I know it's over three months since Tina Turner passed away*1 at the age of 83, but with the recent passings of some other legendary icons recently, I've decided it's time to share my own experiences and pay tribute to these celebrities who have made an indelible impact in my life.
*1 May 24, 2023 to be precise.
Though I became a huge fan of her when she released her career-making album Private Dancer, back in 1984, I've actually have first encountered her when during one afternoon when I was a child of seven or eight, I watched a TV special by Ann-Margret and there was this skit featuring Ann in a sedate garden in Victorian-style garb and I saw this exotic looking lady that Ann was chit-chatting with in the same garb. They were conversing like refined ladies about what a lovely life it would be sitting sedately like that, but then if they would like doing this forever like this, they both chortled, "NO!" and it then segued to Ann and Tina in denim singing a medley of rock songs. The only tune I was vaguely familiar with at the time in this medley was last song, "Proud Mary", but since then I learned the other songs were "Nutbush City Limits" and their cover of the Rolling Stones' "Honky Tonk Women".
When I was 14 years old, my parents noticed that I've been losing more hair on my head than is normal, and I've become very self-conscious about it and it made me obsessed looking at people with thick hair. So when I saw the video to the eventual No. 1 hit "What's Love Got to Do with It?", the first thing that was etched on my mind was Tina's gravity-defying hair. I had only a vague concept that she's only wearing a wig, but still, I was obsessed with that towering hairdo she sported. Needless to say, I saved my allowance to purchase a cassette of her album Private Dancer, and I never regretted it as it turned out to be a great collection of songs that I resonated with, especially in my teenage / high school social angst at that time. Though two of the tracks were released as singles earlier throughout Europe, the story I heard that she only had two weeks to gather the material and record her album is actually an incredible feat, as most artists wouldn't be able to handle that kind of pressure these days, and that the songs that were gathered willy-nilly were of such high quality and formed such a cohesive whole is mind-blowing.
Like most pop/rock stars, Pepsi recruited Tina to do commercials, and in one of them, she dueted with a bunch of rising pop singers worldwide. Our country was one of the five selected to have a custom commercial, so it was with great pride when we learned she sang a duet with our very own Gino Padilla. I was oblivious of which other artists she also had this kind of set up, but now it can be known that they included Thailand's Pu Anchalee Jongkadeekij (the only female in this lineup), Puerto Rico's Wilkins, Brazil's Evandro Mesquita, and Mexico's Emmanuel. I checked out all except for Wilkins' performance, and I maintain Gino delivered the best amongst this group--though some might think I'm biased because he's from my country and he sang in English while the others sang in their native languages (which I think affected their onstage chemistry).
Though it has been mentioned how Tina was a domestic abuse survivor and that was the reason she divorced Ike, the details of what she endured was laid out in detail in her autobiography I, Tina, co-written with MTV News anchor Kurt Loder. One unforgettable passage for me was when Tina learned she was given her stage name for their first record "A Fool in Love" her initial reaction was "I thought I'm being called 'Ockateena' or something." Also, I learned that her penchant for wigs came from an accident at the beauty salon when she had her hair bleached and it ended falling into clumps, forcing her to get a wig for the Ike & Tina Revue's next performance; she observed how the wigs moved and loved it so she stuck through them ever since. It was also mentioned throughout the book that if Ike hadn't crossed the line to have sex with her (a tool he often used to control the women in his circle), they would've remained friends and she stood by him because she was aware how he was screwed over by the record business (especially since he's actually a legendary rock and roll pioneer with his record "Rocket 88" which was credited to another artist, Jackie Brenston) and she generally wanted him to succeed. In the book she mentioned she saw a psychic who told her that Ike was reincarnated from a king who may have built an empire but also became arrogant and abused his power that he ended up destroying his own empire, and indeed that was paralleled in this lifetime..
Tina's career continued to flourish as she released her follow-up albums Break Every Rule (1986) and Foreign Affair (1989). When I bought the former, I was so enthusiastic about the album and wanted to love it passionately like I did Private Dancer. but as time wore on, even if there are tracks that I do still love, it will always pale in comparison to her big breakthrough album. And I was less enthusiastic about Foreign Affair save for the singles, "The Best" and "Steamy Windows" as I found the rest of the album mid at best. Still, she has a big fanbase especially in Europe that adored her to no end and they still sold like gangbusters in those territories. I was already in college around the time these records were released, and I was browsing in my college library and read these 1960s / 1970s encyclopedias on rock stars, and when they discussed Ike and Tina Turner, even then they mentioned that they might be adequately successful in America but overseas like Europe, they were superstars, and I noticed the same could be said about Tina's fortunes from this moment on.
