Tina Turner - From soul-funk queen to pop icon

And I might have been queen

I remember the girl in the fields with no name

She had a love

Oh, but the river won’t stop for me…

(da “I Might Have Been Queen”)

Tina Turner, one of the greatest musical icons of all time, was never just an ordinary woman. A powerful vocalist, a talented self-taught dancer with a wildly sensual stage presence, a skilled songwriter, a reliable professional, but above all a pioneer of female empowerment, she proved it was possible to climb out of the deepest abysses and launch herself into a new life with unimaginable outcomes. Loved by fellow musicians, adored by fans and recognized by practically everyone in every corner of the globe, she was and remains a source of inspiration, an example of strength, a symbol of determination.

Over the course of her career, she not only fell and rose again time and again, becoming a true legend and reaching the highest levels of international popularity, but she also constantly displayed a remarkable ability to reinvent herself: first a young soul revelation, then an authoritative figure in rhythm and blues, a forerunner of funk, and, after a brief period of relative obscurity, from the early Eighties onward a genuine legend of pop music. Tina Turner was one of the first truly global rock stars, an immortal diva who kept breaking new records for seven decades straight.

The origins

Born on November 26, 1939 in Nutbush, Tennessee, under the name Anna Mae Bullock, she grew up in a humble family who worked the cotton plantations. After her parents separated, with neither one seemingly interested in keeping her, she went to live with her grandparents. From a very young age, music was a refuge for her: raised in an area where religion permeated many aspects of everyday life, she was decisively shaped by the gospel and spirituals sung in church. In Tennessee, a natural coexistence with blues and soul was inevitable as well. She soon stood out for her vocal talent singing in the choirs of the Baptist church she attended, finding there an oasis of lightness that helped ease, at least in part, a difficult childhood.

After her grandmother's death, Anna Mae returned to her mother, settling in 1956 in St. Louis, Missouri, where – thanks to her older sister – she began frequenting the city's lively clubs. One evening she came across a performance by the Kings Of Rhythm, a rhythm and blues outfit that had already scored several hits and is considered by many to be responsible for the very first rock'n'roll song in history, "Rocket 88", sung by the band's saxophonist, Jackie Brenston, recorded in March 1951 at Sam Phillips's studio (yes, the same one that recorded Elvis) in Memphis and released by Chess Records the following month.

Tina wasted no time: after meeting Ike Turner, the group's leader, and finding herself bewitched by his charisma, in the following weeks she put herself forward to join the line-up as a singer. Ike initially paid her no mind, since no woman had ever been part of the band before, until, in 1957, having recognized the then eighteen-year-old's vocal talent, he granted her the role of backing singer, under the name Little Ann. Tina thus took part in the recording sessions for the album Boxtop the following year, and in the meantime began a short-lived relationship with the Kings Of Rhythm's saxophonist at the time, Raymond Hill, with whom she would have a son, Craig Raymond, in 1958. Tina would raise him without Hill's help (he would die in 1996 at the age of 62), and in the months that followed she found herself drawn into the long and turbulent love affair with Ike, who had in the meantime also separated from his wife, Lorraine Taylor, with whom he had had two children, Ike Jr. and Michael.

The real artistic turning point came in 1960, when Ike called the band in to record the track "A Fool In Love". Art Lassiter was supposed to sing the song, but he wasn't there that day. Ike – who had already paid for the studio time – didn't want to waste the session, so he handed the vocal part to Little Ann on a provisional basis, intending to re-record it properly later. In the days that followed, however, the tape ended up in the hands of Juggy Murray, president of the r&b label Sue Records, who was so impressed that he pushed hard (helped along by a sizeable $20,000 advance) to convince Ike to keep Little Ann's vocal in the final version of the song. Released in July 1960, "A Fool In Love", with Little Ann's voice, shot straight to number two on the Billboard r&b chart, and to number 27 on the pop chart. Despite her young age, that powerful, raspy vocal tone that is now considered her unmistakable trademark was already unmistakable: pairing that voice with a solid soul-pop melody really was a brilliant idea.

Early success

The song's success prompted Ike to make two strategic decisions. The first was to change Little Ann's stage name to Tina Turner, thereby having her take on his own surname artistically. Ike thus revealed from the very start his cynical, business-minded side, inclined to seize total and absolute control of the situation: the name change was a way of stamping his own brand on her, of turning Ann into an employee, a subordinate. The second decision was to turn the Kings Of Rhythm into the backing band for Ike and Tina Turner, even changing the group's name, which from then on would present itself to the world as the Ike & Tina Turner Revue.

The promotional tour that followed the success of "A Fool In Love" took the band to play in ever bigger and more prestigious venues, including the Apollo Theater in Harlem, New York, and led to their first television appearance, on "American Bandstand", on October 3, 1960, with Tina eight months pregnant. A few days later Ronald Renelle, known to everyone as Ronnie, the only legitimate child of the Ike and Tina couple, was born. "A Fool In Love" would later be included on the duo's debut album, released under their joint name, The Soul Of Ike & Tina Turner, released in 1961 and also featuring the new hit "I Idolize You".

