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Unlikely as it sounds, Gentle Reader, I too make mistakes. This was one of them: Ike & Tina Turner - The Collection - Ten CDs - 160 odd songs, twenty-odd quid. Bargain? Think again.
The recordings are about as far from remastered as you can get - volume levels all over the shop, enormous amounts of silence before and after tracks, and some audio so insultingly poor your ears will weep to hear it. Furthermore, each CD is barely half full, so the whole selection takes up twice as much room as it should - assuming it were any good.
Which leads to the packaging - ten discs - two inlay pictures, one set of sleeve notes. Yes - the same sleeve notes in every case. And no production information on anything.
Frankly, this stinks of bootleg, and not in a good way. If Ike Turner’s estate knew this product existed, they’d probably kill it with fire.
But all is not lost. If your CD rack is bowing under the weight of this great stool of a CD, it is still possible to make a passable playlist. Allow me to oblige.
Too many tears in my eyes
I idolize you
Come together
Took a trip
Take the time
I got my mojo working
No more lovin’
Down in the valley
Why I sing the blues
Ya ya
Trouble on my mind
You are my sunshine
You can’t have your cake
There’s nothing I wouldn’t do
Sugar sugar
What kind of love
Finger poppin’ time
High heel sneakers
Jo jo
I’m blue
Shake a hand
Money
It’s gonna work out fine
River deep, mountain high
Nutbush City limits
Shake a tail feather
Sweet Rhode Island red
Proud Mary
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. It being dark, God said, ‘Let there be light’, and lo, there was. God separated this into day and night. That was the first day. On the second day, God created the sky. On the third day, he made sea etc and called the dry bit ‘land’, and he made vegetation happen. Next, he made the sun and the moon. He also made the stars. That was the fourth day. And God said, ‘Put living creatures in the sky and the water’. And sure enough, there they were. That was the fifth day. And God said, ‘Put living creatures on the land too’. ‘Plus let us make man in our image, and let him rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over all the creatures that move along the ground’. So God created man in his own image and blessed him. That was the end of day six, and God liked what he had done. Day seven, he rested. Day eight, he invented clogs, bumper cars, skipping, toe traps, politically incorrect poetry and marital aids.
To compensate for an overlong description of the first two songs, the following two are about babies, and the next two are sort-of finger-related. Then there’s a snake and another baby, a highway code metaphor, a call against Christian hypocrisy and another baby. Which brings us to day nine. What is it about the number nine? Revolution #9, Engine #9, Love potion #9, 9mm goes bang, Nine times a lady, The curse of the ninth symphony, nine valkyries in the so-called ride-of the, and in this instance, nine phone calls. I once called our house on Avenue Road nine times. It was my birthday, and Kate was on the sodding blower for about two and a half hours solid. I walked the whole way from the station, stopping at every call box on the way, but she was busy making devil talk with her familiars. I think Mandy shagged a gipsy in my bed the night before too.
Ms English is also disappointed with the telephone, but to her credit, takes it on the chin. Unlike Rosa Batiste who is the victim of a hit and run. This growing problem is not being addressed by an appropriate legal response. Furthermore, there is a failure to use the manslaughter charge, as suggested in Wilkinson's Traffic Law, Section 5.65. Tainted love is relatively tame by comparison, unless of course you’re talking about deliberate infection with an STD or even AIDS, which I think now counts as GBH, but you’d have to speak to your lawyer about that. You really got a hold on me runs the gauntlet of asphyxiation-based erotic thrills. And we return to THE NINE! Westbound = Piccadilly Circus - Hyde Park Corner - Kensington - Hammersmith. I’ve known better escape routes, but it sure beats Swavesey - Over - Willingham - Longstanton - Bar Hill - Cambridge.
There’s more songs too, but I run out of space to tell you about them.
Eighth Day: Eenie meenie minie mo
Eloise Laws: Love factory
Rachel Sweet: B-A-B-Y
Fred Hughes: Baby boy
Freda Payne: Band of gold
Wayne Gibson: Under my thumb
Al Wilson: The snake
The Metros: Since I found my baby
Mel Wynn & The Rhythm: Aces Stop sign
Honey Cone: Sunday morning people
Lorraine Chandler: Love you baby
The Moments: Nine times
Barbara Jean English: I’m living a lie
Rosa Batiste: Hit and run
Larry Saunders: On the real side
Gloria Jones: Tainted love
Gayle McCormick: You really got a hold on me
Flaming Ember: Westbound No. 9
Laura Greene: Moonlight, music and you
Irma Thomas: Break-a-way
Nosmo King & the Javells: Goodbye (nothing to say)
Brenda and The Tabulations: Lies, lies, lies
Continental Four: Heaven must have sent you
