Simply The Best

For my midweek post I was planning on sharing with you one of my earliest pieces, going right back to my first six months of blogging, but the news I read last night changed that. You have probably seen that Tina Turner has died at the age of 83, and it seems right to give her my accolade of a tribute post, as I have enjoyed so much of her music for so many years.

Tina Turner was born as Anna Mae Bullock on November 26, 1939 in Brownsville, Tennessee, the youngest daughter of Floyd Richard Bullock and his wife Zelma Priscilla (née Currie). The family lived in nearby rural Nutbush, where her father worked as an overseer of the sharecroppers at Poindexter Farm on Highway 180; she later recalled picking cotton with her family at an early age. Her early life was hard, and she was moved around the family following her mother’s departure – Zelma was escaping Floyd, who was an abusive husband. Tina later said that she didn’t feel loved or wanted. As a young girl she sang in the local church choir with her two sisters, and it was when she was out at a night club with her sister Ruby that they saw Ike Turner and his Kings Of Rhythm playing, and eventually little Anna became their lead singer. You are probably aware that Ike and Tina married, and she endured the same kind of relationship as her mother. Ike was a controlling type of person, and even changed Anna’s name to Tina without first telling her. They had a lot of success, though, and I’m going to start by playing you their two biggest UK hits.

This was their first massive UK success, reaching #3 after its release in May 1966. Somehow, though, it only got to #88 in the US. I played it for Tuesday Tunes a few weeks ago, but I think it is worthy of playing now, too:

I loved that when it came out – I was coming up to 13 – and still do. As an introduction to Tina’s powerhouse vocals it is memorable.

This was their other big UK success. It was released in August 1973, peaking at #4 in the UK and #22 in the US. I was in a summer job between my first and second years at uni, and this was being played everywhere:

Amazing! There is so much energy in that performance, and the Ikettes deserve a mention for their part, too. Tina wrote the song as a tribute to her birthplace, and it gives a feel for some of her early life:

Nutbush city limits
Little old town in Tennessee
It’s called a quiet, little old community
A one-horse town
You have to watch
What you’re puttin’ down in old Nutbush
They call it Nutbush

As a musical partnership Ike and Tina broke up in 1976, and divorced in 1978. She then went through a quieter spell in chart terms, but stormed back in the Eighties with three fabulous albums: Private Dancer (1984), Break Every Rule (1986) and Foreign Affair (1989). For my tribute I’m going to be playing you some of my favourite tracks from those albums, in no particular chronological order. As if to prove that point, this is from the second of those, Break Every Rule:

That is actually the only one from that album that I’ll be playing, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t like it – just that I had more favourites on the other two! I love the song and her performance in that – she just oozes sex appeal, apparently without even trying.

This next one is from Private Dancer, and again it is superb. One of her more reflective songs:

What’s Love Got To Do With It won her three Grammy Awards, and made #1 in the US and several other countries, and #3 in the UK. I wasn’t buying singles any more by then, but had the album anyway.

While we’re with Private Dancer, how about its title track:

You may not be aware of this, but the song was written by Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits. It is intriguing to me that he didn’t play on Tina’s record, through three of the other band members played on a couple of tracks as well as this one. It was originally intended for Dire Straits’ Love Over Gold album, but Mark didn’t think it worked well with a male vocal. He was right, and Tina got lucky!

My next choice is also a cover version, of a song I expect you’ll know well. This track wasn’t included on the US release of the Private Dancer album, but was on the international version, which of course is the one we got in the UK. Her soulful vocal really does improve a great song:

Absolutely beautiful. I’ve always loved this version, much though I like the original, with which I grew up.

This next one is another slower, soulful one, which was on the Foreign Affair album. There doesn’t seem to be an official video for the recorded version, but this live one is spectacularly good:

I know I’m flitting around a little, but I’m trying to sequence these in order to build to a suitably rousing finale. For my penultimate song, I’m going back to Private Dancer:

Better Be Good To Me is still one of my favourites of hers, on that or any other album, and again I just love the video. You may have noticed that these solo tracks have all been official videos – the reason for that is simple: most of them were released as singles. This was one of seven taken as singles from the ten tracks of the international version of the album, all of which made the charts in either the US or the UK, or both.

As I sit here typing this and playing this wonderful music I almost forget why I’m doing it. It is a sad day, but we have so much to enjoy from what Tina has given us over sixty years, and I want to celebrate her life and her music as a mark of respect. I could have included so many other songs in this piece, not just her own but some great collaborations, but it might take too long! Apologies if I have left out one of your favourites: but that just goes to show how much she gave us to enjoy. I’m closing with what is probably the most obvious choice I could make. This was a song originally written and performed by Bonnie Tyler, who reached #95 in the UK with her version, though she did get to #10 in Norway with it. In Tina’s hands it took on a whole new life of its own when she recorded it for the Foreign Affair album, and it is the most fitting way I can think of to close this tribute. Tina was, after all, simply The Best:

R.I.P. Tina. Thank you for the music.