The following year, "It's Gonna Work Out Fine" became Ike & Tina Turner's second single to sell over a million copies, earning the pair their first Grammy Award nomination, in the category "Best Rock And Roll Recording". The subsequent album Dynamite!, besides featuring all three songs already mentioned, included two further future hits: "Poor Fool" and "Tra La La La La". The duo's popularity kept growing throughout the Sixties, helped also by the explosiveness, both musically and visually, of their live shows, which at the time were comparable only to those of James Brown. Tina's aggressive vocal power, combined with her overflowing sensuality, was amplified by the stage presence of the Ikettes, the choreographed trio of backing singers and dancers who would also release records under their own name. Equally crucial was the meticulous planning of tours and television appearances. Their shows managed to win over audiences across the board: in the Southern states they were among the few acts able to draw a multiracial crowd, a far from simple feat at such a fraught time for Black people.

In 1967, Tina became, in one fell swoop, the first non-white artist and the first female artist to appear on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine, a source of enormous pride for the entire Black community. Around that time Tina also caught the attention of Phil Spector, who, thoroughly struck after seeing her perform at a club on the Sunset Strip, offered to co-produce the album River Deep Mountain High, released in England in 1966. The title track, written by Spector himself, became Ike & Tina's first major hit in England, while in the United States it proved - at least initially - something of a flop, though over the years it would come to be regarded as one of the finest recordings in their catalogue. Because of its initial lack of success, the album wasn't released in the United States until 1969. Phil Spector believed strongly in Tina's voice and charisma, and paid Ike a substantial sum of money to convince him to stay away from the recording studio, thus avoiding pressure and interference during the sessions. The acclaim it received in the UK was such that the Rolling Stones chose Ike & Tina as the opening act for a twelve-date English tour. The Rolling Stones would soon become one of the duo's main sources of inspiration, and Mick Jagger a close friend of Tina's (legend has it that she was the one who taught him to dance...).

Among the best albums released by the duo during the Sixties, mention should also go to Outta Season, with which in 1969 Ike & Tina set out to explore the blues, one of the most fashionable genres of the time, reinterpreting songs drawn from the repertoires of B.B. King, Willie Dixon, Sonny Boy Williamson, Eddie Boyd, Lowell Fulson and Otis Redding, plus "Motherless Child", a reworking of the spiritual "City Called Heaven". But things weren't all rosy between the two: in the second half of the Sixties, relations between Ike and Tina - always turbulent - deteriorated further, partly due to Ike's dependence on alcohol and cocaine. As early as 1960, in the aftermath of recording the single "A Fool In Love", when faced with Tina's threat to end their relationship, Ike reacted with violence.

Tina stayed by his side for many years, despite Ike's addictions, his infidelities, and the violence and abuse she suffered, because she felt she somehow had to take care of him. She was grateful to him for giving her the chance to change her life and achieve artistic accomplishments that would otherwise have been unthinkable.

In 1962 the couple moved from St. Louis to Los Angeles and got married, in a ceremony held in Tijuana, Mexico. They brought all four of their children with them, including those from previous relationships. Tina would adopt Ike's two sons, and Ike would do the same with Craig Raymond. In 1968, by her own account as a consequence of her troubled relationship with her husband, Tina attempted suicide by swallowing an excessive quantity of Valium. Lending further weight to Tina's claims about the abuse she suffered, it's worth noting that later in life - after running into trouble with the law - Ike would be diagnosed with a form of bipolar disorder.

The Seventies

Tina, for her part, received her first Grammy nomination as a solo artist in 1970 for the song "The Hunter" in the "Best Female R&B Vocal Performance" category. That same year Ike also received one, for "A Black Man's Soul", in the "Best R&B Instrumental Performance" category. By now the duo was not only a regular fixture on the bills of some of the major music festivals, but their path also frequently crossed with other top-tier stars: from the aforementioned Rolling Stones to Janis Joplin, as well as Jimi Hendrix, who, before achieving major success of his own, had briefly played in the Revue with Ike & Tina in the mid-Sixties.

At the turn of the decade the duo recorded numerous hit covers (back then they were often released almost in real time), including "Come Together", "Get Back" and "Let It Be" by the Beatles, "Honky Tonk Women" by the Rolling Stones and "I Want To Take You Higher" by Sly & The Family Stone, which actually charted higher than the original. Many other covers were regularly performed in concert. But their most acclaimed reinterpretation is without doubt "Proud Mary" by Creedence Clearwater Revival, transformed into a dramatic spiritual that midway through morphs into intense, captivating rock'n'roll, their biggest hit as a duo, which in 1972 earned them their first Grammy win, in the "Best R&B Vocal Performance by a Group" category. The single sold over a million copies, becoming a genuine artistic calling card.

"Proud Mary" is the lead track on the album Workin' Together, and one of the essential songs of any of their live shows, including the unmissable performance given in Italy on 13 March 1971 for the TV variety show Teatro Dieci, hosted by Alberto Lupo and directed by Antonello Falqui.

