American-born rock singer Tina Turner died on Wednesday (May 24) at the age of 83. She rose from rural poverty and an abusive relationship to become one of the top musicians of all time.
She died peacefully at her home in Küsnacht, near Zurich, Switzerland, after years of illness, her representative said.
Turner’s career began in the early days of rock ‘n’ roll in the 1950s and later developed into an MTV (Music Television Network) phenomenon.
In the music video for her chart-topping single “What’s Love Got to Do with It,” in which Turner refers to love as “second-hand affection,” she wears a With a blast of blond hair, she walked the streets of New York City in a cropped denim jacket, mini skirt, and stilettos, embodying 1980s style at its best.
With her taste for musical experimentation and earthy ballads, Turner fit perfectly into the pop scene of the 1980s, when fans embraced techno and scorned the idealism of the hippie era.
Turner, sometimes affectionately known as the “Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll,” won six of her eight Grammy Awards in the 1980s. She had a dozen top 40 hits this decade, including “Typical Male,” “The Best,” “Private Dancer,” and “Best Better Be Good to Me. Her 1988 show in Rio de Janeiro attracted 180,000 people and remains one of the most attended concerts for a solo act.
By then, Turner had been out of a nearly ten-year marriage to guitarist Ike Turner.
The superstar has opened up about her ex-husband’s abuse during her marriage and musical partnership in the 1960s and 1970s. She described bruised eyes, cracked lips, a broken jaw and other injuries that sent her to the emergency room on multiple occasions.
Singer Janet Jackson said of Turner in an issue of Rolling Stone magazine: “Tina’s story is not one of victimhood, but one of incredible triumph. That issue of Rolling Stone ranked Turner at number 63 on its list of the top 100 music artists of all time.
“She transformed herself into an international effect — a graceful powerhouse,” Jackson said.
In 1985, Turner further built his reputation as a survivor with a fictional character. She starred opposite Mel Gibson in “Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome,” the third installment in the “Mad Max” film series, as a The ruthless leader of the nuclear wasteland outpost.
Most of Turner’s hits were written by others, but, as New York Times music critic Jon Pareles described her, she has “the strangest song in popular music.” One of her instruments”, that is her voice, with which she breathes life into these songs.
Parreles wrote in a 1987 concert review: “It has three layers, a nasal bass register, a roaring, piercing midrange, and a startlingly clear, falsetto-sounding Treble zone.”
Born Anna Mae Bullock on November 26, 1939, in rural Nutbush, Tennessee, Turner was featured in the 1973 song “Nutbush City Limits” Describes it as a “quiet, old, small community, one horse town”.
According to the singer’s 2018 memoir, “My Love Story,” her father was an overseer on a farm and her mother left when she was 11. As a teenager, she moved to St. Louis to be with her mom.
Turner’s ex-husband, Ike Turner, whose 1951 song “Rocket 88” is often referred to as the first rock and roll record, discovered her when she was 17, when She played at a club in St. Louis.
The bandleader later recorded a hit with Turner, “A Fool In Love,” and gave her the stage name Tina Turner before the pair married in Tijuana, Mexico.
Turner was the lead singer in an ensemble called the Ike and Tina Turner Revue. She worked with rock big names in the 1960s and 1970s, including The Who and Phil Spector, and was featured in Rolling Stone magazine’s second issue in 1967 cover.
Ike and Tina Turner switched record labels frequently and owed much of their commercial success to frequent touring. Their biggest hit was a cover of the Creedence Clearwater Revival song “Proud Mary.”
According to her memoir, Turner left her husband at a tour location in Dallas one night in 1976, and he beat her on the drive, and she fought back. They officially divorced in 1978.
The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inducted Ike and Tina Turner in 1991, calling them “one of the most awe-inspiring live performances in history.” Ike Turner died in 2007.
After leaving her husband, Turner struggled for years to return to the spotlight, releasing solo albums and singles, all of which failed. She is also a frequent performer at corporate conferences.
In 1980, she met Roger Davies, the Australian music executive who became her manager for the next 30 years. With Davis’ help, she released the chart-topping single “What To Do With Love,” and then in 1984, her album “Private Dancer” catapulted her to the top of the charts.
“Private Dancer” would go on to become Turner’s biggest album, the pinnacle of her career, with total sales of more than 200 million copies.
In 1985, Turner met German music impresario Erwin Bach, who became her long-term partner. In 1988, she moved to London and spent the next few decades living in Europe. She released two particularly best-selling albums in Europe in the 1990s, recorded the theme song for the 1995 Bond film GoldenEye, and performed successfully in 2008 and 2009. world tour.
Turner later retired from singing. She married Bach, renounced her American citizenship, and became a Swiss citizen.
After retirement, she battled many health issues. In 2018, her oldest son, Craig, took his own life in Los Angeles at the age of 59. Her youngest son, Ronnie, died in December 2022.
Years after she retired from music, her name continues to captivate audiences. TINA: The Tina Turner Musical, the musical stage show that originally starred Adrienne Warren in the lead role and sang the star’s life story, First hit in London’s West End in 2018, then on Broadway and is still running in theaters. In 2021, HBO will air a documentary about her life, “Tina.”
She is survived by Bach and her adopted sons of Ike Turner.
(This article is based on a Reuters report.)