Though I've noticed how Tina scaled down the hair volume since Foreign Affair, I was surprised by the new look she sported for her greatest hits album, Simply the Best--though it's still full and thick at the top, she reduced her hair to neck-length. I was first taken aback by the look, but I got accustomed to it and liked it, too. It's a look she kept until the late-2000s, when she opted for a slightly longer length (shoulder length) since then. This collection not only featured her hits from her previous three albums (plus some new tracks, of course), she also featured her 1966 classic "River Deep, Mountain High" and a 1990s house version of her 1973 hit "Nutbush City Limits". This was the first time I got a fuller glimpse of her earlier work with Ike Turner. I enjoyed this collection, though it's shocking it didn't make the Top 100 in the US Billboard 200 albums chart, though it's a huge seller elsewhere.
Tina's story of course was worthy of being turned into a film, and indeed in 1993, her autobiography was adapted into the film What's Love Got to Do with It? starring Laurence Fishburne and Angela Bassett as Ike and Tina respectively. I've read rave reviews about their performances*2 in my favorite entertainment magazines like Entertainment Weekly, People, and Rolling Stone, so I kept my eyes peeled at our local newspapers to check when the film would be released in these shores, and once I learned of the release date, I made sure I made a beeline to a movie theater on the first day it was released. I watched in the early evening after work, and I was shocked by the low turnout of people watching the film. I was shocked a couple of days later the film was yanked from cinemas because it was such a flop in our shores. I guess I have to hand that to my country's then-racist bias against films starring predominantly black actors for that lousy box office. Still I had no regret watching it and I loved the film to bits, even if I don't intend to watch it again as I don't want to repeat-watch any film featuring traumatic experiences such as domestic abuse. The film also gave me an understanding on a possible motive why Ike was such an abusive husband--based on Laurence Fishburne's take on the role, Ike was resentful that most of the attention was focused towards the star he created (Tina) that he couldn't seem to reap the rewards of his creations the way he had intended. To highlight this movie, I'll feature the film clip to the track "Shake a Tail Feather".*3
*2 Eventually, Angela Bassett and Laurence Fishburne were nominated for Oscars for their roles in the film.
*2 Originally recorded by the Five Du-Tones in 1963 and made it only as far as No. 51 on the Billboard Hot 100, its highest charting version was by James and Bobby Purify in 1966, but most people remember the song these days thanks to Ray Charles' version as performed in the 1980 film The Blues Brothers. Interestingly, there is no surviving footage of Ike & Tina performing this song live on any program--their version only exists as a 1968 album track recording.
At least the soundtrack album, featuring Tina re-recording many of her old Ike and Tina hits, was a success. Even if I know they are not the original versions, I enjoyed listening to these re-recordings--in fact, this was the first time I finally got to listen to "Proud Mary" in full instead of just recalling a few snippets; I never realized that their version started out slow before going to the iconic and epic raveup that I recalled in my childhood. It dawned on me these days that this soundtrack album seems to actually form a precursor to Taylor Swift's recent move to re-record her Big Machine albums and release them to the public, as I think these days streaming platforms and radio stations would prioritize the Tina re-recordings over the originals. But unlike Taylor's relatively petty reason to siphon off attention and streaming revenue from the new owner of Big Machine, Scooter Braun, Tina's re-recordings seem to act as a way to exorcise the demon that her ex-husband was to her and a cathartic way for her to reclaim her legacy and take full ownership of her contributions to those old hits.
In 1995, Tina capped another feather in her cap as she was given the honor to sing the theme song of the James Bond film Goldeneye, Pierce Brosnan's opening salvo under that mantle. The title song was written by U2's Bono and The Edge, and Tina channeled classic Bond chanteuse Shirley Bassey with state-of-the-art modern touches. It's strange that this song only bubbled under the Billboard Hot 100 but again is a smash hit elsewhere as now Americans do recall and love this song, yet it flopped when it was released there in those days.
She followed up the Bond theme with the release of her next album, Wildest Dreams. I've noticed a contrasting approach on how her album was promoted in Europe and then in the US. In Europe, her post-"Goldeneye" single was "Whatever You Want", a modern electro-pop number which I liked immensely. Meanwhile in the US, her launching single was a cover of John Waite's 1984 smash hit, "Missing You". Though Tina sounded great technically, it seems Tina chose not to employ the irony that is at the very core in John Waite's original, and for me that made this cover a bit of a misfire. But what I remembered most about this stage in Tina's career was the promotion provided by the Oprah Winfrey Show to her tour related to this album--Oprah basically paid tribute to various everyday women who endured obstacles and overcame them and Oprah rewarded them with very generous gifts like paying off one's debts, amongst many things.