Another major hit is "Nutbush City Limits", from 1973, a driving funk-soul number written by Tina to describe her own hometown. It's with this song that the sound now associated with her begins to take clearer shape, one that would go on to influence many artists in the years that followed. "Nutbush City Limits" was a huge success especially in Europe, where the self-titled album (also boasting another soul gem, "Too Many Tears") sold over a million copies, and would remain a permanent fixture in Tina's solo live repertoire.

In 1975 further Grammy nominations followed, both for the duo for the album The Gospel According To Ike & Tina, and for Ike alone for the song "Father Alone", both in the "Best Soul Gospel Performance" category.

In the early Seventies Ike, always drawn to the recording process and reluctant to deal with the label system, fulfilled his dream of building his own studios. Opened in Inglewood, California, with the intention of making it their headquarters, Bolic Sound Studios was considered a state-of-the-art recording facility, equipped with top-of-the-line gear and instruments. In addition to hosting the sessions for every album made by Ike and Tina from 1970 onward, Bolic Sound was also used by numerous famous musicians, including the Rolling Stones, the Turtles, Duane Allman, Natalie Cole, George Harrison, Chaka Khan, Paul McCartney, Billy Preston, Little Richard and Bobby Womack. Frank Zappa put together much of the material that went into the albums "Over-Nite Sensation" (1973, his most black-oriented work) and "Apostrophe" (1974) there, with the Ikettes contributing backing vocals, joined on this occasion by Tina herself.

Solo beginnings and the separation from Ike

In 1974 Tina Turner released her first solo album, Tina Turns The Country On!, which earned another Grammy nomination in the "Best Female R&B Performance" category. Recorded at Bolic Sound Studios, the record channels Turner's energy into soul with gospel inflections ("Help Me Make It Through The Night", "There'll Always Be Music", "The Love That Lights Our Way"), adding a few faint touches of country ("Don't Talk Now") and relegating the livelier moments to the blues-rock of "Bayou Song" and the distinctly Stones-like rock'n'roll of "I'm Moving On". Despite the quality of the performances and songs, among them covers of Bob Dylan, Kris Kristofferson, James Taylor and Dolly Parton, sales fell short of expectations, and the attempt (skilfully orchestrated by strategist Ike) to boost Tina's visibility and standing as a solo artist didn't achieve the hoped-for results.

In 1975 Tina was cast as the Acid Queen in the film adaptation of the Who's rock opera "Tommy", directed by Ken Russell. To capitalise on the film's success, her second solo album was released, fittingly titled Acid Queen. Side A features two Rolling Stones covers ("Let's Spend The Night Together" and "Under My Thumb"), two by the Who ("Acid Queen" and "I Can See For Miles") and one by Led Zeppelin, the famous "Whole Lotta Love".

Side B, on the other hand, contains four tracks written by Ike, including the duo's final hit together, the rousing "Baby, Get It On", a rock-funk number once again heavily (and pleasingly) influenced by the Stones, who remained one of the main points of reference in the couple's songwriting process. But also holding their own are the thoroughly effective, hyper-electric blues-rockers "Bootsey Whitelaw", "Pick Me Tonight" and "Rockin' And Rollin'".

Worth noting on the album is the presence of Ray Parker Jr. on guitar (who a few years later would churn out the hit "Ghostbusters"). The record was reissued in 1991 with three bonus tracks added.

In 1976, while contracts and new offers poured in for the duo, Tina, seriously worn down by her increasingly troubled relationship with her partner — a nightmare of brutal mistreatment and constant fighting — walked away from it all and officially filed for divorce. The breakup unfolded while they were at the Hilton Hotel in Dallas, one of the stops on that year's tour. The divorce proceedings dragged on for over a year, until the court finally ratified it in March 1978. As Tina herself would recount years later, her relationship with Ike was marked by abuse and violence: Ike beat her, and he was certainly a domineering, overbearing figure — a situation Tina was determined to escape, both professionally and personally.

Very difficult years followed from a financial standpoint: the former couple found themselves forced to pay damages for the cancellation of several artistic agreements already signed, which carried heavy penalties for every cancelled date. Ike owed the taxman an enormous sum, and Tina took on the burden of the cancelled concerts and unpaid taxes, finding herself in dire financial straits. In practice, she walked away from that relationship with nothing but her stage name and a lot of wounds, wanting nothing more from Ike. Tina also left Ike her share of ownership in Bolic Sound Studios, which Ike would try in vain to sell in the following years. He wouldn't get the chance: the studios were destroyed by a fire, under circumstances never fully clarified, in 1981.

To get through such a difficult period, Tina turned to faith and to that religiosity — clearly never fully dormant — which had accompanied her since childhood. Almost by chance she found her way to Buddhism, a practice she would never again abandon for the rest of her life. Ike, on the other hand, vanished completely from view, and his proposals to record new material together as a duo went nowhere. Ike's career would continue without any great highlights, despite the Kings Of Rhythm's revamp (still active today) and a Grammy Award won in 2007 (his only one as a solo artist) in the "Best Traditional Blues Album" category for Risin' With The Blues, just before his death, which occurred on December 12 of that same year. A few years earlier Ike had entrusted his memories to the autobiography "Takin' Back My Name", published in 1999.

