Obituary: Ike Turner

By 2003 Ike had rebuilt his career and was performing in France

Soul musician Ike Turner is probably best known for his musical partnership and stormy marriage with Tina Turner.

But his true legacy is his role as a pioneer of popular music.

In 1951, at the age of 19, he wrote what some music historians identify as the first ever rock 'n' roll record, Rocket 88.

He performed on it with his band, The Kings of Rhythm, although the record was credited to Jackie Brenston and His Delta Cats.

Born in 1931 in Clarksdale, Mississippi, the session guitarist and pianist also played with many renowned musicians including BB King, Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters and Willie Dixon.

He was at one point a singing coach to blues singer Janis Joplin, and a young guitarist named Jimi Hendrix was also a one-time member of The Kings of Rhythm.

Fateful meeting

Ike met the woman he would later marry when she was an 18-year-old singer named Anna Mae Bullock.

In their heyday Ike and Tina had hits like River Deep Mountain High

He quickly signed her up to front his group, coaching and re-styling her into the husky-voiced, stiletto-wearing Tina Turner.

They soared to fame with a string of hits, beginning with A Fool in Love.

Others followed, including I Idolize You, It's Gonna Work Out Fine, River Deep Mountain High, and Proud Mary - which won the couple a Grammy Award in 1972.

The pair's relationship was overshadowed by his drug-fuelled abusive treatment of her, which led Tina Turner to eventually seek a divorce in 1976.

The story of this period was told in the 1993 film What's Love Got To Do With It, based on Tina Turner's autobiography I, Tina, and starring Laurence Fishburne and Angela Bassett as the musical duo.

Ike maintained that much of the film's portrayal of him was inaccurate.

After the divorce, Ike spiralled into cocaine addiction, and was jailed in California in the mid 1980s for drug-related offences.

The duo were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991, although Ike was in prison at the time.

However, as late as 2001, at the age of 70, he returned to the public eye - this time for his music, rather than his misdemeanours - with the release of the Grammy-nominated album Here and Now.

And in 2007, despite a battle with the lung condition emphysema, he won his second Grammy for a further album, Risin' with the Blues.

He died at the age of 76 at his home near San Diego, California on 12 December 2007.