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FILE -
Singer
Tina
Turner,
left,
and Mick
Jagger
perform
together
during
Live-Aid
concert
on July
14,
1985, in
Philadelphia.
Turner,
the
unstoppable
singer
and
stage
performer,
died
Tuesday,
after a
long
illness
at her
home in
Küsnacht
near
Zurich,
Switzerland,
according
to her
manager.
She was
83. (AP
Photo/Rusty
Kennedy,
File) |
|
Tina
Turner,
'Queen
of Rock
'n'
Roll'
whose
triumphant
career
made her
world-famous,
dies at
83
apnews.com
NEW YORK
- 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 ’70s
and
survived
her
horrifying
marriage
to
triumph
in
middle
age with
the
chart-topping
“What’s
Love Got
to Do
With
It,” has
died at
83.
Turner
died
Wednesday,
after a
long
illness
in her
home in
Küsnacht
near
Zurich,
according
to her
manager.
She
became a
Swiss
citizen
a decade
ago.
Few
stars
traveled
so far —
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 —
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.
“How do
we say
farewell
to a
woman
who
owned
her pain
and
trauma
and used
it as a
means to
help
change
the
world?”
Angela
Bassett,
who
played
Turner
in the
1993
biopic
“What’s
Love Got
to Do
With
It,”
said in
a
statement.
“Through
her
courage
in
telling
her
story,
her
commitment
to stay
the
course
in her
life, no
matter
the
sacrifice,
and her
determination
to carve
out a
space in
rock and
roll for
herself
and for
others
who look
like
her,
Tina
Turner
showed
others
who
lived in
fear
what a
beautiful
future
filled
with
love,
compassion,
and
freedom
should
look
like.
With
admirers
ranging
from
Mick
Jagger
to
Beyoncé
to
Mariah
Carey,
the
“Queen
of Rock
‘n’
Roll”
was one
of the
world’s
most
popular
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.”
Her
trademarks
included
a
growling
contralto
that
might
smolder
or
explode,
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
Beyoncé
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.
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 “Ike
and Tina
Turner
Revue.”
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.
Other
times,
the
cause of
her
misfortunes
was Ike
himself.
As she
recounted
in her
memoir,
“I,
Tina,”
Ike
began
hitting
her not
long
after
they
met, in
the
mid-1950s,
and only
grew
more
vicious.
Provoked
by
anything
and
anyone,
he would
throw
hot
coffee
in her
face,
choke
her, or
beat her
until
her eyes
were
swollen
shut,
then
rape
her.
Before
one
show, he
broke
her jaw
and she
went on
stage
with her
mouth
full of
blood.
Terrified
both of
being
with Ike
and of
lasting
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’s
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.
“I
looked
at him
(Ike)
and
thought,
‘You
just
beat me
for the
last
time,
you
sucker,’”
she
recalled
in her
memoir.
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:
“Tina is
aware
that Ike
passed
away.”
Ike and
Tina
fans
knew
little
of this
during
the
couple’s
prime.
The
Turners
were a
hot act
for much
of the
1960s
and into
the
’70s,
evolving
from
bluesy
ballads
such as
“A Fool
in Love”
and
“It’s
Going to
Work Out
Fine” to
flashy
covers
of
“Proud
Mary”
and
“Come
Together”
and
other
rock
songs
that
brought
them
crossover
success.
They
opened
for the
Rolling
Stones
in 1966
and
1969,
and were
seen
performing
a
lustful
version
of Otis
Redding’s
“I’ve
Been
Loving
You Too
Long” in
the 1970
Stones
documentary
“Gimme
Shelter.”
Bassett
and
Laurence
Fishburne
gave
Oscar-nominated
performances
in
“What’s
Love Got
to Do
with
It,”
based on
“I,
Tina,”
but she
would
say that
reliving
her
years
with Ike
was so
painful
she
couldn’t
bring
herself
to watch
the
movie.
Ike and
Tina’s
reworking
of
“Proud
Mary,”
originally
a tight,
mid-tempo
hit for
Creedence
Clearwater
Revival,
helped
define
their
sexual
aura.
