Tina Turner

Tina Turner ranks among popular music’s most electrifying talents, a vocalist of exceptional force who tasted early acclaim and later reversals across the 1960s and 1970s until an extraordinary resurgence during the 1980s established her as a permanent headliner. She first attracted notice as an R&B powerhouse alongside her initial spouse, Ike Turner, where her raw intensity on early successes such as “A Fool in Love” and “It’s Gonna Work Out Fine” matched the drive of one of the nation’s most disciplined ensembles. Ike & Tina reached broader pop listeners through their energetic reinterpretation of “Proud Mary,” yet mounting prominence coincided with Ike’s descent into substance dependence and domestic violence. Tina departed the partnership in 1976 to pursue an independent path; after extended periods of hardship and artistic renewal, she achieved breakthrough success with 1984’s Private Dancer, a project that paired her intense yet adaptable voice with contemporary production values and achieved multi-platinum status largely through the singles “What’s Love Got to Do with It,” “Better Be Good to Me,” and the album’s title track. Extensive worldwide performances solidified her renewed visibility, and she remained a consistent presence on sales rankings while continuing as a premier concert draw for the balance of her working life. Even after stepping away from the stage, Tina retained strong audience interest, evidenced by the popularity of a jukebox musical drawn from her career and recordings.

Born Anna Mae Bullock on November 26, 1939, in Brownsville, Tennessee, Tina grew up with a father who supervised a sharecropping operation; she and her siblings assisted with cotton harvesting during childhood. Her parents’ unstable marriage led them to relocate to Knoxville for wartime defense work, leaving Anna Mae with her father’s parents in Nutbush, Tennessee. Following the war she returned to her family in Knoxville, but at age eleven her mother abandoned the household; two years later, after her father remarried and moved to Detroit, Anna Mae and her sisters settled once more in Brownsville with their maternal grandmother. Church choir participation introduced her to singing, while high school brought cheerleading, girls’ basketball, and domestic employment for a local affluent family. At sixteen, following her grandmother’s death, she joined her mother in St. Louis, completed secondary school, and took a hospital position as a nurse’s aide.

Anna Mae sought a wider existence beyond hospital duties and set her sights on a performing career. She and her sisters frequented East St. Louis nightclubs featuring leading rhythm-and-blues acts. One of the city’s prominent figures was Ike Turner, a guitarist, bandleader, and composer who led the Kings of Rhythm and scored the 1951 hit “Rocket 88,” officially credited to saxophonist Jackie Brenston. Frequently later identified as an early rock-and-roll recording, the track prompted Ike to pursue further successes under his own name while touring southern venues outside his St. Louis base. In 1957 Anna Mae persuaded drummer Eugene Washington to let her perform between sets; she delivered B.B. King’s recent ballad “You Know I Love You,” after which Ike inquired about additional material and invited her to complete the remainder of the evening with the band. He soon integrated her as featured vocalist, offering instruction in vocal technique and stage presence. Her debut release, 1958’s “Boxtop,” appeared under the name Little Ann; Ike subsequently bestowed the stage name Tina Turner, the first element drawn from the television and comic heroine Sheena of the Jungle and the surname chosen to imply partnership. They married in 1962.

During 1960 sessions for “A Fool in Love,” scheduled lead vocalist Art Lassiter’s absence prompted Ike to assign the part to Tina. Although conceived as a demo, a St. Louis disc jockey responded strongly to her commanding delivery and directed Ike to Sue Records’ president, resulting in the track’s release under the Ike & Tina Turner billing. The single reached number two on the R&B chart and crossed over to peak at number 27 on the pop side. Its successor, “It’s Gonna Work Out Fine,” improved on those positions, attaining number two R&B and number 14 pop. Bolstered by these recordings, the Ike & Tina Turner Revue maintained an intensive schedule on the R&B circuit, earning recognition as one of the period’s most vigorous and compelling live acts, with Tina singled out for both vocal strength and magnetic stage command.

