With soulful hits and a commanding stage presence, Tina Turner secured her status as the “Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll” with a catalog of powerful hits that showcased her boundless energy and gravelly voice.
And she rose to international stardom in the face of a difficult upbringing in a Tennessee farming community and abusive relationships, both with her father and guitarist Ike Turner.
Her unique talents, which have won her 12 Grammy Awards and sold 200 million albums worldwide, would inspire some of today’s most famous artists, including Beyoncé and Rihanna.
And she also took credit for teaching Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger to dance – revealing to the Daily Mail in 2017 that she trained him in the 1960s to move the pony.
Turner died peacefully after a long illness at her home in Küsnacht near Zurich, Switzerland, her representative said.
Turner died peacefully after a long illness at her home in Küsnacht near Zurich, Switzerland, her representative said.
Tina used her strong voice and rehearsed dance routines fiercely as the lead singer in a set called Ike and Tina Turner Revue. The two married in Mexico in 1962. Photographed in 1975, three years before their divorce
In 1985 Turner met German musical director Erwin Bach who became his long-term partner. She married Bach in July 2013, renouncing her American citizenship and becoming a Swiss citizen.
Turner began her career in the 1950s during the early years of rock and roll and became an MTV phenomenon.
In the video for her chart-topping song ‘What’s Love Got to Do with It’, in which she called love a ‘second-hand emotion’, Turner epitomized 1980s style as she strutted out on the streets of New York with her blonde hair spiky, wearing a cropped denim jacket, mini skirt and stilettos.
With her taste for musical experimentation and straightforward ballads, Turner fit perfectly into the pop landscape of the 1980s in which music fans valued electronically produced sounds and despised hippie-era idealism.
Sometimes dubbed the “Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll,” Turner won six of her eight Grammy Awards in the 1980s. The decade saw her land a dozen Top 40 songs, including “Typical Male,” ” The Best”, “Private Dancer” and “Better Be Good to Me”. His 1988 show in Rio de Janeiro drew 180,000 people, which remains one of the largest concert audiences for a single artist.
By then, Turner had been free from her decade-long marriage to guitarist Ike Turner.
The superstar has opened up about the abuse she suffered from her former husband during their marital and musical partnership in the 1960s and 1970s. She described bruised eyes, broken lips, a broken jaw and other injuries that repeatedly sent her to the emergency room.
“Tina’s story is not one of victimhood, but one of incredible triumph,” singer Janet Jackson wrote of Turner, in a Rolling Stone number that ranked Turner 63rd on a list of the top 100 artists of all time.
“She’s turned into an international sensation – a sleek powerhouse,” Jackson said.
Turner in the 1960s
Tina Turner poses for a portrait in December 1984 in Los Angeles, California
Turner at a White House reception in December 2005
In 1985, Turner put a fictional spin on her reputation as a survivor. She played the ruthless leader of an outpost in a nuclear wasteland, acting alongside Mel Gibson in the third installment of 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 that New York Times music critic Jon Pareles called “one of the most distinctive instruments in music.” pop”.
“It’s three-tiered, with a nasal low register, a shrill, cutting midrange, and a high register so startlingly clear it sounds like a falsetto,” Pareles wrote in a 1987 concert review.
‘A CITY ON A HORSE’
She was born Anna Mae Bullock on November 26, 1939, in the rural community of Nutbush, Tennessee, which she described in her 1973 song “Nutbush City Limits” as a “quiet little old community, one-horse town”.
Her father worked as a farm overseer and her mother left the family when the singer was 11, according to the singer’s 2018 memoir “My Love Story.” As a teenager, she moved to Saint-Louis to join her mother.
Ike Turner, whose 1951 song ‘Rocket 88’ has often been called rock and roll’s first record, discovered it at 17 when she grabbed the mic to sing on his club show in St. Louis in 1957.
The bandleader then recorded a hit song, “A Fool In Love,” with his protege and gave her the stage name Tina Turner, before the two were married in Tijuana, Mexico.
Mick Jagger and Tina Turner in 1987
Turner performed with Mick Jagger in 1989. She previously took credit for teaching the Rolling Stones frontman how to dance, telling the Daily Mail: “We worked with him in the locker room, me and the girls, and we taught him to Pony’
Tina used her strong voice and rehearsed dance routines fiercely as the lead singer in a set called Ike and Tina Turner Revue. She collaborated with rock royalty, including The Who and Phil Spector, in the 1960s and 1970s and appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine issue two 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’s “Proud Mary”.
Turner left her husband one night in 1976 during a tour stop in Dallas, after he hit her on a car ride and she fought back, according to her memoir. Their divorce was finalized in 1978.
The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inducted Ike and Tina Turner in 1991, calling them “one of the most formidable live bands in history”. Ike Turner died in 2007.
Turner shakes hands with King Charles III, then Prince of Wales, as she stands in a formation with fellow rock stars including Paul McCartney and Rod Stewart
Tina Turner with David Bowie in 1985
TO EUROPE
After leaving her husband, Turner spent years struggling to regain prominence, releasing failed solo albums and singles and performing at corporate conferences.
In 1980, she met new manager Roger Davies, an Australian music manager who would manage her for three decades. This led to a No. 1 solo – “What’s Love Got to Do With It” – and then in 1984 her album “Private Dancer” rocketed her to the top of the charts.
“Private Dancer” became Turner’s biggest album, the cornerstone of a career that has seen her sell more than 200 million records in total.
In 1985 Turner met German music manager Erwin Bach who became her long-term partner and in 1988 she moved to London, beginning a decades-long residency in Europe. She released two studio albums in the 1990s which sold well, particularly in Europe, recorded the theme song for the 1995 Bond film “GoldenEye” and staged a successful world tour in 2008 and 2009.
After that, she retired from show business. She married Bach, renouncing her American citizenship and becoming a Swiss citizen.
She battled a number of health issues after her retirement. In her 2018 memoir, excerpts of which appeared in the Daily Mail, Turner told the powerful story of how Bach gave her the gift of life by donating her kidney.
In 2018, she faced a family tragedy, when her eldest son, Craig, died by suicide aged 59 in Los Angeles. Her youngest son Ronnie died in December 2022.
His name continues to attract audiences years after his retirement. The musical show ‘TINA: 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 then on Broadway, and is still ongoing. And in 2021, HBO released a documentary about her life, “Tina.”
She is survived by Bach and two sons of Ike whom she adopted.
