Come Together

Come Together was in the middle of a series of albums by Ike and Tina Turner that marked their transition from 1960s soul chameleons to 1970s grimy rock and rollers. It was more of an endpoint than a departure for Ike, who got in on the ground floor of rock music with “Rocket 88.” For Ike and Tina, rock and roll encompassed electric blues, funk and their earlier soul moves. It was glued together with the brutally simple guitar riffing soaked in drugs, alcohol and decay that they had taught to The Stones when the two acts toured together at the end of the ‘60s. This period of Ike and Tina found initial mainstream success through hippie-adjacent rock covers like “Proud Mary.” Come Together reframes the Beatles on the title track but the real action is in the scorching originals, like the opening “It Ain’t Right (Lovin’ To Be Lovin’)”, a gospel-rock masterpiece. “Young and Dumb” traces a line from Chicago blues to Memphis soul by emphasizing the mechanistic factory rhythms latent in both; “Contact High” goes even further in intensity. Some sweetness occasionally peeks through the album, like on “Doin’ It”, but Come Together is largely nasty, filthy and addictive.