I heard a lot about Star Wars and remembered glimpses of both the original (now titled Episode 4: A New Hope) and The Empire Strikes Back in my childhood and never saw Return of the Jedi. But when George Lucas decided to re-release "special editions" of his films in 1997, I decided to check all those films out and I finally understood what the fuss was all about and became a Star Wars fan. But what I noticed most when I watched Return of the Jedi was this sequence held in Jabba the Hutt's palace, as there was a rock band performing, and the alien lead singer was doing a shimmy and has these long legs, and the first thing that came to my mind was "Oh, my, they paid an homage to Tina!" I recalled watching a music video anthology show back in the 1980s and they featured this Star Wars track called "Lapti Nek" which was featured in that movie, and I was wondering where that song was. I learned much later that they replaced that song with this new one (called "Jedi Rocks") to better showcase the alien band members (and yes, the Tina Turner-inspired frontwoman) as originally we only would see crude closeups as they were muppets in the original version (George obviously loved CGI and used it to tweak his movies after their initial releases--he did a retweak of these films again after the prequel trilogy as in the ending, he replaced the original actor playing Darth Vader, Sebastian Shaw, with the prequel's Hayden Christensen).
Tina released a final studio album, Twenty Four Seven, in 1999 and again embarked on a tour to promote that album. The rest of the 2000s was basically Tina collecting laurels and plaudits for all the hard work she did, such as the Kennedy Center Honors in 2005, which famously featured Beyonce covering "Proud Mary". Three years later, at the Grammys, Tina gave a special performance of the same song, but this time with Beyonce joining in with her. It's interesting to note that less than 24 hours after that Grammys performance, Tina was in Moscow, Russia performing a gig sponsored by Russian oil giant Gazprom.
Needless to say, after that Gazprom gig she embarked on her final tour, dubbed Tina!: The 50th Anniversary tour, which was finally her last hurrah before fully retiring from performing. She was promoting it by appearing alongside Cher,her frequent collaborator and good friend over several years. Her final concert was at Sheffield, England on May 5, 2009.
Though generally things quieted down with Tina for most part, there were some milestones that generated news. For starters in 2013, Tina obtained Swiss citizenship, which meant renouncing her US citizenship. She did hint even back at I, Tina that she never felt at home in her country of birth unlike in Europe, so changing her citizenship was a logical step. Then, Tina decided to make it official by marrying her longtime boyfriend Erwin Bach, whom she was in a relationship for 28 years prior to her marriage. I love the Oprah TV special that covered this auspicious occasion.
Five years later, in 2018, Tina released another autobiography, My Love Story. I haven't read the book yet, but I learned from news reports that the key takeaways from the book was that Tina suffered a stroke soon after her wedding, and a few years later got intestinal cancer and her kidneys ceased functioning. She almost opted for assisted suicide (legal in Switzerland), but her husband offered his kidney and she accepted a transplant. It was a surprising turn of events, but I understand Tina has been advancing in years and these were almost inevitable.
There was more developments the following year as Tina and Erwin oversaw the production of Tina: The Tina Turner Musical, first debuting in London's West End starring Adrienne Warren and moving on to Broadway featuring the same leading lady. Tina addressed the audience on opening night on Broadway with the message that the musical of her life was like "poison turning into medicine." I wish I can have that perspective with the crises I have experienced in life.
In a final grace note, HBO released a documentary entitled, of course, Tina. Just as I thought everything has already been said, there was more to discover about this legend. First, we got a glimpse of how Tina looked without a wig (in photos taken in early 1970s). Then, the fact that even if Tina intended her first autobiography to be a way to shut the journalists up from asking questions about her ex-husband, it turned out to have the opposite effect as they continued to ask questions along those lines incessantly, and that it took a toll on her as she was continuously traumatized by the thought of those horrible experiences when that subject came up, even if her life was now far removed from that. Then, we hear tape-recorded material where Tina agonized about looking for someone to love and value her--this was part of the material that formed her I, Tina autobiography and it was done prior to the time she met Erwin. Though I did sense this was Tina finally saying farewell as she quietly retired, little did I know how soon it would be before she finally moved on from this realm. Still, as far as farewells go, this was a fitting document that I highly recommend people watch.
COMING UP: FAVORITE PERFORMANCES AND SONGS.
