Tina Turner

You must be good to me

The cat!

Tina Turner’s solo career began in 1984 with the release of Private Dancer. She was 45. I knew who she was because, in an inspired bit of casting, she played the Acid Queen in Tommy, the 1975 movie based on The Who’s album (released in 1969) which, thanks to my dad) was one of the first albums I ever listened to.

I was too young to see the movie but the soundtrack album was a bit of a sensation when it came out. I loved the cover but much preferred the tracks of the original—except for Tina Turner’s version of the song “Acid Queen” which is amazing.

Like pretty much everyone else on the planet, Private Dancer blew me away; its impact was seismic.

But I knew nothing about The Ike and Tina Turner Revue and her early success; her marriage to Ike; the horrific abuse she suffered at his hands; or what she endured in order to breakthrough professionally at what, even now, would be considered an advanced age in the music industry.

In 1976, when Turner left Ike for good, she had the name he had given her (including her first name—she was born Anna) but no money, no material goods, and no prospects. She did have that voice, though, as well as an enduring belief in her talent. Besides that extraordinary talent—unique, earth-shaking—one of the things that struck me in the years after Private Dancer came out was something else she had—the love, respect, and support from colleagues and friends like David Bowie, Cher, Rod Stewart, Dionne Warwick, Bryan Adams, and Mick Jagger.

In 1997, thirteen years after that solo debut, Turner did a 60 Minutes interview at her estate on the French Riviera. She was, of course, already well-established as a global superstar. Private Dancer alone had sold 12 million copies; the follow-up, Break Every Rule, sold 5 million copies in its first year; and, as Mike Wallace, the man interviewing her, points out, Turner grossed over $100 million during her 15-month world tour in Europe alone.

Still, he asks her a question I can’t imagine his ever asking a man: "You feel like you deserve all this?"

Without missing a beat, she gives him the perfect answer: “I deserve more,” underscoring, with a laugh, both the obvious rightness of her response and the insulting ridiculousness of his question. (As an aside, in listening to this interview recently, I realized that I’d forgotten how exquisite Tina Turner’s speaking voice was.)

That same year, in an interview with Larry King, Turner explained why she decided to settle in Europe. “Europe has been very supportive of me. I’m as big as Madonna in Europe. I’m as big - in some places - as The Rolling Stones.” The fact that neither of these statements was true in the United States speaks volumes.

Turner eventually moved to Switzerland with her “soul mate,” Erwin Bach, whom she met in 1986. We can only be grateful that, after everything, she found a man whose love and treatment of her inspired her to say this: “He shows me that true love doesn't require the dimming of my light so that he can shine. On the contrary, we are the light of each other's lives, and we want to shine as bright as we can, together." She referred to her relationship with Bach as “my one true marriage.”

As for the songs, where would I even start? The original recording of “River Deep—Mountain High,” “I Can’t Stand the Rain,” her cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Proud Mary” and The Who’s “Acid Queen,” “One of the Living” from Mad Max Beyond the Thunderdome, “Nutbush City Limits,” “Private Dancer?”

Start anywhere. Listen to everything.

Here’s a live performance of “Proud Mary” to kick it off.

“Somehow, somehow, we never ever seem to do nothing completely nice and easy. You know why? You know why? Because, because we like to do, I say, we like to do it and we like to do it nice and rough.”

---

I am in the process of hiring a new proofreader so please forgive any typos or errors of syntax. :)