The Revue filled venues nationwide, appeared regularly on R&B charts, and delivered a standout sequence in the 1966 concert film The Big T.N.T. Show, yet continued to encounter resistance in the pop marketplace. An opening emerged when Phil Spector signed the duo to Philles and enlisted Tina for “River Deep, Mountain High,” a production he envisioned as the summit of his Wall of Sound approach. Ike was excluded from the sessions; critics praised the single, which achieved substantial success in the United Kingdom and Europe, while it stalled at number 88 on U.S. pop listings. The accompanying album remained unreleased domestically until 1969, after Spector arranged distribution through A&M. Disheartened by the domestic shortfall, Spector withdrew from recording for several years, briefly leaving Ike & Tina without direction. Late that year they joined the Rolling Stones as opening act for a British tour; when the Stones returned to America in 1969 for one of the year’s most anticipated engagements, Ike & Tina again shared the bill. Tina’s fervent, suggestive reading of Otis Redding’s “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long” figured prominently in the resulting documentary Gimme Shelter.

Growing rock audiences prompted the Revue to incorporate more familiar rock material into both live sets and studio work. The approach yielded results in 1971 when their dynamic version of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Proud Mary” secured major radio and pop-chart traction, peaking at number four. Another pop success followed in 1973 with “Nutbush City Limits,” a narrative drawn from Tina’s hometown that reached number 22 and was later recorded by Bob Seger. The act now sold out arenas across America, Britain, and Europe, finally securing substantial financial returns. Offstage, however, Ike & Tina’s relationship remained troubled; Ike’s pattern of mental and physical mistreatment intensified with fame, wealth, and cocaine dependence, rendering Tina’s private life increasingly untenable. Recognizing Tina’s centrality to the show’s appeal, Ike encouraged her solo endeavors and oversaw her first independent album, the country-oriented Tina Turns the Country On!, issued in 1974. The following year she portrayed the Acid Queen in Ken Russell’s screen adaptation of the Who’s Tommy; the performance drew critical and audience approval, spurring her second solo release, Acid Queen.

On July 1, 1976, after another physical confrontation during a Dallas engagement, Tina left Ike with only thirty-six cents and a gas-station credit card. A friend provided lodging at a Ramada Inn; on July 27 she initiated divorce proceedings. The divorce was not finalized for two years, during which legal costs and obligations from canceled dates forced her to accept any available work. She made frequent television appearances, ranging from Hollywood Squares to Donny & Marie, and performed in Las Vegas lounges and cabarets while rebuilding her solo identity. Her 1978 United Artists album Rough introduced a disco-funk direction yet sold modestly; 1979’s Love Explosion met a similar fate, prompting the label to drop her. She sustained herself through live dates, including a five-week South African residency in 1979 that she later regretted.

In 1979 Tina began a managerial partnership with Roger Davies aimed at securing improved engagements. Rod Stewart, a longtime admirer, invited her to perform “Hot Legs” with him on Saturday Night Live in 1981, while Mick Jagger facilitated opening slots for the Rolling Stones. That same year the British synth-pop collective Heaven 17’s offshoot B.E.F. included her on their covers album Music of Quality and Distinction, Vol. 1; her rendition of the Temptations’ “Ball of Confusion” became one of the project’s singles, receiving substantial British airplay and rotation on the newly launched MTV. In 1982 she signed with Capitol, and B.E.F. produced her label debut, a cover of Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together.” The single reached the U.K. Top Ten and crossed over in the United States to number three on the Hot Black Singles chart and number 26 on the Hot 100.

Supported by the hit, Tina recorded her next album with limited studio time. Private Dancer, released in May 1984, artfully combined pop, rock, and R&B elements that highlighted the warmth and texture of her voice; it became a major commercial triumph, moving more than five million copies domestically, peaking at number three on the Billboard 200, and generating the additional hits “What’s Love Got to Do with It,” “Better Be Good to Me,” and the title track. After serving as Lionel Richie’s opening act, she headlined her own tour as the album ascended the charts, reaffirming her reputation for dynamic live performance. She collected three Grammy Awards in 1985, including Record of the Year for “What’s Love Got to Do with It,” which she performed on the broadcast while battling influenza. That year she contributed to the USA for Africa charity single “We Are the World” and appeared at Live Aid, duetting energetically with Mick Jagger on “State of Shock” and “It’s Only Rock & Roll.”

