Ike Turner (Kinda, Sorta) R.I.P.

People is reporting (via TMZ) that Ike Turner has passed away at his California home, with further details still pending.

Though he’s most famous, or infamous depending on where you get your history from, for a working relationship with his wife Tina that lasted for nearly two decades, producing rock and R&B classics that no serious fan should need inventoried, Turner’s career stretched back before the birth of rock and roll, and he was known for his ferocious guitar playing as both a sideman and leader–as well as for concurrent gigs as a songwriter, producer, and eagle-eared talent groomer for the blues market–well before his career took off in earnest in the ’60s. But while People uses the gentler euphamism “tempestuous” to describe Ike’s relationship with Tina, and while it’s tempting to let his historical achievements speak louder than his post-breakup rep, as the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame at least partly decided when he was inducted in 1991, we also shouldn’t shy away from the fact that Turner was a mean prick who eventually did own up to regularly abusing his own wife, which makes him another in a long line of musicians where it’s oh so easy to hate the player even as you admire their contibutions to pop history.

Ike Turner Dead At 76 [People]