Driven by Carney’s relentless grooves and Auerbach’s stunning guitar attack, The Black Keys draw from deep within the blues-music well while making free-thinking music with a modern experimentalism. A 2002 debut album on the small indie Alive Records label, The Big Come Up, led the band to sign with the tastemaking Possum Records imprint and issue two more CDs — Thickfreakness (2003) and Rubber Factory (2004) — that sealed the band’s rep with the musical cognoscente while their take-no-prisoners shows made The Black Keys a hot ticket on the touring and festival circuits. With 2006’s Magic Potion on Nonesuch, the little bluesy duo with a wallop of an impact has risen to the big leagues.

And now with this year’s Attack & Release, The Black Keys have come out of the cellar to be produced by Danger Mouse. “After doing four albums in the basement, we were ready to go somewhere else," Auerbach says. The project began when Danger Mouse asked the Keys to write songs for an album by Ike Turner. But when the r&b legend died last December, it became a collaboration that led to Attack & Release.

The new release leapt to #14 on the Billboard 200 and the trade’s Top Internet Albums chart, a signal that The Black Keys have arrived. And it’s still just the two of them creating music for millions. “Pat and I just click,” observes Auerbach of their simple-yet-potent equation. “We walk in to a groove quite easily. It's kind of hard to describe.” But a listen to The Black Keys tells the tale quite vividly.

Turner, a BMI songwriter, was born November 5, 1931 in Clarksdale Mississippi where he received his first exposure to the music industry at local radio station WROX, assisting deejays. Growing up around Delta musicians inspired him to form a group called the Kings of Rhythm, which scored with their rhythm & blues hit “Rocket 88.” He later became a session guitarist, adding producer, songwriter, and talent scout to his resume during his employment at RPM/Modern Records. Turner worked with B.B. King, Bobby (Blue) Bland, and Otis Rush, among other blues and r&b musicians.

In 1958, while performing at a local nightclub in St. Louis, he discovered Anna Mae Bullock, who joined his group and became the focal point as Tina Turner. The Ike and Tina Turner Revue had a string of top 10 r&b hits with “A Fool in Love,” “It’s Gonna Work Out Fine” and “I Idolize You.” In 1971, they won a Grammy for Best R&B Vocal Performance by a Group for their cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Proud Mary.”

Ike and Tina’s well-documented personal and professional relationship ended in 1975, commencing a trend of public misfortunes for Ike. Turner’s luck changed with a career revival in 2001 coinciding with the release of his Grammy-nominated album Here and Now, the reformation of the Kings of Rhythm, and a 2006 Grammy for Best Traditional Blues Album for his last recording, Risin’ With the Blues. He was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1991.

Turner is survived by five children: sons Ronald, Michael, and Ike Jr., and daughters Mia and Twanna.