Ike & Tina Turner - River Deep - Mountain High (1966)

As one of the most seminal female voices of the rock and roll era, Tina Turner delivers all of her vocals with a raw, gritty, sexual energy that elicits from the listener awe and thrill.  From the driving "Proud Mary" to the dramatic "What's Love Got to Do with It," Turner's career has flourished over the past few decades.

Before Tina became the successful solo act she is today, however, Anna Mae Bullock was once married to Ike Turner (from whom she got her name), a successful musician, arranger and producer in his own right.  Later, Ike's personal life became just as famous - or infamous - as his stage life.  Throughout their tumultuous marriage, Ike became a demanding figure in both Tina's personal and stage life, to the point of physical abuse.  Nonetheless, the couple's "Ike and Tina Turner Review" became very successful.


During the mid-sixties, the couple were signed to Phil Spector's Philles label.  Throughout the first half of the decade, Phil, his label, and his artists dominated the charts with hits like "He's a Rebel," sung by Darlene Love but accredited to the Crystals, "Be My Baby" by the Ronettes, and "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling" by the Righteous Brothers.  However, by 1966, Phil and his label were quickly slipping out of the picture.  The Crystals broke-up.  Darlene Love left.  The Ronettes were hitless.  The Righteous Brothers left for Verve.  Phil needed a hit and he needed it to be big.  Bigger than anything he had previously ever done.  Calling his works "little symphonies for kids," Spector outdid his peers by doubling, sometimes tripling, the number of instruments he used in his productions - two pianos, two drum sets, two guitars, a whole chorus of singers...And his next masterpiece would be no different.  In fact, it would be the biggest thing he had done in his career yet.


Written by Spector, Ellie Greenwich, and Jeff Barry - the same trio behind hits like "Be My Baby" - "River Deep - Mountain High" was a song like no other rock song written to date.  The melody's range spanned an octave and a half, pushing the singer to his or her absolute limits.  The lyrics still spoke about love, but at a greater intensity than the puppy love-inspired songs of the past.  The key changes are subtle, but more complex and stimulating than those of other pop songs.

Recorded in the tiny Gold Star Studios in Los Angeles, Phil used over twenty musicians (including about a dozen strings - unheard of for a rock record), and over twenty background singers for this session.  Totaling to over forty musicians for one record, no producer - including Phil - had previously ever used so many musicians for a rock record.  Due to Ike's well-known controlling reputation, Ike was barred from the recording sessions.  Thusly, although the record and album says "Ike and Tina Turner," Tina's voice is the only one that appears on the entire album.  Recording sessions were tense as Spector made Turner record the song - with its stratospherically-high melody - over and over again, to the point of Turner taking her shirt off due to the fact that she was sweating profusely.

Hours and hours later - not to mention $22,000 later - the record was complete.  The result?  A rich symphony of sound so big and so daring that it would be too big for radio.  And that's exactly what happened.  Despite all the promise of "River Deep," the colossal masterpiece Phil had slaved over for so long stalled at #88 on the U.S. charts (although it faired much better in the U.K., peaking at #3).  It has been argued that Phil's hostility and pomposity toward radio DJ's had caught up with him, as no one wanted to play his work anymore.  It has also been said that the record was too big and too much for people to handle at that time; "River Deep" was just ahead of its time.  Regardless of the reason, the flop of "River Deep" sent Spector into a downward spiral of reclusion of which he would not emerge until he got the call to work on the now-classic Let It Be album.

Despite the flop, however, "River Deep - Mountain High" is oft covered, and has been a hit for several acts, namely the Supremes and the Four Tops, for which their duet peaked at #14.  Over the years, though, the original Ike and Tina Turner record has been hailed as one of Spector's greatest masterpieces, as well as one of the greatest masterpieces overall, of 1960's rock and roll.

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Below are two versions of the song.  The first is the complete, uncut version of Ike and Tina's classic.  Play close attention to the swelling of the strings, the might of the chorus, and Tina's fierce attack on the pulsating melody.

The second is a promotional video made - an early music video, if you will - to an abridged version of the song.  The grittiness and raw quality of the video matches not only that of the song, but that of the rock scene emerging at this time as well...