Ike and Tina's show 'knocked the world over,' including Cape

ST. LOUIS -- The clubs where Ike Turner's band played here in the 1950s and '60s have long since closed, but his St. Louis musical legacy never faded.

In those days, mixed-race overflow audiences paid 50 cents to hear his band, the Kings of Rhythm, and later, the Ike and Tina Turner Revue, at Club Imperial and other blues bars and jazz clubs here and in neighboring East St. Louis, Ill.

In Cape Girardeau, longtime jazz bandleader Jerry Ford said he can remember the Ike and Tina Turner Revue playing parties in the Cape Girardeau area during the late '50s and early '60s for university fraternities and sororities.

Chuck McGinty, local musician and owner of C.P. McGinty Jewelers, remembers the shows. He was out of town, but his wife, Laura, relayed a message from him.

McGinty said the Turners played at the Arena Building in the '60s for college students.

"And he says, of course, they were awesome," said Laura McGinty.

Ike Turner, who died Wednesday at at the age of 76, already had made a name for himself before he ever got to St. Louis. But his work in there when he discovered the sexy and talented woman who would become Tina Turner carried him to a whole new level.

"They honed their revue in St. Louis and knocked the world over," said Joe Edwards, a St. Louis club owner.