion, but the spectacle—the sound, the movement, the pure joy—was really exciting.

  Back in Nutbush, my family was my captive audience. At Mama Georgie’s we—Alline, my half sister Evelyn (my mother had a child before she met my father), my cousins, and me performed shows we made up on the spot. I never had to think about singing or dancing for a second—what to do, or how to do it. I was the leader, always taking charge of the others, picking the songs and demonstrating the steps. We had so much fun pretending to be onstage. I had a photograph from that time, but when Alline grew up, she decided that she didn’t like how she looked, so she destroyed it. That really made me suffer because it was the only picture I had of myself when I was skinny and all voice.

  I loved singing at picnics. Everybody had picnics, but in Nutbush, black people’s picnics were different, more fun I think, with fresh barbecue piled up on the tables and a real carnival atmosphere. For live entertainment, we had Mr. Bootsy Whitelaw, who was famous in our part of Tennessee. He played the trombone, while another musician accompanied him on the snare drum. A marching band wouldn’t have been as exciting to me as those two. I soon became known far and wide as the “little Anna Mae” who sang with Mr. Bootsy. I don’t remember what songs he played for me to sing, but I was right there by his side, loudly and enthusiastically trying to rouse the crowd to join in. “Come sing with Mr. Bootsy,” I called to the passersby. Bootsy Whitelaw made such an impression on me that years later, when I was with Ike, I wrote and recorded a song about him (“Bop along, bop along, bop along, Mr. Bootsy Whitelaw”).

  I never stood still for a moment when I was singing. I was always doing a little dance step, whether it was a choreographed step or whatever. My sister could not dance. My mother could not dance. But I could. I think when you can sing, the dancing goes with the singing.

  Singing was both a form of expression and a source of comfort to me, especially when my living situation became unpredictable and I was shuttled from place to place. Muh was gone, and then, when I was thirteen, my father moved away and disappeared from our lives. Alline and I lived with some cousins for a time, then we settled in with Mama Roxanna, who watched our every move. I found security and affection with Connie and Guy Henderson, a young white couple who needed help with their baby. I loved living in their house and I considered myself a part of their family. I craved order and routine after going through so much upheaval in my life.

  The Hendersons set a wonderful example for me because they had high standards. They taught me how to maintain a lovely home, which they filled with books, magazines, and pretty things. They gave me guidance about proper manners. They even took me on a trip to Dallas, Texas, so I saw a little bit of the world outside of Tennessee. More importantly, they showed me that a married couple could be loving to each other and live in harmony with their children. This kind of behavior may seem normal, but it wasn’t my experience.

  I wanted a relationship of my own, and when I was fifteen, I found it with Harry Taylor, the high school basketball player who was my first love. Harry was perfect in every way—handsome, popular, the captain of the team. I was so thrilled to be with him that I put up with his behavior—he would break up with me, see another girl, then come back—because I imagined we would settle down and get married someday. Of course, I had all the wisdom of a fifteen-year-old when I hatched this plan. Harry broke my heart when one of his other girlfriends became pregnant and he married her. I was in no hurry to experience that kind of disappointment again.

  Hoping for a fresh start, I went to live with Mama Georgie. I believed I was old enough to make these decisions myself, although no one seemed to care enough to question my choices.

  Just a few months later, when I was sixteen and still in high school, Mama Georgie died. I felt so alone without her, and I had no idea what I would do. Then my mother invited me to live with her in St. Louis. Alline was already there. I was apprehensive about moving in with Muh after having been away from her for so long, but I was intrigued by the idea of living in a big city. I was no longer a vulnerable child who needed her mother. Now I knew how to protect myself, or at least I thought I did.

  Experience had taught me that when I dared to care about someone, I lost them; Muh, when she moved away; my beloved cousin Margaret, who died in a car accident; Harry, who broke my young heart when he left me for another girl; Mama Georgie; and now I had to say goodbye to the Hendersons.

  I never felt loved, so I decided it wasn’t important. Not to me. I think I put up a kind of a shield against it. I told myself, “If you don’t care about me, that’s okay, I’ll go on. If you don’t love me, I’ll go on.” I’ll go on was my mantra before I ever knew what a mantra was.

