Their first hit, “A Fool in Love,” was recorded in 1961 when another singer failed to show up for a session. After several early ‘60s hit R&B singles, including “It’s Gonna Work Out Fine” in 1961, they became major stars in England.
A 1971 cover version of John Fogerty’s “Proud Mary” reached No. 4 on the pop chart. Ike and Tina divorced in 1976.
TIMELINE
November 5, 1931: Ike Turner was born.
November 26, 1939: Tina Turner was born.
March 1, 1951: Sam Phillips records “Rocket 88” with singer Jackie Brenston and Ike Turner’s band. for Chess records. This recording is widely considered the first rock and roll record.
October 17, 1960: Ike and Tina Turner hit #27 on pop and #3 on R&B with the Sue records single “A Fool In Love”.
September 18, 1961: Ike and Tina Turner #14 on pop and #2 on R&B “It’s Gonna Work Out Fine”.
1961: Ike and Tina Turner hit #4 on the R&B chart and #38 (1/27/62) on the pop chart with “Poor Fool”.
July 2, 1962: After getting hurt during a jump, Jimi Hendrix gets an honorable discharge from the Army. Over the next three years, he will play numerous gigs and studio sessions with such R&B stars as Little Richard, the Isley Brothers, Ike and Tina Turner and Sam Cooke.
March 27, 1971: Ike & Tina Turner hit #4 with “Proud Mary.”
November 17, 1973: Ike & Tina Turner hit #22 with “Nutbush City Limits”.
(2) As husband and wife, Ike & Tina Turner headed up one of the most potent live acts on the R&B circuit during the '60s and early '70s. Guitarist and bandleader Ike kept his ensemble tight and well-drilled while throwing in his own distinctively twangy plucking; lead vocalist Tina was a ferocious whirlwind of power and energy, a raw sexual dynamo who was impossible to contain when she hit the stage, leading some critics to call her the first female singer to embody the true spirit of rock & roll. In their prime, the Ike & Tina Turner Revue specialized in a hard-driving, funked-up hybrid of soul and rock that, in its best moments, rose to a visceral frenzy that few R&B acts of any era could hope to match. Effusively praised by white rock luminaries like the Rolling Stones and Janis Joplin, Tina was unquestionably the star of the show, with a hugely powerful, raspy voice that ranks among the all-time soul greats. For all their concert presence, the Turners sometimes had problems translating their strong points to record; they cut singles for an endless succession of large and small independent labels throughout their career, and suffered from a shortage of the strong original material that artists with more stable homes (Motown, Atlantic, Stax, etc.) often enjoyed. The couple's well-documented marital difficulties (a mild way of describing Ike's violent, drug-fueled cruelty) eventually dissolved their partnership in the mid-'70s. Tina, of course, went on to become an icon and a symbol of survival after the resurgence of her solo career in the '80s, but it was the years she spent with Ike that made the purely musical part of her legend.
Izear Luster "Ike" Turner, Jr. was born in Clarksdale, MS, in 1931; initially a pianist, he formed his first band in high school and put together the Kings of Rhythm in the late '40s. In 1951, that group cut the pivotal "Rocket 88," a tune often pinpointed as the first ever rock & roll record; however, since sax player Jackie Brenston took the vocal, the song was credited to Brenston & His Delta Cats rather than Turner & the Kings of Rhythm. Not long after, Turner switched from piano to guitar, and he and his band became a prolific session outfit in Memphis, backing various Sun artists and bluesmen during the early '50s. Turner moved the Kings of Rhythm to East St. Louis in the mid-'50s, where they became kingpins of the local R&B circuit. In 1956, he met a teenage, gospel-trained singer from Nutbush, TN, named Anna Mae Bullock, and promised her a chance to sing with his band. That chance kept failing to materialize, until one night Bullock simply grabbed the microphone and started belting. Impressed, Turner made her a part of his revue, changing her name to Tina. After Tina became pregnant by the band's saxophonist, Raymond Hill, she moved into Turner's house, an arrangement that led to their own relationship; the two were married in 1958 and soon had a child of their own.
