Erwin Bach

Bach was born on January 24, 1956, in Cologne, a 2,000-year-old city spanning the Rhine River in western Germany. Little is known about his family or childhood.

There is some confusion about how Bach and Turner met. According to most sources, they met at an EMI record label party in 1985. However, according to Turner herself, they met earlier than that. She landed at Heathrow Airport and he was there to pick her up. He stretched his arms out and said, “Hello.” As she did not know who he was, she took a few steps back. Then the introductions were made and Turner found herself attracted to this “unusually handsome” man. She has since stated that as they got into the car together, her heart was beating rapidly. It was love at first sight.

From 1962 to 1978, Turner (whose real name is Anna Mae Bullock), was married to American singer, musician, and record producer Ike Turner. They met while she was in a relationship with tenor Raymond Hill, who was the father of her first child, Craig (born 1958). Initially, the relationship between Bullock and Ike was a platonic one. In fact, they used to consider each other as siblings.

By 1959, their relationship had turned sexual. Tina later told Rolling Stones that the first time they had sex, she was escaping another musician who wanted to have intercourse with her. She ran to Ike’s bedroom, hoping that he would “protect her.” She became pregnant with Ike’s child and Ronnie Turner was born on October 27, 1960. They had a complicated partnership. In their later years, both of them would admit that they were never legally married.

The first account of physical abuse was committed when Tina told Ike that she wanted out of their confounding relationship. He responded by hitting her with a wooden shoe stretcher. In her autobiography, ‘I, Tina’, Turner revealed that this was the first time Ike had “instilled fear” in her. In a conversation with Spin, Ike would later say that “Yeah, I hit her, but I didn't hit her more than the average guy beats his wife... if she says I abused her, maybe I did.”

Bach has never read ‘I, Tina’. He told Winfrey that it was hard to hear or read about the past of a person you love. He thought someday Turner would erase it and finally be done with it.

Erwin Bach had been a divisional managing director of EMI Germany and later became the managing director of EMI Recorded Music Switzerland. In 1999, he appeared in the Mexican family romance film ‘Maldito amor: Demasiado tarde’.