Billy chats with STEVE SCHANKMAN, former bandmate of TINA TURNER

Billy chats with STEVE SCHANKMANS Fomer bandmate of TINA TURNER and owner of -CONTEMPORARY PRODUCTION

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Is it say to say, Stevethat Tina wouldn't have been Tina without you
behind her. I mean, youhad so much to do with her,
so influential in her career. No, No, I take no credit for
her career whatsoever. Really, Iknew her, I knew her mother.
I used to deliver groceries to herhouse when I was fourteen years old.
And he's Saint Louis. I playedwith her a couple of times. I

(00:23):
saw her many times, But no, I did some dates with her.
We did Riverport, you know,she did the river Festival. Before that,
she was a club Imperial on WestFlorescent where I played with it.
It was at the two plus twoclub on Clayton Road. But no,
no credit, just we did someshows at Riverport. The last show we

(00:43):
did was at the Tel Center.I was in two thousand and you know,
she kind of disappeared the last severalyears because of you know, first
of all, she moved to Zurichout that of Zurich, right, and
she wasn't wasn't been any dates.But no, I take no credit for
anything other than being part of herSaint Louis heritage. Yeah, we're both
from here. We shared a lotof conversation about the early days of music.

(01:07):
Because she's eighty three. I'm seventyfour. So I was watching her
out the performing when I was juststarting out. Isn't that amazing? What
I mean? What made her sounique? What made her so special?
What like the first time you sawyou thought, while she just has it.
Well, she did her own choreographerand makeup and wigs and all that
for a long time herself before shehad to hire people. But she was

(01:30):
a contra alto, a contra altothat's an unusual range. I mean she
had a low, growling voice.I mean a lot different than the ballad
singers that we think about that areyou know Whitney Houston. Yeah? Great.
But she was a show in herself. Then she became an institution.
We helped her with a sponsorship withLegs, you know, the hosiery company,

(01:55):
which you know she locked the ShorterLakes since she was the perfect candidate
for that. And then we didwe did tour at eighty nine of the
Rolling Stones Pictures, all the greatpictures from the Rolling Stones magazine. That
was a book by Simon and Schuster, and I got a picture of it
in my in my book that Iwrote of her on the on the front

(02:15):
cover. So the front cover ofthis bound book was her showing her legs.
Yeah, so no, I didn'tknow I played. I was told
not to look at him, notto talk to her. Really was you
know? Yeah? I mean thatwas a man of the sax player that
hired me. If you go onYouTube and see Ygentina Turner review, which

(02:37):
was the name after was the rhythmbecause Zgonina Turner rhythm. Uh. If
you watch that YouTube video, yousee a little white guy play in a
tenor saxophone, and that's the guywhom Saint Louis that hired me with her
I love I love it, butI didn't make the Sullivan show. I
made Saint Louis States, but Sullivan, uh that somebody else I think they

(02:58):
hired out and New York where Slimwas. How do you spend a daylight
today when you when you get thenews, do you just sit back and
look at old photos and reminisce orI mean you obviously knew that this day
was coming. Well, it's pulledout backstage passes and some uh picture and
we just uh sort of reminisce abouther as a person, and you know,
I mean she was one of theleaders and uh abuse, you know,

(03:23):
as far as domestic abuse, shecame out and talked about it.
She let the movie happen. Imean, she was in the Hall of
Fame twice for herself and with LevinGrahammy see, I just I just looked
on the internet, like everybody elsedid tell me about Tina the other days.
I knew about her because she wasplaying all the club with the air
Levin House, East and East SaintLouis, right, I said, George

(03:46):
Edish Imperial Club, Imperial. Uh. I just you know, it's been
so long since vaccine her and we'vehad those nice you know chats um.
I just you know, it's justanother part of Saint Louis. It's gone.
You know, they had gone.Yeah, yeah, telling gone.
I'm looking at Miles Davis on mywall in my office. He's gone.

(04:09):
Uh, we're just losing a lotof our stars. I mean every week
I did David Crosby R. He'sthat three months Agollar doing radio and TV.
About that, Steve, did youget did you get a chance to
go over to the Missouri History Museum. I think it was maybe just in
the last year that they had thatfantastic display and they had some stuff in
there from from Tina Turner and allthe different clubs that you know that they
used to play out here in SaintLouis. Who was a really really great

(04:30):
exhibit. No, I know,I went there at once. I actually
conducted a tour there for people.Of course you did, because that's what
you do. That's because you're alegend too. I'm an old legend,
you know, you know talking abouta regent Frank and I'm Michael Jackson and
and all these people and we bigbusiness. I watched the movie. I

(04:51):
have a house of California, sowe went out there and uh, We've
got in July and Katie and mywife were to see Katie's fty one I'm
seventy for so John movie, andwhen I was done, I'm thinking about
it. He played the Troubadour inseventy one. I think in seventy two
he was playing Saint Louis. Mycareer started in seventy with the great Toil

(05:14):
Dead at the Fox. So whenyou think about it, my career started
with his said, well, andI'm doing the Evolution Festival with Joe Lidbeg
in August. Uh, you know, with thirty thirty thousand people and risking
a lot of money to bring somethingvery diverse to Saint Louis as far as
part so, I don't know what'swrong with you. I love that all

(05:34):
these years you're still doing it.You're still bringing these great shows to Saint
Louis. Yeah, the Evolution Tourso or tickets on sale right now?
Can people get them right now?Where do they do? Where do they
Golution? Evolution Evolution Festival dot com. Okay, we told a lot of
tickets, We've sold a lot ofsponsorship. Saint Lewis has gotten behind it.
Media's got behind It's on social media. Becky said he's thinking on post

(05:56):
of media about pn soil about itright. So, Yeah, I've got
Belmark tickets. There's a lot ofshows on sale and some I'm not doing
well. I've got guns to Rosa, the Palica, Luke Holmes this weekend.
People, you know, for generalmission, there's don't hurry in their
minds to buy a ticket for Evolutionunless like the old super jams us to
advertise last year's sociows sold out.Don't be left out because we have a

(06:19):
capacity that we want to sell atEvolution. If we get posed to that
number, we'll cut off the sales. Well, but I'm hoping that people
get to hit that reasonly raise pricesbecause there's different you know, sections of
seats and want of telling us.But no, I'm very happy to sale,
but we'll be really pushing it comeJune. This is next week.

(06:43):
Well, we'll share that, Olinka, also on our Facebook page and on
our website too. I'm sure thatyou have more more stories than you could
ever share. Some of the I'msure that you could not share in regards
to a Tina Turner, but wereally appreciate you taking just minutes to share
some of them with us. Steve, it means a lot to us today. But I