In late 1959, Turner's band entered the studio to cut a song called "A Fool in Love" for the Sue Records label. The scheduled male vocalist failed to show up for the session, and Tina was pressed into service. Released in 1960, "A Fool in Love" shot to the number two spot on the R&B charts, also making the pop Top 30. Tina was now clearly the focal point of the act, which Turner rechristened the Ike & Tina Turner Revue; with a large, horn-filled ensemble and a group of leggy backup singers dubbed the Ikettes (who complemented Tina's short-skirted, uninhibited gyrating), the Revue eventually developed a reputation for putting on one of the most exciting live shows in R&B. The R&B-chart hits came fast and furious during the early '60s: 1961's "I Idolize You" (number five) and "It's Gonna Work Out Fine" (number two), 1962's "Poor Fool" (number four) and "Tra La La La La" (number nine). It was an impressive run, but the well went dry over the next several years; Ike supplied much of the band's original material, and although he was responsible for many of the early successes, he simply wasn't a world-class songwriter who could deliver hit-caliber tunes with regularity. Much of the Revue's repertoire consisted of bluesy, chitlin circuit R&B that wasn't exceptionally memorable. Ike & Tina branched out from Sue Records and spent the next few years issuing records on additional labels, including Kent, Modern, and Loma. While they had some undeniable high points and several chart entries, none reached the level of their initial run of Top Ten hits.
In 1966, the Turners worked with legendary producer Phil Spector, who was seeking a way to restore his artistic and commercial standing at the forefront of pop music in the wake of advances by the Beach Boys and Beatles. The powerful instrument that was Tina's voice appealed to Spector's sense of grandeur, and he conceived of a massive-scale production framing that voice that would rank as his greatest masterpiece. Ike already had a reputation for demanding control, and Spector struck his deal accordingly: although the records would be fully credited to Ike & Tina Turner, Ike would not be allowed to enter the studio or alter the finished recordings (in effect, Spector was paying him not to meddle). The centerpiece of Spector's collaboration with Tina was "River Deep - Mountain High," a monumental pop symphony that cost over $22,000 to produce (in 1966, this was a whopping sum for an album, let alone a single). The single represented Spector's so-called Wall of Sound style at its most gloriously excessive, and Tina's was one of the few voices in popular music strong enough to cut through the monolithic orchestral backing. With the high cost and his own slipping stature, Spector was betting the farm on "River Deep - Mountain High," and although it rocketed into the British Top Five and made Tina a star in the U.K., it flopped in America, where its mixture of black and white musical aesthetics was still slightly ahead of its time. A crushed Spector retreated from the music business not long after, and his Philles label yanked the accompanying album of the same name from American release (Spector wound up producing only five of the 12 cuts). Although some critics dismiss "River Deep - Mountain High" as overproduced bombast, many still consider it one of rock's greatest singles; George Harrison famously described it as "a perfect record from start to finish."
After the Spector deal fell through, Ike & Tina returned to their somewhat mercenary recording habits, cutting songs for Modern and Innis, then moving to Minit and Blue Thumb in 1969. That year, they went on the road as the opening act for the Rolling Stones, and Ike slightly retooled the Revue's sound to appeal to white rock audiences in addition to their core black following. In 1970, they signed with Liberty/United Artists and recorded Come Together, which incorporated contemporary rock & roll covers into their repertoire; versions of the Beatles' title track and Sly & the Family Stone's "I Want to Take You Higher" made the R&B Top 30. Released later that year, Workin' Together became the most popular album of their career, making the Top 25 on the strength of a storming reinterpretation of CCR's "Proud Mary." Featuring a notorious spoken intro by Tina, the "nice...and rough" version of "Proud Mary" gave Ike & Tina their first Top Five hit on the pop charts, and returned them to the same heights on the R&B side as well; it also won them a Grammy. The covers gimmick couldn't last forever, though, and their formula soon grew predictable; their last major success was 1973's "Nutbush City Limits," a semi-autobiographical song written by Tina that made the R&B Top 20 and just missed that placing on the pop side. By that point, Tina had grown increasingly uninterested in the duo's well-established act, and was tiring of the largely unchallenging material she continued to perform.
