Ike & Tina Turner – “River Deep – Mountain High” French single cover
From Wikipedia:
Written by Spector, Jeff Barry, and Ellie Greenwich, “River Deep – Mountain High” was among the first recordings that Ike & Tina Turner did for Phil Spector’s Philles Records. Spector was well aware of Ike Turner’s controlling attitude in the studio, and therefore he drafted an unusual contract: the River Deep – Mountain High album and single would be credited to “Ike & Tina Turner”, but Ike was paid $20,000 to stay away from the studio, and only Tina Turner’s vocals would be used on the record. […]
Ike Turner remarked that he felt the record did not do well in America because the sound was “pop or white”, while Tina Turner’s voice was R&B, so that “America mixes race in it” – though the writer Michael Billig speculated that although earlier records which had mixed black singers with a white pop sound had sold well, by 1966 the black political movement was encouraging African Americans to take a pride in their own culture, and “River Deep – Mountain High” was out of step with that movement.
This is the purely typographic sleeve of a 1974 reissue from France, featuring Pioneer’s rarely seen — and slightly odd — numerals.
