SAN MARCOS - Ike Turner died Wednesday at his North County home. A groundbreaking guitarist, pianist and bandleader who helped pioneer both early rock 'n' roll and modern rhythm and blues, Turner's reputation was tarnished by his drug addiction, stint in prison and allegations on film and in print that he abused Tina Turner, his famous former wife. He was 76.

An investigator with the county Medical Examiner's Office said Turner died at 11:38 a.m. The cause of death had not been determined, but foul play was not suspected, the investigator said.

Members of Turner's band, the Kings of Rhythm, had gathered at his house Wednesday morning.

"We all came just to surprise Ike and make him feel better," said bass player and band leader Kevin Cooper of San Diego. "Instead we got our own surprise."

Cooper said Turner's ex-wife and manager, Ann Thomas, was the last to see him alive in his bedroom just after 8 a.m. Wednesday. With the band members in the house and ready to play some music to cheer him up, she delivered the news that he wasn't breathing. Band members tried unsuccessfully to revive him before paramedics arrived, he said.

The band members stood somberly in a straight line outside his front door as Turner's body, wrapped in a maroon bag, was led out of the house and into a waiting white van at about 3:15 p.m.

A 1991 Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame inductee with his ex-wife Tina, Turner's significant impact on popular American music will probably be forever overshadowed by Tina's allegations that he savagely beat and otherwise abused her during their marriage.

While he disputed the severity of those allegations, a 1993 film, "What's Love Got to Do With It?" -- based on Tina's 1986 autobiography -- portrayed Ike as a violent thug. The movie's popularity and salacious details became a pivotal moment in American culture, spurring public interest in solving the often-hidden problem of domestic violence.

Tina Turner declined comment on her ex-husband's passing through a spokesperson.

In an interview with the North County Times in February after winning his second Grammy award -- for his 2006 CD "Risin' With the Blues" -- Turner bemoaned his public persona.

"I'm not the person that they made me in the movie," he told Times reporter Noelle Ibrahim.

Musically, while Turner achieved his greatest popularity in the 1960s and early '70s with the Ike and Tina Turner Revue, his most influential period was in the early 1950s when he was a house musician, arranger and band leader at Sam Phillips' legendary Sun Studios in Memphis, Tenn.

There he not only mingled with the likes of Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison and Jerry Lee Lewis, but he also played on numerous blues and early rhythm and blues records by such emerging stars as Howlin' Wolf, Sonny Boy Williamson and B.B. King.

The most famous session was in 1951, when his own band recorded a song he had written titled "Rocket 88," which is widely cited as the first rock 'n' roll record because of its driving beat and heavily distorted electric guitar. However, Chess Records issued the song under the name of the young singer in Turner's band, Jackie Brenston, robbing him of credit for many years until music historians began citing his role.

"If ever there was a first rock 'n' roll song, that was it," said Dan Del Fiorentino, historian for the Museum of Making Music in Carlsbad on Wednesday. "That's pre-Elvis, that's pre-everybody. It's important to look back and say he was there at the beginning, and he should get props for that."

Turner was born Izear Luster Turner Jr. in Clarksdale, Miss., on Nov. 5, 1931. In interviews about his childhood, he said he first fell in love with music while hanging out at a local Clarksdale radio station from the age of 8, helping the disc jockeys. The "Routledge Encyclopedia of the Blues" credits blues pianist Joe Willie "Pinetop" Perkins with giving Turner his first music lessons at around the same time.

While still in high school, he formed his first edition of the Kings of Rhythm band, eventually playing from bases in St. Louis and as far east as Memphis.

By the late 1950s, Turner had left Sun Studios, which had increasingly turned from recording black blues musicians to the more lucrative, white rockabilly bands of the time.

In 1959, he hired a young singer named Anna Mae Bullock. He gave her the stage name of Tina, and changed the name of the band to the Ike and Tina Turner Revue, which quickly scored a Top 10 hit in 1960 with "A Fool in Love." The Revue was a popular draw throughout the 1960s and early '70s, releasing a string of hits and winning a Grammy in 1971 for the band's high-energy cover of the Creedence Clearwater Revival song "Proud Mary."

In the mid-'70s, the Turners split both professionally and personally, with their divorce finalized in 1978. While Tina returned to the charts in the 1980s as a popular solo act, Ike never again achieved the fame he'd known with the Revue.

Turner had lived in San Marcos since 1991, and had reformed his legendary Kings of Rhythm band, filling it out with both longtime musical cohorts and young musicians from around town. Musically, he returned to the blues and R&B of his youth, releasing the Grammy-nominated "Here and Now" in 2001 and the Grammy-winning "Risin' With the Blues" last year.

Encinitas' Leo Dombecki, who played saxophone in Turner's band for the past four years, praised Turner as a kind and patient teacher and boss, and said he hoped Turner's legacy will include his musical contributions as well as his personal failings.

"All he ever really cared about was the music, so hopefully people pick it up from there and move on," Dombecki said.

- North County Times staff writers Noelle Ibrahim and Dan Simmons, The Associated Press and TMZ reports contributed to this article. Contact staff writer Jim Trageser at jtrageser@nctimes.com or (760) 631-6628.