Filmmaker George Miller cast her as Aunty Entity, ruler of a dystopian metropolis, in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome; strong reviews accompanied her acting debut, and two soundtrack singles—“We Don’t Need Another Hero (Thunderdome)” and “One of the Living”—became hits, the latter earning her a Grammy for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance. Break Every Rule, the 1986 follow-up, achieved further international success with guest contributions from Steve Winwood, Phil Collins, and Mark Knopfler. Its singles “Typical Male,” “Two People,” and “What You See Is What You Get” performed strongly, while “Back Where You Started” secured another Grammy for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance. The accompanying North American tour proved popular, and a Rio de Janeiro concert drew 180,000 spectators. She also added authorship to her accomplishments with the 1986 memoir I, Tina, written with Kurt Loder.

Her European Break Every Rule dates were documented on the 1988 live album Tina Live in Europe. Foreign Affair followed in 1989; although less dominant in the United States, it featured the enduring single “The Best” and ultimately sold more than six million copies worldwide. Additional touring included a European leg that sold over four million tickets. In 1991 she issued Simply the Best, a compilation of 1980s hits augmented by “River Deep, Mountain High” and a fresh version of “Nutbush City Limits.” That year Ike & Tina were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame; Ike, then incarcerated, could not attend, while Tina, recuperating from touring, remained in Europe. Phil Spector accepted on her behalf. She settled in Switzerland during the 1990s and became a Swiss citizen in 2013.

The 1993 biopic What’s Love Got to Do with It drew partly on her memoir and featured Angela Bassett’s Oscar-nominated portrayal of Tina. Although she supplied several soundtrack recordings, Tina otherwise stayed uninvolved and later expressed disappointment over factual liberties while praising Bassett’s performance. She toured North America, Europe, and Australia that year. In 1995 she recorded the theme “GoldenEye” for the James Bond film of the same name, written for her by Bono and the Edge. After signing with Virgin she released Wildest Dreams in 1996, which included “GoldenEye” and guest appearances by Barry White, Antonio Banderas, and Sting. The supporting tour encompassed 250 concerts across North America, Europe, and Australia. Virgin issued Twenty Four Seven in 1999; the ensuing global trek became the highest-grossing tour of 2000, earning more than $120 million. Two final concerts at London’s Wembley Stadium were filmed for the DVD One Last Time in Concert, after which Tina announced her retirement from live performance.

All the Best, a two-disc career retrospective, appeared in 2004 and soon attained platinum status. In 2005 she received Kennedy Center Honors. The following year she recorded the duet “Teach Me Again” with Italian artist Elisa for the soundtrack of All the Invisible Children. She contributed to Herbie Hancock’s 2007 Grammy-winning Joni Mitchell tribute River: The Joni Letters. In 2008 she joined Beyoncé for a duet of “Proud Mary” on the Grammy telecast, signaling a return for a fiftieth-anniversary tour that comprised ninety concerts between October 2008 and May 2009, after which she retired once more.

A longtime practitioner of Buddhism, Tina collaborated with Dechen Shak-Dagsay and Regula Curti on the 2009 album Beyond: Buddhist and Christian Prayers, the first of several releases under the Beyond name. Scottish club Rangers FC had adopted “The Best” as an unofficial anthem; a 2010 supporters’ campaign returned the song to the U.K. Top Ten, making Tina the first female artist to achieve Top 40 hits across six consecutive decades. In 2020 a Kygo remix of “What’s Love Got to Do with It” charted, extending the span to seven decades. The jukebox musical Tina, developed with her involvement, premiered in London’s West End in 2018 and reached Broadway in 2019. That London opening year she received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and published the memoir My Love Story. A third book, Happiness Becomes You: A Guide to Changing Your Life for Good, written with Regula Curti and Taro Gold, appeared in 2020. The documentary Tina, directed by Dan Lindsay and T.J. Martin, premiered on HBO in 2021 and included new interview material. Months later she was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as a solo artist, accepting via satellite from Switzerland. In her final years she contended with kidney failure, strokes, and intestinal cancer; she died at home on May 24, 2023, at age eighty-three.