As a solo artist, Tina returned to the stage in 1977, performing a series of concerts in Las Vegas and in a few small venues around the United States. She kept a decent level of visibility thanks to numerous TV guest appearances, including the American game show "Hollywood Squares" — an experience that was perhaps not the most fulfilling, but fun, and useful for making ends meet.

A slow, premature fading into oblivion

Completed after the divorce, 1978 saw the release of Tina Turner's first album without Ike's involvement, Rough. Ironically, Tina found herself on the sidelines of the music business just as the funk scene exploded, driven by musicians openly inspired not only by James Brown, Sly Stone or Stevie Wonder (to name just a few of the most recurring names) but also by what she herself had produced over nearly twenty years of her career.

On the verge of turning 40, Tina was seen as an artist in decline, and had to watch from the sidelines as others built success on foundations she herself had helped lay. And yet Rough can hardly be called a bad record: Tina manages to make the modernist visions of "Fruits Of The Night" and "Viva La Money" — worthy of the Studio 54 dancefloor — coexist with two sumptuous, thoroughly respectable ballads, "The Woman I'm Supposed To Be" and "Sometimes When We Touch". It's an eclectic record that places alongside each other a fiery cover of Elton John's "The Bitch Is Back" (from "Caribou", 1974), two scorching blues numbers ("Fire Down Below" by Bob Seger and "Night Time Is The Right Time" by Leroy Carr) and a "Root, Toot Undisputable Rock'n'Roller" that has the force of the Stones' best songs, a sort of lesser "Brown Sugar".

In 1979 things were no better with the follow-up, Love Explosion, which wasn't even released in the United States. Heavily influenced by disco music and produced by Alec R. Costandinos (the French producer who in 1976 co-wrote Cerrone's "Love In C Minor"), Love Explosion failed to make the sales charts, and as a result Tina was left without a record deal. The four albums released during the Seventies, undoubtedly deserving of reappraisal today, remain hard to find, out of print and absent from streaming platforms.

Tina kept searching for her own style, relying on a different producer each time. She herself was probably starting to fear for the premature end of a once-bright career. The only way to make ends meet in those years was to keep up a steady stream of concerts and TV appearances, especially on programs not aimed solely at the very young. Among these, worth remembering is her role, in the spring of 1979, as Pippo Baudo's regular guest on the Rai 1 program "Luna Park", which allowed her to maintain a good level of recognition in Italy.

The rebirth

It was hard for Tina to have to start over again on her own, facing every kind of difficulty, but after a couple of years of recording silence, in 1981 something began to shift: her friends Rod Stewart and the Rolling Stones invited her to duet with them and to open some of their concerts scheduled on American soil. To win over a wider audience, however, she needed a new image, so she decided to sign with manager Roger Davies, who agreed to take her under his wing and advised her to try reinventing herself as a "rockstar". In 1982 she was brought in to reinterpret a 1970 hit by the Temptations, "Ball Of Confusion", which became a hit on the European club circuit, reaching the Top 5 in Norway. That success led Capitol Records to offer her a three-album deal, and shortly after she was offered another cover to record.

It was "Let's Stay Together" by Al Green, the masterstroke that definitively paved the way for a comeback on a grand scale, one of the most stunning in music history. "Let's Stay Together", reworked by swapping the order of the first two verses, became one of Tina's biggest hits as a solo artist, selling a million copies in the United States (where it topped Billboard's Dance Chart!), 600,000 copies in the UK and 25,000 in Italy. The makeover involved leather jackets, miniskirts, a lion's mane of hair: Tina reinvented herself, adopting a new look in line with the era's aesthetic, with a gritty, sexy edge. The turnaround was total: a survivor rising back up after falling into oblivion, becoming a new, modern symbol of redemption, strength and determination, a role model for countless women.

A few months later, in May 1984, Private Dancer established Tina Turner once and for all as a world-class superstar. Recorded in various English studios with contributions from numerous producers, Private Dancer showcases a more polished sound compared to the hits she shared with her ex-husband many years before, but the energy straddling rock and southern soul stamps the songs with what would become her unmistakable trademark. The album opens with the telling, autobiographical "I Might Have Been Queen", which immediately sets the overall mood. The lead single is "What's Love Got To Do With It", a mature song that conveys the regret and remorse of a woman who has lived, suffered, and survived a thousand misadventures. With its subtle reggae inflections, "What's Love Got To Do With It" sold a million copies in the United States (where it became her first and only number 1) and half a million in England, landing in virtually every European Top Ten.