Unfortunately, the music itself wasn't the only factor in Ike & Tina's downturn. As a bandleader, Ike had long been a disciplinarian, but during the '60s he developed severe addictions to alcohol and, especially, cocaine. Wanting to maintain control over the star of his show at any cost, Turner kept his wife in line through an increasingly violent pattern of emotional and physical abuse; often drug-related, his flights of rage could result in severe beatings or burns that pushed Tina to attempt suicide in 1968, according to her autobiography. She continued to endure Ike's dominance through the early '70s, and her performances were clearly weary by the end; finally, she walked out on her husband and generally declined to pursue claims for financial compensation from their work together. Their divorce became official in 1976. After a long period of struggle, Tina re-emerged triumphantly in the '80s as a superstar solo act; Ike, meanwhile, ran his own recording studio for a time, but his drug problems worsened, resulting in several arrests. Sadly, and perhaps fittingly, he was serving prison time when he and his former wife were jointly inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991, and was unable to attend the ceremony. ~ Steve Huey, Rovi
A Fool In Love
Ike & Tina Turner Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Won't somebody please, please tell me what's wrong
You're just a fool, you know you're in love (what you say)
You've got to face it to live in this world
You take the good along with the bad
Sometimes you're happy and sometimes you're sad (one more time)
You know you love him, you can't understand (tell me about it)
He's got me smilin' when I should be ashamed
Got me laughing when my heart is in pain
Oh now, I must be a fool
'Cause I'll do anything he wants me too
You're just a fool, you know you're in love (tell me one more time)
You've got to face it to live in this world
You take the good along with the bad
Sometimes you're happy and sometimes you're sad (one more time)
You know you love him, you can't understand
Why he treats you like he do when he's such a good man (listen)
Without the man, I don't wanna live
You think I'm lying, but I'm telling you like it is
He's got my nose open and that's no lie
And I, I'm gonna keep him satisfied
You're just a fool, you know you're in love (tell me one more time)
You've got to face it to live in this world
You take the good along with the bad
Sometimes you're happy and sometimes you're sad (one more time)
You know you love him, you can't understand (tell me now)
Why he treats you like he do when he's such a good man (listen)
A wave of action speaks louder than words
The truest thing that I ever heard
I trust my man and all that he do
And I, and I'll do anything he wants me to do
You're just a fool, you know you're in love
You've got to face it to live in this world
You take the good along with the bad
Sometimes you're happy and sometimes you're sad (tell me one more time)
You know you love him, you can't understand (tell me about it)
Why he treats you like he do when he's such a good man (tell me)
Tell me one more time
Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, well, hey
Tell me one more time, woo
In Ike & Tina Turner’s song “A Fool in Love,” the lyrics describe a woman who is deeply in love with a man who may not deserve her love. Despite the fact that this man has caused her pain and shame, she cannot resist doing anything he wants her to do. The lyrics suggest that this woman may be acting foolishly by living for a man who may not be worth her love. She is willing to overlook his flaws and mistakes, and she expresses her loyalty to him publicly.
Throughout the song, the woman describes her love for this man in a way that is both honest and vulnerable. She admits that her love for him got the best of her, even when she knows that she should have acted differently. Even when others doubt her love for this man, she declares that she cannot live without him. The lyrics convey a sense of desperation and confusion in this woman’s life as she struggles to come to terms with her feelings for a man who may not be worthy of her love.
In conclusion, “A Fool in Love” is a powerful song about the complexities and dangers of love. It highlights the emotional turmoil that can come with loving someone who may not deserve your love. Through the lyrics, the listener is confronted with the painful reality of the woman’s situation, and they are encouraged to reflect on their own experiences with love and heartbreak.
