St. Louis mayor says no to ‘Ike Turner Day’

updated 4:01 p.m. ET July 29, 2007

ST. LOUIS - Music legend Ike Turner said he holds nothing against St. Louis’ mayor for a decision not to issue a City Hall proclamation in his honor.

Mayor Francis Slay has turned down a request from organizers of the Big Muddy Blues Festival to make Sept. 2 “Ike Turner Day.” Turner, 75, is scheduled to perform that day at the blues festival in St. Louis.

Turner says he never asked for the honor. He notes he already has a star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame, and said he doesn’t worry about whether he’s given those honors.

“I just care about making people happy in the audience,” he said.

Turner’s past troubles include a 17-month stint in jail on a 1990 drug conviction. He was depicted as an abusive husband in “What’s Love Got to Do With It,” a 1993 movie about ex-wife Tina Turner’s life.

Ike Turner admitted in his autobiography that he had hit his former wife, but said the movie depiction is what hurt his career.

“All I can say, and I would say this only to her, is ‘I’m sorry,’ ” he told The St. Louis Post-Dispatch in Sunday’s edition.

“But I can’t undo yesterday. I don’t owe anybody else that.”

The mayor suggested, through a spokesman, that Ike Turner could visit a St. Louis center that provides services to domestic violence victims to call attention to the issue.

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