{"id":6153,"date":"2023-05-26T05:38:52","date_gmt":"2023-05-26T05:38:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/?p=6153"},"modified":"2023-06-02T05:47:04","modified_gmt":"2023-06-02T05:47:04","slug":"tina-turner-simply-the-best","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/?p=6153","title":{"rendered":"Tina Turner Simply the Best"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK (AP)<\/strong>— <\/strong>Tina Turner, the unstoppable singer, and stage performer who teamed with husband Ike Turner for a dynamic run of hit records and live shows in the 1960s and \u201870s and triumph in middle age with the chart-topping \u2018What’s Love Got to Do with It\u2019<\/em><\/strong> has died at 83.<\/p>\n

Turner died Tuesday, May 23rd<\/sup> after a long illness in her home in K\u00fcsnacht near Zurich, Switzerland, according to her manager. She became a Swiss citizen a decade ago.<\/p>\n

Few stars traveled so far \u2014 she was born Anna Mae Bullock in a segregated Tennessee hospital and spent her latter years on a 260,000 square foot estate on Lake Zurich \u2014 and overcame so much. Physically battered, emotionally devastated, and financially ruined by her 20-year relationship with Ike Turner, she became a superstar on her own in her 40s, at a time when most of her peers were on their way down, and remained a top concert draw for years after.<\/p>\n

With admirers ranging from Beyonc\u00e9 to Mick Jagger, Turner was one of the world’s most successful entertainers, known for a core of pop, rock and rhythm and blues favorites: “Proud Mary,” “Nutbush City Limits,” “River Deep, Mountain High,” and the hits she had in the ’80s, among them “What’s Love Got to Do with It,” “We Don’t Need Another Hero” and a cover of Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together.”<\/p>\n

Her trademarks were her growling contralto, her bold smile and strong cheekbones, her palette of wigs and the muscular, quick-stepping legs she did not shy from showing off. She sold more than 150 million records worldwide, won 12 Grammys, was voted along with Ike into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991 (and on her own in 2021) and was honored at the Kennedy Center in 2005, with Beyonc\u00e9 and Oprah Winfrey among those praising her. Her life became the basis for a film, a Broadway musical and an HBO documentary in 2021 that she called her public farewell.<\/p>\n

Until she left her husband and revealed their back story, she was known as the voracious on-stage foil of the steady-going Ike, the leading lady of the \u201cIke and Tina Turner Revue.\u201d Ike was billed first and ran the show, choosing the material, the arrangements, the backing singers. They toured constantly for years, in part because Ike was often short on money and unwilling to miss a concert. Tina Turner was forced to go on with bronchitis, with pneumonia, with a collapsed right lung.<\/p>\n

Terrified both of being with Ike and of being without him, she credited her emerging Buddhist faith in the mid-1970s with giving her a sense of strength and self-worth and she finally left in early July 1976. The Ike and Tina Turner Revue was scheduled to open a tour marking the country\u2019s bicentennial when Tina snuck out of their Dallas hotel room, with just a Mobil credit card and 36 cents, while Ike slept. She hurried across a nearby highway, narrowly avoiding a speeding truck, and found another hotel to stay.<\/p>\n

Turner was among the first celebrities to speak candidly about domestic abuse, becoming a heroine to battered women and a symbol of resilience to all. Ike Turner did not deny mistreating her, although he tried to blame Tina for their troubles. When he died, in 2007, a representative for his ex-wife said simply: \u201cTina is aware that Ike passed away.\u201d<\/p>\n

Little of this was apparent to the many Ike and Tina fans. The Turners were a hot act for much of the 1960s and into the \u201970s, evolving from bluesy ballads such as \u201cA Fool in Love\u201d and \u201cIt\u2019s Going to Work Out Fine\u201d to flashy covers of \u201cProud Mary\u201d and \u201cCome Together\u201d and other rock songs that brought them crossover success.<\/p>\n

They opened for the Rolling Stones in 1966 and 1969 and were seen performing a lustful version of Otis Redding\u2019s \u201cI\u2019ve Been Loving You Too Long\u201d in the 1970 Stones documentary \u201cGimme Shelter.\u201d\u00a0 ; But by the end of the 1970s, Turner\u2019s career seemed finished. She was 40 years old; her first solo album had flopped, and her live shows were mostly confined to the cabaret circuit. Desperate for work, and money, she even agreed to tour in South Africa when the country was widely boycotted because of its racist apartheid regime.<\/p>\n