Line by Line Meaning
What you say?
Can you please repeat what you just said?
Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, but hey, hey
An expression of excitement and impatience to hear more.
One more time, tell me 'bout it
Please describe the situation again.
He's got me smilin' when I should be ashamed
I am happy despite knowing that I shouldn't be.
Got me laughing when my heart is in pain
Despite my emotional pain, his company makes me laugh.
Oh no, I must be a fool
I feel foolish for being so deeply attached to him.
'Cause I'll do anything he's wants me to do, now come
I am willing to do anything to satisfy him and keep him happy.
Listen, without my man I don't wanna live
My life feels meaningless without my partner.
Y'all think that I'm lying but I'm telling you like it is
Some may doubt the truthfulness of my words, but I am speaking honestly.
He's got my nose open that's no lie but
I am deeply infatuated with him, and this is not a false claim.
I'm gonna keep him satisfied
I am committed to making sure he is happy in our relationship.
Uh huh, a wave of action speaks louder than words
What someone does is more important than what they say.
The truest thing that I ever heard
This is a fundamental truth I have come to understand.
Trust my man and all that he do
I have faith in my partner and trust their actions.
And I'll do anything he wants me to do, how come
I am still willing to do anything to make my partner happy.
C'mon and tell me one more time
Please repeat yourself, I want to make sure I understand.
Said how come
Can you explain why this is the way it is?
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
Written by: Ike Turner
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
@sauquoit13456
On this day in 1960 {August 15th} "A Fool In Love" by Ike and Tina Turner peaked at #2 {for 2 weeks} on Billboard's Hot R&B Sides* chart, for the week it was at #2, the #1 record for that week was "A Woman, A Lover, A Friend" by Jackie Wilson...
"A Fool In Love" reached #27 on Billboard's Top 100 chart...
Between 1960 and 1975 the duo had twenty-six records on the R&B Singles chart, six made the Top 10 with their two biggest hits both peaking at #2, besides the above "A Fool In Love", their other #2 record was "It's Gonna Work Out Fine" for 2 weeks in September of 1961, the two records that kept it out of the top spot were "My True Story" by The Jive Five and "Hit The Road Jack" by Ray Charles...
Besides "A Fool In Love" and "It's Gonna Work Out Fine", their other four Top 10 records were "I Idolize You" {#5 in 1960}, "Poor Fool" {#4 in 1961}, "Tra La La La La" {#9 in 1962} and "Proud Mary" {#5 in 1971}...
Izear Luster 'Ike' Turner Jr. passed away at the age of 76 on December 12th, 2007 and Ms. Turner, born Anna Mae Bullock, will celebrate her 81st birthday in three months on November 26th, 2020...
May Mr. Turner R.I.P.
* And from the 'For What It's Worth' department, the remainder of the Hot R&B Sides' Top 10 on August 15th, 1960:
At #3. "Walking To New Orleans" by Fats Domino
#4. "The Twist" by Chubby Checker
#5. "Question" by Lloyd Price
#6. "Finger Poppin' Time" by Hank Ballard and the Midnighters
#7. "It's Now Or Never" by Elvis Presley
#8. "I'm Sorry" by Brenda Lee
#9. "This Bitter Earth" by Dinah Washington
#10. "Isty Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini" by Brian Hyland
@tonylombardi4661
This is so great.
Original, strong, and talent beyond measure.
We lost a star today.
Love you Tina.
@noeltaylor3594
Ya' know, when they built Angela Bassett up to play that role, I thought they over did it with the muscles. But now I see.
@edmundsishange3608
@noeltaylor3594 they definitely over did it, Tina looked nothing like Angela.
@ejhoward758
She does that "HEY!!" The best!!
@Igaveyoumyfakename
She does a LOT of stuff the best!
@deaundreeturner3688
Right
@vivianacavazos6673
"Heeey" yeah! 😃
@grxgghxrpxr
Simply the best
@italyestep6891
She invented the hey
@sherriblanton4493
anna mae bullock you're priceless!!