Tina Turner performing at the 1993 NRL grand final at Allianz Stadium.Credit:NRL Photos
“Tina’s story is not one of victimhood but one of incredible triumph,” singer Janet Jackson wrote about Turner,in aRolling Stone issue that placed Turner at No.63 on a list of the top 100 artists of all time.
“She’s transformed herself into an international sensation – an elegant powerhouse.”
In 1985,Turner gave a fictional turn to her reputation as a survivor. She played the ruthless leader of an outpost in a nuclear wasteland,acting opposite Mel Gibson in the third instalment in the Mad Max franchise,Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome.
Most of Turner’s hit songs were written by others,but she enlivened them with a voice thatNew York Times music critic Jon Pareles called “one of the more peculiar instruments in pop.”
“It’s three-tiered,with a nasal low register,a yowling,cutting middle range and a high register so startlingly clear it sounds like a falsetto,” Pareles wrote in a 1987 concert review.
Turner was born Anna Mae Bullock on November 26,1939,in the rural Tennessee community of Nutbush,which she described in her 1973 songNutbush City Limits as a “quiet little old community,a one-horse town.”
Her father worked as an overseer on a farm and her mother left the family when the singer was 11 years old,according to the singer’s 2018 memoirMy Love Story. As a teenager,she moved to St Louis to rejoin her mum.
Ike Turner,whose 1951 songRocket 88 has often been called the first rock ‘n’ roll record,discovered her at age 17 when she grabbed the mic to sing at his club show in St Louis in 1957.
Tina Turner performing in New York in 1999.Credit:AP
The band leader later recorded a hit song,A Fool In Love,with his protégé and gave her the stage name Tina Turner. The two later married in Tijuana,Mexico.
Tina employed her strong voice and strenuously rehearsed dance routines as lead vocalist in an ensemble called the Ike and Tina Turner Revue. She collaborated with members of rock royalty,including The Who and Phil Spector,in the 1960s and 1970s and appeared on the cover of issue two ofRolling Stone magazine in 1967.
Ike and Tina Turner bounced between record labels,owing much of their commercial success to a relentless touring schedule. Their biggest hit was a cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival’sProud Mary.
Turner left her husband one night in 1976 on a tour stop in Dallas after he attacked her during a car ride and she struck back,according to her memoir. Their divorce was finalised in 1978.
The Rock&Roll Hall of Fame inducted Ike and Tina Turner in 1991,calling them “one of the most formidable live acts in history.” Ike Turner died in 2007.
After leaving her husband,Turner spent years struggling to regain the limelight,releasing solo albums and singles that flopped and gigging at corporate conferences.
In 1980,she met new manager Roger Davies,an Australian music executive who went on to manage her for three decades. That led to a solo No.1 –What’s Love Got to Do With It – and then in 1984 her albumPrivate Dancer landed her back at the top of the charts.
Private Dancer went on to become Turner’s biggest album,the capstone of a career that saw her sell more than 200 million records in total.
In 1985,Turner met German music executive Erwin Bach who became her long-term partner. In 1988,she moved to London,beginning a decades-long residency in Europe. She released two studio albums in the 1990s that sold well,especially in Europe,recorded the theme song for 1995 Bond movieGoldenEye and staged a successful world tour that spanned 2008 and 2009.
After that,she retired from show business. She married Bach,relinquishing her US citizenship and becoming a Swiss citizen.
Turner’s life seemed an argument against marriage,but her life with Bach was a love story the younger Tina would not have believed possible. They met in the mid-1980s,when she flew to Germany for a record promotion and he picked her up at the airport. He was more than a decade younger than her – “the prettiest face,” she said of him in the HBO documentary — and the attraction was mutual.
“It’s that happiness that people talk about,” Turner told the press at the time,“when you wish for nothing,when you can finally take a deep breath and say,‘Everything is good’.”
Tina Turner pictured with the Broncos,winners of the 1993 NRL grand final.Credit:NRL Photos
Revealing that she was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of beatings during her first marriage,Turner later in life admitted that “it wasn’t a good life”.
“The good did not balance the bad,” she said. “I had an abusive life – there’s no other way to tell the story.”
She battled a number of health problems after retiring and in 2018 she faced a family tragedy,when her oldest son,Craig,took his life at age 59 in Los Angeles. Her younger son Ronnie died in December 2022.
Her name continues to draw audiences years after her retirement. Musical stage showTINA:The Tina Turner Musical,with Adrienne Warren initially acting and singing the star’s life story,was a hit first in London’s West End in 2018,and later on Broadway,and is still running. And in 2021 HBO released a documentary about her life,Tina.
She is survived by Bach and two sons of Ike’s that she adopted.
Reuters,AP,Bloomberg
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