Turner's longtime sidemen lead tribute to fallen icon

By: JIM TRAGESER - Staff Writer | Wednesday, January 16, 2008 1:22 PM PST ∞

SAN DIEGO ---- If anyone is capable of providing the recently deceased rock 'n' roll and R&B pioneer Ike Turner a proper send-off, it's Ernest Lane and Mack Johnson.

Not only was Lane Turner's longtime piano player in various bands, but he was also one of Turner's longest-running friends.

"I met Ike when I was about 7 years old," Lane said during a break during a recent rehearsal for tonight's Eclective Collective tribute to Turner at the Lawrence Family Jewish Community Center in University City (a benefit for the Jewish Family Services' child abuse prevention programs). Growing up together in Clarksdale, Miss., Lane said he and Turner shared a love for the popular music of the day.

"My father used to take Ike and me all around Mississippi to hear different musicians," he said of their early exploration of the blues, jazz and other popular music in the days before rock 'n' roll and rhythm and blues.

But while Turner was putting together his first iteration of his legendary Kings of Rhythm band while the two were still in high school (in the late 1940s), Lane was taking a different route out of Clarksdale ---- and Mississippi.

"I didn't like what was going on in Mississippi then," Lane said. "I wanted to get out."

He ended up lying about his age and joining the Army at age 14. But he said his mother didn't want him in the military service at so young an age, and she kept after Army officials until they realized he was too young to have enlisted and gave him an honorable discharge at age 16.

Johnson, who played trumpet for Turner at several different points in his career and was again in Turner's Kings of Rhythm when Turner died last month at his San Marcos home, first met Lane in 1962 when both men were playing for Turner at the same time.

If Lane had been in a hurry to get out of the then-segregated Deep South, Johnson's motivation to hit the road was more purely musical.

Growing up in Phoenix, he'd first found music as bugler for the Booker T. Washington School. Washing dishes at a local restaurant after school to help his family make ends meet, he saved up enough to buy a trumpet ---- and ended up getting hired by blues legend Lowell Fulson and going on a tour with Ray Charles at age 17.

But then Uncle Sam came calling, and Johnson was drafted for a four-year hitch during the Korean War. Finding himself in the newly created United States Air Force (formed from the old Army Air Corps following World War II), Johnson served his entire enlistment with the Drum & Bugle Corps at a base near Washington, D.C.

"A lot of my buddies went overseas, and I went to the White House," is how Johnson described his military service after the rehearsal for the Turner tribute.

After he got out of the Air Force, he was hired by Buddy Johnson (no relation), playing trumpet in his big band. It was while in Johnson's band, based out of New York City, that Mack Johnson met Turner ---- and joined his band. In the mid-'60s, after Turner had changed the name of the band to the Ike & Tina Turner Revue, the whole band moved to Los Angeles, where Johnson has been based ever since.

In addition to Turner's combos and Buddy Johnson's band, Johnson said he played with Lloyd Price and James Brown, playing on Brown's legendary recordings of songs like "I Feel Good" and "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag."

That last song was being run through during the rehearsal at the Garfield Theatre at the JCC campus just east of La Jolla a couple of weeks back, along with Turner classics like "Rocket 88" and "A Fool in Love." The band for tonight's show is composed of members of Turner's Kings of Rhythm, as well as JAZMIN, a side project of some of the younger members of Turner's band, with local singer Steph Johnson joining the singers of JAZMIN as well. At the rehearsal, in addition to Turner's own songs they were running through jazz standards ("Mercy Mercy Mercy") and the straight-ahead blues of "Caldonia," which Lane said was one of Turner's favorite songs.

Lane was leading the band, going over each song several times, exhorting the musicians to "tighten it up."

And if you wonder where he learned his technique on leading a band, he credits his approach to music to his late boss, Turner.

"I never took lessons. Ike taught me my first note on piano."

"Soul Serenade: In Memory of Ike Turner"

When: 7:30 p.m. Jan. 17

Where: Garfield Theatre, Lawrence Family Jewish Community Center, 4126 Executive Drive, La Jolla

Tickets: $15

Info: (858) 457-3030 or lfjcc.org

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