Against
a
background
of funky
guitar
and
Ike’s
crooning
baritone,
Tina
began
with a
few
spoken
words
about
how some
people
wanted
to hear
songs
that
were
“nice
and
easy.”
“But
there’s
this one
thing,”
she
warned,
“you
see, we
never
ever do
nothing
nice and
easy.
“We
always
do it
nice —
and
rough.”
But by
the end
of the
1970s,
Turner’s
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.
Rock
stars
helped
bring
her
back.
Rod
Stewart
convinced
her to
sing
“Hot
Legs”
with him
on
“Saturday
Night
Live”
and
Jagger,
who had
openly
borrowed
some of
Turner’s
on-stage
moves,
sang
“Honky
Tonk
Women”
with her
during
the
Stones’
1981-82
tour. At
a
listening
party
for his
1983
album
“Let’s
Dance,”
David
Bowie
told
guests
that
Turner
was his
favorite
singer.
“She was
inspiring,
warm,
funny
and
generous,”
Jagger
tweeted
Wednesday.
“She
helped
me so
much
when I
was
young
and I
will
never
forget
her.”
More
popular
in
England
at the
time
than in
the
U.S.,
she
recorded
a raspy
version
of
“Let’s
Stay
Together”
at EMI’s
Abbey
Road
studios
in
London.
By the
end of
1983,
“Let’s
Stay
Together”
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
was a
reflective
pop-reggae
ballad
co-written
by Terry
Britten
and
Graham
Lyle and
initially
dismissed
by Tina
as
“wimpy.”
“I just
thought
it was
some old
pop
song,
and I
didn’t
like
it,” she
later
said of
“What’s
Love Got
To Do
With
It.”
Turner’s
“Private
Dancer”
album
came out
in May
1984,
sold
more
than
eight
million
copies
and
featured
several
hit
singles,
including
the
title
song and
“Better
Be Good
To Me.”
It won
four
Grammys,
among
them
record
of the
year for
“What’s
Love Got
to Do
With
It,” the
song
that
came to
define
the
clear-eyed
image of
her
post-Ike
years.
“People
look at
me now
and
think
what a
hot life
I must
have
lived —
ha!” she
wrote in
her
memoir.
Even
with
Ike, it
was hard
to
mistake
her for
a
romantic.
Her
voice
was
never
“pretty,”
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
“no
love”
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’t
care
much for
his
looks
the
first
time she
saw him,
at the
Club
Manhattan.
“Then he
got up
onstage
and
picked
up his
guitar,”
she
wrote in
her
memoir.
“He hit
one
note,
and I
thought,
‘Jesus,
listen
to this
guy
play.’”
Tina
soon
made her
move.
During
intermission
at an
Ike
Turner
show at
the
nearby
Club
D’Lisa,
Ike was
alone on
stage,
playing
a blues
melody
on the
keyboards.
Tina
recognized
the
song,
B.B.
King’s
“You
Know I
Love
You,”
grabbed
a
microphone
and sang
along.
As Tina
remembered,
a
stunned
Ike
called
out
“Giirrlll!!”
and
demanded
to know
what
else she
could
perform.
Over her
mother’s
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.
In rare
moments
of
leniency
from
Ike,
Tina did
enjoy
success
on her
own. She
added a
roaring
lead
vocal to
Phil
Spector’s
titanic
production
of
“River
Deep,
Mountain
High,” a
flop in
the U.S.
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’s
rock
opera
“Tommy.”
More
recent
film
work
included
“Mad Max
Beyond
Thunderdome”
and a
cameo in
“What’s
Love Got
to Do
with
It.”
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,
“Tina
Turner:
My Love
Story,”
she
revealed
that she
had
received
a kidney
transplant
from her
second
husband,
former
EMI
record
executive
Erwin
Bach.
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
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.
She wed
Bach in
2013,
exchanging
vows at
a civil
ceremony
in
Switzerland.
“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.’”
___
This
story
has been
corrected
to
reflect
that
Turner
died
Wednesday.
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