Private Dancer also features another important cover, one widely regarded as the definitive version of the Beatles' "Help", performed with the Crusaders backing her. The rock edge comes courtesy of Jeff Beck's guitar contributions, both on the elegant title track (written by Mark Knopfler, with Mel Collins on sax) and on the breakneck "Steel Claw", which make the final result even more stylistically varied, confirming (as also happens on "Show Some Respect" and "Better Be Good To Me") Turner's taste for the grittiest atmospheres.

Initially regarded by Tina herself as a record that played things too safe, Private Dancer reinvented Tina Turner's image, officially turning her into a mainstream rock singer. At a moment when guitars and rock were riding high, Tina became their leading female voice, winning huge popularity thanks to a more commercial sound capable of widening her pool of potential listeners.

Private Dancer was supported by a 182-date world tour that drew two and a half million spectators and grossed around 40 million dollars at the box office; the two shows held in Birmingham in March, including the performances shared with Bryan Adams and David Bowie, were filmed for a VHS release, "Tina Live: Private Dancer Tour". The album sold ten million copies worldwide, half of them in the United States alone: the biggest commercial success of Tina Turner's entire career. The album and the single "What's Love Got To Do With It" would go on to win four Grammy Awards out of the six nominations they received in total.

Private Dancer was remastered and reissued on CD in 1997, with the addition of four bonus tracks and three extended versions. In 2005, to mark its thirtieth anniversary, a special edition was released with the original tracklist expanded to include further bonus tracks, remixes and live versions, among them "Tonight", the duet with David Bowie included on the White Duke's album of the same name.

Tina Superstar

Tina Turner was by now a global pop icon. Having taken part in the recording of the hugely successful charity single "We Are The World", she was chosen - alongside Mel Gibson - to star in the film Mad Max III: Beyond Thunderdome, for which she recorded two new songs, "We Don't Need Another Hero", another major commercial hit, and "One Of The Living", which earned her a new Grammy Award. After the Acid Queen, here was another role perfectly suited to her, strong and villainous, a woman who in this case rules over a city. The success it brought her secured another important honour: in 1986 she was inducted into the prestigious Hollywood Walk Of Fame.

In July 1985 she was among the absolute headliners of the massive charity concert Live Aid, performing "State Of Shock" and "It's Only Rock'n'Roll" alongside her friend Mick Jagger. Around the same time she became the face (backed by a hefty contract) of Pepsi Cola, and recorded the hit single "It's Only Love", a duet with Bryan Adams, which brought further resounding acclaim both at the Grammy Awards (Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group) and at the MTV Video Music Awards ("Best Stage Performance").

Having found the winning formula, 1986 saw the release of Break Every Rule, which followed stylistically in the footsteps of its predecessor while keeping the same high standard. The cast is star-studded: among others, at least the superstars Phil Collins (drums on both the hit single "Typical Male" and on "Girls", written by David Bowie), Eric Clapton (guitar on "What You Get Is What You See") and Steve Winwood (keyboards on "Afterglow") deserve mention. "Break Where You Started" (which would earn her yet another Grammy Award, the third in a row for "Best Female Vocal Performance") is the album's most rock-leaning moment, written and produced by Bryan Adams, who handed the solo to his guitarist Keith Scott. "Overnight Sensation", on the other hand, bears the unmistakable stamp of Mark Knopfler, who wrote, produced and played guitar on the track (he also appears on "Paradise Is Here", which also features Branford Marsalis on sax).

While it didn't match the results of its illustrious predecessor, Break Every Rule sold a million copies in the United States (where it reached number four), just as many in Germany, and three hundred thousand in the United Kingdom (where it climbed to number two on the charts). It also topped the charts in Switzerland, Spain and Finland. Many of the twelve-inch singles taken from the album (the other hit single from the record is "Two People") include remixes, alternate versions, live cuts and tracks that never appeared on any album: they are currently out of print and have never been released on CD.

During that period Tina also recorded further tracks, still unreleased, during sessions held with Steve Lillywhite and Bryan Adams. She also appeared as a guest on Eric Clapton's album "August", produced in 1986 by Phil Collins, on which she takes centre stage in the energetic duet "Tearing Us Apart", released as a single in early 1987.

Tina and Clapton performed "Tearing Us Apart" at the "Prince's Trust All Star Rock Concert", held in 1986 at Wembley Arena in London, backed by a band that included Phil Collins, Elton John, Mark Knopfler, Bryan Adams, Rod Stewart and Paul McCartney. This version was also included on the live album drawn from the concert. In 1986 Tina was awarded the prestigious Légion d'Honneur, one of the highest honours bestowed by the French state.

From March 1987 to March 1988, a new massive world tour of no fewer than 218 dates spanned every corner of the globe, drawing a total of four million spectators and grossing sixty million dollars. Tina Turner was not just a superstar, but a veritable money-making machine. In 1988, at the close of the triumphant tour, the double album Tina Live In Europe was released, a live record capturing all the energy the singer brought to the stage. Ample space is given to songs from her two most recent albums, with few concessions to the repertoire she once shared with Ike.

