Ladies and Gentlemen, the Ikettes!!!

Oh, the Ikettes.  Your name is only slightly less stupid than Ray Charles’ Raelettes, and you have inspired me to recruit my own team of backup singers named after myself:  The Xandrettes.  (Auditions are tentatively scheduled for next month, please forward C.V.s and audition tapes to lady.xandra at barbarellapsychadella dot com.  Chief requirements for being a Xandrette:  ability to sing at least mostly in tune for at least 50% of the time; killer dance moves; disregard for personal dignity.  I cannot pay anybody but I will take you out for cheeseburgers once a week.  In return you need to sing backup for me while I’m teaching discussion section to college freshmen.  It’ll be the ultimate.)

The girl group era was full of these silly named bands of backup singers who didn’t really get a lot of credit for anything they did personally.  Like, did you know that DeeDee Warwick and Cissy Houston (yes, of course, related Dionne and Whitney) founded the Sweet Inspirations, the band that sang backup for Dusty Springfield on Dusty in Memphis?  I only learned that about a year ago, and I have spend a lot of time sitting around listening to Dusty in Memphis, so it is kind of shameful that I didn’t figure this out sooner.  Anyhow, these back up bands are hard to track because their membership changed all the time – but the original Ikettes were Delores Johnson, Eloise Hester, and Joshie Armstead. They sang with the Ike and Tina revue, but also managed to swing a few hits on their own, but had a really rough time actually getting paid for anything, because Ike owned their name.  He would also have more than one set of Ikettes active at a time, sending one on tour, and keeping one to sing with the Revue.  At one point, one gang of Ikettes (Robbie Montgomery, Vanetta Fields, and Jessie Smith) tried touring under a different name, the Mirettes, but didn’t have much success, probably because they didn’t have the clout of the Ike and Tina association (not to mention, Phil Spector production) supporting them.

I’m Blue (the Gong Gong Song) was written by Ike Turner and was recored by that original group of Ikettes in 1961, with Tina Turner singing backup.  (And later, Salt N Pepa sampled it in Shoop!)  How do I love this song?  Oh let me count the ways.  First of all, I love it because of the admitedly silly onomatopoeic title.  Why don’t more song titles refer to the way song sound?  This is what I want to know.  I like how guttural and angsty those gong gongs sound. I love how the song is slow and driving  but is still the kind of song that’s danceable. And I love the sound of the Ikettes’ vocal timbres.

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The Shangri-Las do a version of this song that is good, but probably not their best track – I’d actually heard the Shangri-Las version first, and it became the one track on my Shangri-Las record that I’d skip because I didn’t like it.  The Ikettes version floored me the first time I heard it.  I can’t put my finger on why the Shangri-Las version just doesn’t work for me  There’s just something less convincing about it.  I am going to sidestep arguments about authenticity here because the very concept is verboten on this blog, but I do think you could say some interesting things about what cultural and social factors (ie:  race and class and different performances of femininity) might inform the differences between the two versions, which is something I might use as an exercise in the girl group class I’m teaching in the spring.  The Shangri-Las just sound too polite for this song, and race and class obviously have something to do with it.  Even though the Shangri-Las were kind of seen as bad girls among girl groups (ie:  they wore pants and stood near motorcycles), their whiteness still mitigates what expectations their vocal performances of femininity would fulfil.  Those expectations are different for the Ikettes, as black women.

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But enough important voice, it’s time for dresses!  So, any time Tina Turner is remotely involved, you want to be wearing something that will show off your legs and thus your killer leg-related dance moves.  I mean, look at Tina and and the Ikettes cut a fucking rug – this is in 1966, on the Spector-produced Big TNT Show (which I saw on the big screen this summer, and it was every kind of amazing.  Also, Tina is a goddamn force of nature, and we should all aspire to be her when we grow up):

So there is really only one place I can take this, and that place is the glorious land of go go dresses.

I love the side buttons on this one.  Not to mention the color:

(from Old Age Vintage)

And this, well, this is just too spectacular for words.  The seller describes it pretty accurately:  “best print of all time.”

(from Maiden Rapture Vintage)

I really love this particular sartorial period.  There was lots of swingy a-line action going on, not to mention great colors.  It is becoming increasingly evident that I really should have probably been alive then if only for the purpose of accumulating a really fantastic wardrobe.

Also, I found you these go go boots.  I really can’t decide if I even like these boots or if they just upset me.  Someone make up my mind, please.  You obviously shouldn’t wear them with the op-art dress because then it will look like the 60′s have barfed on you, but maybe you could wear them with the turquoise.

(from Valentine Vintage)

Luckily, my Secretboyfriend John Fluevog has invented a dancing shoe that I strongly recommend wearing with everything, ever, especially with turquoise go go dresses:

*Sadly, no, there is no connection to the Gong Show.