  3

  * * *

  “SOMETHING’S GOT A HOLD ON ME”

  “I get a feeling, I feel so strange

  Everything about me seems to have changed”

  In St. Louis, I was feeling a little lost and lonely in my new life, so I was thrilled when Alline, who was sexy and sophisticated (and, unlike me, had an adult social life that involved lipstick, high heels, and men in Cadillacs), offered to take me to a nightclub in racy East St. Louis. The band that filled the place every night was Ike Turner and the Kings of Rhythm. Of course, I had heard of them, everybody had. Ike’s “Rocket 88,” one of the very first rock ’n’ roll songs ever, was a big hit, although typical of the record business at the time, he didn’t make any money on it. Ike Turner was the most popular and hardworking musician on the St. Louis/East St. Louis club circuit. He was always in the newspapers, and I was excited to have the chance to hear him play in person at the Club Manhattan.

  The first time I saw Ike onstage he was at his very best, sharply dressed in a dark suit and tie. Ike wasn’t conventionally handsome—actually, he wasn’t handsome at all—and he certainly wasn’t my type. Remember, I was a schoolgirl, all of seventeen, looking at a man. I was used to high school boys who were clean-cut, athletic, and dressed in denim, so Ike’s processed hair, diamond ring, and skinny body—he was all edges and sharp cheekbones—looked old to me, even though he was only twenty-five. I’d never seen anyone that thin! I couldn’t help thinking, God, he’s ugly.

  I was definitely in the minority. Most women, black or white, found Ike irresistible because there was something dangerous about him. And Ike didn’t just look dangerous: he was dangerous. There were endless rumors about his bad temper, his flare-ups with his musicians, his fights with jealous women (and sometimes their angry husbands), and there was the story about that time he beat up someone with a gun, earning him the nickname “Pistol Whippin’ ” Ike Turner. That Ike Turner was an angry and unpredictable man with an infamous dark side, but at the time, there was a glamour to that.

  Despite his reputation for being an outlaw, Ike had a personality that people liked. He was fun. Kind of Southern. He didn’t speak proper English, but you knew it was his way. He really had something when he came out onstage and lit it up. He picked up his guitar, or sat at the piano, and brought the instrument to life. People just went crazy. Like me. That’s who I responded to that first night, a great guitarist playing the most exciting music, music that made me want to burst into song and dance. Alline was dating one of the guys in the band, so she was always following them from one club to another. I begged her to let me tag along. With my sister as chaperone, I became a regular at the Club Manhattan and anywhere else they were playing.

  The atmosphere between sets was so casual that sometimes Ike invited a girl in the audience to come up and sing at the microphone. I wanted to be that girl. A dozen times, I imagined how I’d jump up on the stage, hold the mike gracefully, as if I’d been doing it my whole life, and sing with a voice so powerful it would rock the room. But night after
night, Ike passed me by, selecting girls who were prettier and sexier, but who couldn’t sing a note. If he noticed me at all, and I doubt that he did, I was just “Little Ann,” Alline’s invisible younger sister.

  One night, Alline’s boyfriend tried to tease her into singing during the break. She turned him down flat, pushing the mike away. I saw my opportunity and grabbed it. Ike was onstage, playing B.B. King’s “You Know I Love You.” I started singing, my voice cutting through the noise and the smoke, forcing everyone, including Ike, to take another look at Little Ann. He was shocked when he heard my voice. It didn’t sound like it could come from such a skinny young girl. He loved what he heard that night, and it was the music, not the usual boy/girl, man/woman thing, that drew us together.

  Suddenly, I found myself in a world I’d never imagined. Think of me, a teenager and still a country girl at heart, naïve and eager as a puppy for affection and acceptance. Ike was older. He already had a woman, Lorraine (actually, he probably had twenty women, but that shows just how naïve I really was). Ike and I became fast friends, like brother and sister, not lovers. He was impressive, with his hot band, his pink Cadillac, his big house in East St. Louis. Even Muh, who didn’t want me hanging around with the wrong people, had to admit Ike had a charm all his own.

  The best part was that I got to sing professionally. Back in Tennessee, if you enjoyed singing, you had three options: singing along with the radio, singing at a church, or singing at a picnic with Mr. Bootsy Whitelaw. But this was the real thing, performing on a stage, with a popular band. Ike taught me all about music and he paid me to sing. When we weren’t performing, we lived and breathed music, whether we were rehearsing or making late night rounds of the clubs. We had fun together—so much fun—and that was it.