Rock stars helped bring her back. Rod Stewart convinced her to sing \u201cHot Legs\u201d with him on \u201cSaturday Night Live\u201d and Jagger, who had openly borrowed some of Turner\u2019s on-stage moves, sang \u201cHonky Tonk Women\u201d with her during the Stones\u2019 1981-82 tour. At a listening party for his 1983 album \u201cLet\u2019s Dance,\u201d David Bowie told guests that Turner was his favorite female singer.<\/p>\n

More popular in England at the time than in the US, she recorded a raspy version of \u201cLet\u2019s Stay Together\u201d at EMI\u2019s Abbey Road studios in London. By the end of 1983, \u201cLet\u2019s Stay Together\u201d was a hit throughout Europe and on the verge of breaking in the states. An A&R man at Capitol Records, John Carter, urged the label to sign her up and make an album. Among the material presented to her was a reflective pop-reggae ballad co-written by Terry Britten and Graham Lyle and initially dismissed by Tina as \u201cwimpy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI just thought it was some old pop song, and I didn\u2019t like it,\u201d she later said of \u201cWhat\u2019s Love Got to Do with It.\u201d<\/p>\n

Turner\u2019s \u201cPrivate Dancer\u201d album came out in May 1984, sold more than eight million copies and featured several hit singles, including the title song and \u201cBetter Be Good to Me.\u201d It won four Grammys, among them record of the year for \u201cWhat\u2019s Love Got to Do with It,\u201d the song that came to define the clear-eyed image of her post-Ike years.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople look at me now and think what a hot life I must have lived \u2014 ha!\u201d she wrote in her memoir.<\/p>\n

Even with Ike, it was hard to mistake her for a romantic. Her voice was never \u201cpretty,\u201d and love songs were never her specialty, in part because she had little experience to draw from. She was born in Nutbush, Tennessee in 1939 and would say she received \u201cno love\u201d from either her mother or father. After her parents separated, she moved often around Tennessee and Missouri, living with various relatives. She was outgoing, loved to sing and as a teenager would check out the blues clubs in St Louis, where one of the top draws was Ike Turner and his Kings of Rhythm. Tina didn\u2019t care much for his looks the first time she saw him, at the Club Manhattan.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen he got up onstage and picked up his guitar,\u201d she wrote in her memoir. \u201cHe hit one note, and I thought, \u2018Jesus, listen to this guy play.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Tina soon made her move. During intermission at an Ike Turner show at the nearby Club D\u2019Lisa, Ike was alone on stage, playing a blues melody on the keyboards. Tina recognised the song, B.B. King\u2019s \u201cYou Know I Love You,\u201d grabbed a microphone and sang along. As Tina remembered, a stunned Ike called out \u201cGiirrlll!!\u201d and demanded to know what else she could perform. Over her mother\u2019s objections, she agreed to join his group. He changed her first name to Tina, inspired by the comic book heroine Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, and changed her last name by marrying her, in 1962.<\/p>\n

In rare moments of leniency from Ike, Tina did enjoy success on her own. She added an explosive lead vocal to Phil Spector\u2019s titanic production of \u201cRiver Deep, Mountain High,\u201d a flop in the US when released in 1966, but a hit overseas and eventually a standard. She was also featured as the Acid Queen in the 1975 film version of the Who\u2019s rock opera \u201cTommy.\u201d More recent film work included \u201cMad Max Beyond Thunderdome\u201d and a cameo in \u201cWhat\u2019s Love Got to Do with It.\u201d<\/p>\n

Turner had two sons: Craig, with saxophonist Raymond Hill; and Ronald, with Ike Turner. (Craig Turner was found dead in 2018 of an apparent suicide). In a memoir published later in 2018, \u201cTina Turner: My Love Story,\u201d she revealed that she had received a kidney transplant from her second husband, former EMI record executive Erwin Bach.<\/p>\n

Turner\u2019s 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 record promotion, and he picked her up at the airport. He was more than a decade younger than her \u2014 \u201cthe prettiest face,\u201d she said of him in the HBO documentary \u2014 and the attraction was mutual. She wed Bach in 2013, exchanging vows at a civil ceremony in Switzerland.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s that happiness that people talk about,\u201d Turner told the press at the time, \u201cwhen you wish for nothing, when you can finally take a deep breath and say, \u2018Everything is good.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK (AP)— Tina Turner, the unstoppable singer, and stage performer who teamed with husband Ike Turner for a dynamic run of hit records and live shows in the 1960s and \u201870s and triumph in middle age with the chart-topping \u2018What’s Love Got to Do with It\u2019 has died at 83. Turner died Tuesday, May […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6133,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[260],"class_list":["post-6153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-breakingnews"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6153"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6153\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6154,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6153\/revisions\/6154"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}