Lending the album even more prestige are the duets with Robert Cray, David Bowie, Eric Clapton and Bryan Adams, recorded during the tour dates. Tina Live In Europe earned Tina a new Grammy Award, the fourth in a row (!) for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance. The tour date held at the Maracanã stadium in Rio de Janeiro, in front of 184,000 people, a new world record attendance for a concert, was filmed and released on home video. Tina once again proved that she was not only a hugely popular artist, but also possessed tremendous skill as an entertainer.

Pop Icon

Tina Turner closed out her golden decade by making Foreign Affair in 1989, looking dazzling despite the relentless passing of time. Almost entirely produced by Dan Hartman, and despite proving to be a high-quality work with huge radio potential, Foreign Affair failed to match the numbers of its two predecessors, perhaps because its songs partly tone down Turner's rock enthusiasm (aside from the opening "Steamy Windows") in favour of smoother, more polished arrangements. The huge visibility gained by the single "The Best" (a song that, thanks to her, got a second shot after being recorded the previous year by Bonnie Tyler), which remains one of Tina's most popular tracks, helped drive an album whose strengths include a series of fine, soft and elegant midtempo numbers, such as "Look Me In The Heart", "I Don't Wanna Lose You" and "Foreign Affair", graced by the guitar of her friend Mark Knopfler.

Among the many musicians involved in the recordings, Tony Joe White stands out for also co-writing four of the twelve tracks. But the effort mustered to flatter Tina's voice and image was considerable, to the point that two songs came from the pens of Tom Kelly and Billy Steinberg, writers of some of the biggest hits of the era, such as "Like A Virgin", "True Colors", "Eternal Flame" and "I'll Stand By You". Foreign Affair topped the charts in many European countries, including the United Kingdom (for the first time in Tina's career), where it sold a staggering one and a half million copies. In Norway it ranked as the best-selling album of 1989, in Italy it reached number three, selling as many as five hundred thousand copies, plus another million in Germany, for a worldwide total of over six million. In the United States the results were less spectacular: only number thirty-one on the Billboard chart, confirming just how much more success Turner now enjoyed in Europe. The songs taken from the album nonetheless earned the artist two further Grammy Award nominations.

In October 1990, Turner further cashed in on the huge success enjoyed throughout the decade that had just ended with her first greatest hits collection, Simply The Best, which sold over seven million copies worldwide, including more than two million in the UK alone, where it became her best-selling album, spending a staggering 140 weeks on the chart. Alongside a selection of songs released throughout the Eighties, the compilation features three new tracks, a live cover of Robert Palmer's "Addicted To Love" and a new "dance version" of "Nutbush City Limits".

The tracklist also includes "It Takes Two", the duet with Rod Stewart originally released, that same year, on the English singer's album “Vagabond Heart”. The track, which reached the Top Ten in almost every European country, hitting number one in Denmark, number three in the Netherlands and number five in England, would also be included in the 2001 greatest hits set “The Very Best Of Rod Stewart”. This is Tina Turner's absolute peak, a high point of popularity she would never replicate. The string of major accolades continued too, and in 1991 came one of the most coveted, the induction of Ike and Tina Turner into the Rock'n'Roll Hall Of Fame. Both were absent from the ceremony for different reasons (Ike was serving a prison sentence at the time, while Tina likely wanted to distance herself from that by-now remote chapter of her career); standing in for them was producer Phil Spector, even though he had only co-produced one of the duo's records.

The final albums

In 1993, “What's Love Got To Do With It” hit cinemas, a semi-autobiographical film directed by Brian Gibson and starring Angela Bassett and Laurence Fishburne, both nominated for Oscars for their performances. Bassett won the Golden Globe for her heartfelt portrayal of Tina. The film is an adaptation of “I, Tina”, Turner's autobiography published in 1986. It traces the singer's life story, from her rural origins to her huge success, repeatedly and rightly shining a light on the horrific abuse inflicted by Ike, making it widely known to the public. Tina Turner's attitude toward the film was ambivalent. While on one hand she was upset at being forced to relive the brutality she suffered at Ike's hands, she nevertheless chose to contribute, showing the actors the choreography and re-recording the famous title track, included on the companion compilation released for the occasion.

For What's Love Got To Do With It, Tina re-recorded some songs from her years with Ike, performed the previously unreleased "I Don't Wanna Fight" and cut her own version of The Tramps' classic "Disco Inferno", a song she had often performed live back in the Seventies. This compilation also topped the UK charts, and did well in the United States too, surpassing a million copies sold. It was followed, in 1993, by a new 97-date world tour, the “What's Love? Tour”, designed to support the compilation. Among the prestigious acts chosen as openers were Lindsey Buckingham, Joe Cocker, John Mellencamp and Chris Isaak.

Her next recording project came in 1995, when Tina's voice was chosen to bring to life a song written by Bono Vox and The Edge for the soundtrack of the new James Bond film, “GoldenEye”. A Top Ten hit in almost every European country, the single was especially successful in Germany, where it sold as many as 250,000 copies.

