Quotes by Ike Turner

• I'm very fast on teaching guys. Like, when I came over here, I only had two rehearsals with the band. I wondered when I first got here... but it sure came up great.
• I can put a hip-hop beat to reggae. That is, I can have real reggae in the drums and in the rhythm, and on top of it I can put The Rolling Stones' feeling, anyone's feeling on top. Nobody has ever done this before, man.
• I miss riding those fast trains in Japan... 'cause I'd never seen a train that fast in my life.
• I really enjoy myself in Norway. Because I had started losing confidence in my ability of what I do. But sometimes, man, you just get tired of fighting and trying to prove yourself.
• I still play Strat, I don't know nothing else. Strats and Telecasters.
• I wanna record these girls individually. And then, I wanna cut a blues album on me. But all of it, original stuff, you know. When I listen to the blues today, it's like they all sounds similar. I wanna do something different, to try to add to the blues flavor.
• I'm just beginning to develop callouses on my fingers, because I haven't played a lot.
• I always considered myself being an organizer. I'm very good at teaching singers, I'm very good at staging a show, to entertain people. But I never included myself. I never applied this to me as an artist.
• I'm really thankful to God, man. Like now, I'm really making a real comeback with my group. With or without a record, with or without a movie. And behind all the negative press behind this movie.
• Either accept people for what they are, or don't. So, in other words, man, if people don't know me, I think they do themself an injustice. Because, as a whole, I think I'm a good person.
• In China, when you get to the airport everyone be talking in American slang.
• In those days, man, in the '50s, black people in the South... We didn't recognize contracts that much. And we didn't recognize marriages that much, either.
• Spector is a good guy, but he's a nut. Ha, ha, ha! You know, I love him, but he's unpredictable. He's OK as long as he don't drink.
• They have all different names for music. I think the music I'm going to change the style with is going to be really, really big-years and years after I'm gone.
• They used to say it was bad for Indians to drink, but it's bad for anybody. When they drink they lose their cool, a lot of us. Like when we played with Sonny Boy, I would never get paid, you know. He would drink up all the money.
• They would come down in Mississippi, they hired me as a talent scout. And I would go all over Mississippi, Alabama, Texas, and find out different artists for them.
• They'll probably start working on my movie sometime... They are doing a complete movie of my life story. It will not be based on any negativity. It will be more about my life, from a kid, how I came up and why I came through.
• Walt Disney got away with portraying me in the light that they were portraying me in. I have always been a fighter, so... But I have no regrets, man. It's just like God brought me through the drugs, I know he'll bring me through this.
• I believe I was ahead of my time.