*In Which Tina Wants To Go Up Onstage And Sing
[excerpt from I, Tina] ------------------ ...So I told Alline to tell Gene, her boyfriend, to ask Ike if I could try a song. Ike said something like, "Yeah, sure, I'll call her up," but he never did....
Finally, one night, I made my move. It was intermission and things were quiet. Most of the band had gone outside for some air, and Ike was up onstage by himself, just playing the organ.
He stayed up there sometimes between sets to avoid troubles with all his women. ... Suddenly I realized that I knew the song he was playing. It was "You Know I Love You," the B.B. King tune....
So I took the mike, and I started singing:
Darling, you know I love you, and love you for myself . . .
And boy, Ike - that blew him away. He went, "Giii-rrrlll!" And he stopped playing the organ and he ran down off that stage.... He said, "I didn't know you could really sing. What else do you know?"...
I said, "Everything they play on the radio." I told him I knew some Little Willie John songs and some of the blues stuff, and a lot of the things that he and the band were playing.
So Ike started playing the things that I knew, and I started singing, and the band began drifting back in....Soon they're going, "Girl, you can siiing!"
It was the first time I ever felt like a star.
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{I, Tina - by Tina Turner with Kurt Loder. Published in 1986 by William Morrow. Copyright 1986, 2010 by Tina Turner.}
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