“GoldenEye” was also the lead single from her new album Wildest Dreams, released in April 1996. The record features two prestigious covers that add further shine to already well-known songs, Massive Attack's "Unfinished Sympathy" and John Waite's "Missing You". The Pet Shop Boys wrote "Confidential", Sheryl Crow co-wrote "All Kinds Of People", and famed dj-producer Arthur Baker co-wrote "Whatever You Want", the lead single and opening song of the promotional tour (250 dates spanning every continent), which reached number five on the Italian charts.

Wildest Dreams also boasted some notable guest appearances: Sting on "On Silent Wings", Antonio Banderas on "In Your Wildest Dreams", later reissued as a single (with numerous extended versions) featuring Barry White as well. Wildest Dreams didn't match the success of her previous records, but still reached number one in New Zealand and Switzerland, and number two in Italy. In the UK it peaked at number six, still selling an impressive six hundred thousand copies. Five hundred thousand copies were sold in Germany, a result the album only came close to matching in the States. These commercial results led her to decide to leave the United States and relocate to Europe, where she felt more supported. After living in London and France, from 1994 she chose to settle in Switzerland with her new partner Erwin Bach. Having met in 1986, Tina and Erwin tied the knot in July 2013 in a romantic ceremony on Lake Zurich. That same year Tina obtained Swiss citizenship, giving up her American one.

Preceded by the single "When The Heartache Is Over", her tenth album, Twenty Four Seven, came out on 28 October 1999, marking Tina's sixtieth birthday. Number one in Switzerland, number three in Germany (the two countries that continued to support her the most), number nine in the UK, and only number twenty-one in the United States, Twenty Four Seven still sold over three million copies worldwide, more than a million of them in Europe, helped along by the new supporting tour, with 95 dates in North America and 26 in Europe, drawing a combined audience of two and a half million people.

It was her last album of new material before she announced her retirement from the stage, in July 2000, following a concert held in Zurich. Tina Turner will forever remain in the collective imagination as one of the greatest survivors in the history of pop music, a Black singer capable of crossing every boundary to become a global phenomenon, a performer on a par with the greatest names of all time, whose influence is evident in numerous female voices who came after her, starting with Beyoncé.

In November 2004, All The Best was released, a new double greatest hits collection featuring three previously unreleased tracks, which sold over six hundred thousand copies in the United States (reaching number two on the chart) and a million in Europe. All The Best also includes the 1993 duet with Eros Ramazzotti, "Cose della vita". It wouldn't be the only time Tina crossed paths with Italian musicians: it happened again in 2006, alongside Elisa on "Teach Me Again", featured on the soundtrack of the anthology film “All The Invisible Children”, whose proceeds were donated to Unicef to support projects aimed at fighting child malnutrition in Africa.

In December 2005 came a new honor: Tina Turner was awarded the Kennedy Center Honors, given annually to figures who have distinguished themselves in the arts, contributing to the development and spread of American culture. During the ceremony, a series of tribute performances in Turner's honor were staged, among which Beyoncé's is especially worth revisiting, performing "Proud Mary" dressed as Tina in the Seventies. The widely-watched video can be found on YouTube.

In 2008 came another Grammy Award, for Tina's contribution to Herbie Hancock's album “River: The Joni Letters”, on which she performs the track "Edith And The Kingpin". During the award ceremony she took the stage again, right alongside Beyoncé.

This was the prelude to a new tour, her last, conceived as a grand traveling celebration of her fifty years in the business. Around the same time, in September 2008, a new greatest hits collection was released, Tina!, featuring eighteen tracks spanning hits, live recordings and two new songs. A few months later, an expanded version followed, The Platinum Collection, a three-disc box set featuring all of Tina's solo singles, her major duets, several live versions and a selection of tracks from her years with Ike.

Retirement from the stage

But even after her definitive retirement from the stage, confirmed at the end of the tour, Tina periodically made headlines again, even resurfacing on the charts. That happened in 2010 thanks to "The Best", boosted by its use for sporting purposes, particularly football: supporters of the Scottish club Rangers of Glasgow organized a promotional campaign to send the song back to number one, and the single climbed back up to ninth place on the British charts.

In the summer of 2020, a new remixed version of "What's Love Got To Do With It", produced by Norwegian producer Kygo, allowed the song to re-enter the charts, even reaching number one in Croatia and Poland. Tina thus became the first artist to have a song in the UK Top 40 in seven consecutive decades!

Religion had always played an important role in Tina's life, ever since she was a child singing in the church choir. Having converted to Buddhism, in 2007 she launched the musical project Beyond together with Swiss singer Regula Curti and Dechen Shak-Dagsay, a Nepalese singer dedicated to introducing new generations to traditional Tibetan Buddhist mantras. The Beyond project aims to blend tradition with contemporary melodies.

Under the name Beyond, four albums were released between 2009 and 2017, a mix of religious spirituality, world music and ambient, created by blending children's choirs, Hindu music, orchestral passages, Buddhist and Christian chants, alongside the diverse backgrounds of the artists involved. After the success achieved in Switzerland by the project's first album, to promote the second one Tina returned to appear as a guest on several German and Swiss television programs.

