In 1951, Ike Turner, who died yesterday at 76, recorded what many consider the first rock ‘n’ roll tune, “Rocket 88.” He went on to mastermind the Ike & Tina Turner Revue, which produced some of the most stirring soul music of the 1960s.

But as tastes moved away from rhythm and blues in the mid-1970s, an abused Tina Turner left him. He descended into drugs. His ex-wife’s memoir and a film about their marriage made him one of the most vilified figures in the history of popular music — and although he joined the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991, he missed the induction ceremony because he was in prison for transporting cocaine.

But before that, there were the revue years, with a top-5 cover of “Proud Mary,” and an outrageous jungle-rhythm outfit featuring the Ikettes backup singers fronted by Tina, often dressed in tiger skin. Turner’s control of her career was so complete that he renamed the former Anna Mae Bullock after a heroine from a Tarzan-like radio series from his youth. Always more popular in Europe than in America, Turner’s revue opened for the Rolling Stones on numerous tours and scored several hits on the British charts.

Isear Luster Turner was born November 5, 1931, in the blues-soaked Delta town of Clarksdale, Miss. Life was tough and segregated. His father was beaten to death by a mob of white men. He learned piano at the feet of Pinetop Perkins and worked as a disc jockey at a local radio station. By the late 1940s, he had assembled his first Kings of Rhythm band. In 1951, the band traveled to Memphis to record “Rocket 88,” which was among the first records to feature a distorted guitar. Turner would later become known as a pioneer of the whammy bar, but on “Rocket 88” he played the piano. Perhaps because he seemed to be in the background, the song was credited to saxist and singer Jackie Brenston. Turner was actually shy, despite his fearsome reputation. Nevertheless his bands had a reputation as being among the tightest in the business, and he settled in for session work in Memphis with rising blues stars such, as Howlin’ Wolf and Buddy Guy, as well as various Sun label artists.

Turner also worked as a talent scout for Modern Records in Los Angeles and helped ink deals for Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters, and B.B. King. In the mid-1950s, he moved the band to East St. Louis, Ill., center of a thriving R&B circuit. In 1956, he met Anna Mae Bullock, who one day sang impromptu with the band and became a backup singer as well as Turner’s girlfriend. They married in 1959.

Tina’s stage persona was highlighted by short skirts and stiletto heels that made her legs her most visible asset. But despite the glamorous image, she still sang with the grit and fervor of a rock singer with a twist of soul.

Turner’s musical vision drove the whole package, though. “See, most black people, they hear a song, they feel the beat on the two and the four. And white people, they feel it on the one and the three. I feel it on the one, the two, the three, and the four,” he told Entertainment Weekly in 2001. The pair would have two sons. They would also produce a string of hits. The first, “A Fool in Love,” was a top R&B song in 1959, and others followed, including “I Idolize You” and “It’s Gonna Work Out Fine.”

Their densely layered “River Deep, Mountain High” (1966) was one of producer Phil Spector’s proudest creations — although by some accounts Turner’s participation was limited to putting his name on the disk. A rousing version of “Proud Mary,” a cover of the Creedence Clearwater Revival hit, became their signature song and won them a Grammy for best R&B vocal performance by a group.

Still, their hits were often sporadic, and while their public life depicted a powerful, dynamic duo, Tina Turner would later charge that her husband was an overbearing wife abuser and cocaine addict.

In her 1987 autobiography, “I, Tina,” she narrated a harrowing tale of abuse, including suffering a broken nose. She said that cycle ended after a vicious fight between the pair in the back seat of a car in Las Vegas, where they were scheduled to perform.

After the two broke up, both fell into obscurity and endured money woes for years before Tina Turner made a dramatic comeback in 1984 with the release of the album “Private Dancer,” a multi-platinum success with hits such as “Let’s Stay Together” and “What’s Love Got To Do with It.” The movie based on her life, “What’s Love Got To Do with It,” was also a hit, earning Angela Bassett an Oscar nomination. But Laurence Fishburne’s glowering depiction of Ike Turner also furthered Turner’s reputation as a rock villain.

After years out of the spotlight, Turner’s career finally began to revive in 2001, when he released the album “Here and Now.” The recording won rave reviews and a Grammy nomination and finally helped shift some of the public’s attention away from his troubled past and onto his musical legacy. Turner spent his later years making more music and touring, even while he battled emphysema. Among the projects he had percolating were a hip-hop album and a reality show in which he was going to start a new band, complete with Ikettes.
He won a Grammy in 2007 in the traditional blues album category for “Risin’ with the Blues.”

He said he was clean ever since getting out of prison. He was even a member of the neighborhood watch in his suburban San Diego hometown of San Marcos.