The years go by, but Tina Turner proves herself to be timeless: in April 2013, at age 73, she landed the cover of the German edition of Vogue, something that had never happened to anyone her age. She broke the record held by actress Meryl Streep, who appeared on the cover of the American edition of the magazine in 2012 at age 62. The following year, a new compilation, Love Songs, gathered 18 love songs released by Tina over the course of three decades.

Her farewell to the stage was caused not only by age but also by a series of serious health problems that afflicted her in recent years. A stroke in 2013, intestinal cancer diagnosed in 2016, as well as severe hypertension issues treated with homeopathic remedies, which however caused her kidney failure. The singer even considered ending it all, signing up with Exit, an association whose purpose is to guide people through assisted suicide. Fortunately, she pulled through, thanks also to the intervention of her husband, who donated her a kidney in 2017. As if that weren't enough, she had to endure the grief of losing her son Craig Raymond, who took his own life in July 2018 at age 59.

But her legend kept being fed without pause: on April 17, 2018, the premiere of the biographical musical Tina took place at the Aldwych Theatre in London, which opened on Broadway on November 7 of the following year. Based on Turner's life, it is also a sort of jukebox musical featuring her most significant songs. With the inevitable interruption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, the show was also staged—not always with the same cast—in Germany (first in Hamburg, then in Stuttgart), the Netherlands (Utrecht), and from September 30, 2021, at the Teatro Coliseum in Madrid.

Meanwhile, in 2018 Tina published a second memoir, "My Love Story", and that same year she received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Over the years, three of her songs have also found a place in the Grammy Hall of Fame, reserved for compositions and albums deemed of historical importance: "River Deep, Mountain High", "Proud Mary" and "What's Love Got To Do With It".

In 2020 she contributed to the documentary film based on her life, "Tina", distributed by HBO and presented on March 2, 2021 at the Berlin International Film Festival. According to Tina herself, the film serves as a companion piece to her third book, "Happiness Becomes You", published in late 2020, a spiritually inspired guide on how to change one's life for the better, for the launch of which Tina personally curated an eighteen-song playlist released on Spotify, titled "Come Up Smiling".

In October 2021 Tina received the honor of induction into the Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame for her solo career. Turner had already been inducted as part of the duo with Ike. That same month, she announced her decision, in line with that of many other famous musicians, to sell the rights to her catalog to BMG, for a sum of 50 million dollars.

In the summer of 2021, Foreign Affair became the subject of an elegant reissue in which, alongside the remastering of the original album, numerous bonus tracks found their place. The lavish box set includes a second disc that sequences the singles' B-sides and the remix versions released at the time, plus a previously unreleased provisional take of "The Best".

Two further discs are dedicated to the recording of a concert held in Barcelona in 1990, during the album's promotional tour. The Deluxe Edition also includes a DVD with footage of the concert and the six music videos made at the time.

Also in 2021, the label Sunset Bvd released the double anthology The Bolic Sound Sessions, which collects numerous rare, high-quality recordings cut at the Bolic Sound Studios by the Ike & Tina Turner Revue, mostly never released before. In some cases these are new versions of songs already made successful by the duo ("River Deep/Mountain High"), or re-recordings of their early singles, such as "A Fool In Love" and "I Idolize You", reworked with an intimate feel, featuring a guitar solo with strong Harrison-esque overtones. Tina's vocal grit is always front and center, but the rest of the band is also in fine form, busy merging soul and rhythm and blues tradition with the groove of more contemporary funk and the pure rock'n'roll energy clearly rooted in the Rolling Stones.

Thirty-six tracks in all: not only the driving, horn-laden funk of "Shake", "Don't Fight It (Feel It)/Knock On Wood" and "You Took A Trip", but also the purest soul of "Just One More Day", the blues of "Why I Sing The Blues" and an early version of "Baby Get It On". At the end, there's room for a few live recordings, including some of the covers Ike and Tina loved to perform: besides raiding the Beatles' catalog with gusto and respect, we also find the Stones' "Honky Tonk Women" and the inevitable "Proud Mary".

There will be no more chances to see her sing: after a long illness, Tina Turner passed away on May 24, 2023, at her home in Switzerland, at the age of 83. A few months after her death, in November 2023, the compilation Queen Of Rock'n'Roll was released, tracing her thrilling solo career through the 55 songs released as singles over the span of half a century. Three CDs, or five vinyl records, compress this story into an anthology box set (arranged in strict chronological order) that stands as one of the best possible snapshots of an artistic journey with few equals in the world.

At the heart of the collection are, of course, the hits known to everyone, part of the shared heritage of international pop culture, but alongside these are also a few tracks less present in the collective imagination. Worth mentioning are the songs released in the Seventies, a handful of late-career tracks that reveal her class still fully intact, and the reworkings of the repertoire she once shared with Ike. Closing out the selection is a new version of "Something Beautiful Remains", simply renamed "Something Beautiful", the result of a reworking carried out by Terry Britten, longtime collaborator of Turner's.

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