'Physical strength in a woman - that’s what I am.’
Tina Turner

The death at the age of 83 of the legendary singer Tina Turner earlier this year prompted me to look back on her life and work. And so I watched ‘Tina’ the documentary (2021, directed by Daniel Lindsay and TJ Martin) and ‘Tina’ the musical (2018, directed by Phylidda Lloyd, at the Aldwych Theatre, London). Both were compelling commemorations of her luminous talent and indomitable spirit.

'My legacy is that I stayed on course… from the beginning to the end, because I believed in something inside of me.’

Turner shakes and shimmies, struts and stomps. She twists, jives and kicks her long legs to one side. She clenches her fists and claps her hands; implores us, pleads with us. She is both spiritual and sensual; tenacious and triumphant. Resplendent in red split skirts and sparkling silver mini-dresses; rejoicing in denim jumpsuits and leather leotards; glorying in knee-high boots, big belts and big hair - with a beaming smile and a full-throated roar, she celebrates what it is to be alive.

'I’m self-made. I always wanted to make myself a better person, because I was not educated. But that was my dream—to have class.’

Turner’s success was hard won. She had to prevail over poverty, racism, sexism and ageism. Above all she had to overcome a wretched, abusive relationship. She teaches us a good deal about survival and strength of character.

‘My ex-husband was a physically violent man. I went through basic torture… I was living a life of death. I didn’t exist. But I survived it. And when I walked out, I walked and I didn’t look back.’

Anna Mae Bullock was born in 1939 into a sharecropping family in rural Tennessee. As a child she started singing in the choir at her local Baptist church. She discovered she had a remarkable voice.

‘When you’re in the South there’s nothing happening except the church, the piano, the preacher.’

When she was 11 Anna Mae’s mother left without warning for St. Louis in order to escape her violent husband. Two years later he moved to Detroit with another woman. Anna Mae, feeling unloved and isolated, was cared for by her strict grandmother.

‘I didn’t think that I would actually achieve [success as a performer] because first I wasn’t pretty, and I didn’t have the clothes, and I didn’t have the means.’

At 16 Anna Mae rejoined her mother in St. Louis, where in 1956 she met Ike Turner, a talented musician whose 1951 recording ‘Rocket 88’ is considered by many to have been the first rock’n’roll song. That track was carelessly credited to Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats, and so began Ike’s lifelong sense of injustice.

'Oh, there's something on my mind.
Won't somebody please, please tell me what's wrong?
You're just a fool, you know you're in love.
You've got to face it to live in this world.
You take the good along with the bad.
Sometimes you're happy, and sometimes you're sad.
You know you love him, you can't understand.
Why he treats you like he do, when he's such a good man.’

'A Fool in Love’ (I Turner)

During the intermission in one of Ike’s concerts, Anna Mae grabbed the microphone and sang. He immediately recognised her talent and enlisted her to his band.

‘I was playing these two roles… Rings all over my fingers and bareback shoes with seams in my stockings. And then on Monday morning I was headed for school.’

Anna Mae had undoubted star quality, and Ike subsequently recast his outfit as the Ike and Tina Turner Revue – without consulting her. Perhaps this was the first indication that he had a sinister, controlling side. But she was young, in awe and in love. She accepted the name change and they got married.

‘I promised him that I wouldn’t leave him. In those days a promise was a promise.’

Before too long Tina realised she was in a toxic relationship. Ike was unfaithful, controlling, violent and abusive. He was also addicted and paranoid, and he gave her no financial independence.

And yet she couldn’t bring herself to leave him.

‘I felt obligated to stay there and I was afraid. And I stayed. This was just how it was. I felt very loyal to Ike and I didn’t want to hurt him. And sometimes after he beat me up, I ended up feeling sorry for him.’

Through the early 1960s Ike and Tina Turner had a string of R&B hits and toured extensively. Featuring Tina’s mesmerising singing, a tight band and the well-drilled, high-tempo dancing of backing vocalists the Ikettes, they presented an electrifying stage act.

In 1965 the band caught the eye of renowned music producer Phil Spector. Sidelining Ike from the recording sessions, he recorded Tina performing ‘River Deep – Mountain High’, a stunning expression of his ‘Wall of Sound’ technique.

‘That was a freedom that I didn’t have. Like a bird that gets out of a cage. I was excited about singing a different type of song. I was excited about getting out of the studio on my own. It was a freedom to do something different.’

The single was a smash overseas, but failed to make an impression on the US pop charts. The quest for mainstream success continued.

‘When I was a little girl, I had a rag doll.
It was the only doll that I've ever owned.
Now I love you just the way I loved that rag doll,
But only now my love has grown.
And it gets stronger in every way.
And it gets deeper, let me say
Then it gets higher, day by day.
And do I love you, my oh my.
River deep, mountain high.
If I ever lost you would I cry.
Oh, how I love you baby.'

'River Deep, Mountain High’ (E Greenwich / J Barry / P Spector)

At long last, in the early 1970s, after relentless touring and countless TV appearances, Ike and Tina Turner achieved crossover pop hits in the US - with 'Proud Mary'  and 'Nutbush City Limits'. But Tina was increasingly unhappy.

‘I was insanely afraid of that man.’

When she wasn’t performing she found herself confined to the family home in LA where she was raising four children. Ike became more controlling, bad tempered and violent. On one occasion Tina took a whole bottle of sleeping pills in an attempt to end it all.

‘Maybe I was brainwashed. I was afraid of him and I cared what happened to him and I knew that if I left there was no one to sing. So I was caught up in guilt and fear.’

Finally, introduced to Buddhism, she developed the mental strength to make a break.

‘Buddhism was a way out and it changed your attitude towards the situation that you’re in... So I started seeing my life. I started seeing that I had to make a change.’

Tina’s relationship with Ike had endured for 16 years. But in 1976, after the couple had a violent argument on their way to their hotel in Dallas, she fled with only 36 cents and a Mobil gas card in her pocket.

‘I walked across the freeway to the Ramada Inn. I was very proud. I mean I felt like…I felt strong.’

Tina’s short walk across that busy, dangerous freeway late at night represented a massive act of fortitude and defiance. She filed for divorce the same month and it was finalized in 1978. She was left with no money, no house, no car and no claim on royalties. She just wanted to be free. All she demanded was that she retain the Tina Turner name.

‘Actually there is something that he has that I want… That is when I realised that I could use Tina to become a business.’

Hard times followed. Tina was burdened with the bills for cancelled shows and found herself performing in Vegas and at sales conventions; in hotel ballrooms and on any TV show that would have her.

‘I was becoming stagnant. I knew that there was something else. And I realised I wasn’t going anywhere. I’d be in Las Vegas all my life.’

Tina’s luck changed in 1979 when she met Roger Davies, manager of Olivia Newton-John. He saw that, behind what had become a disco and nostalgia act, there was still a phenomenal talent. She pitched her vision for a new chapter in her career.

‘I had a dream. My dream is to be the first Black rock’n’roll singer to pack places like the Stones.’

Reasoning that the US’s schism between R’n’B and rock radio stations presented too great a barrier to realising Tina’s ambition, Davies took her to the UK. There, in two weeks, she recorded a collection of pop and rock songs with four different production teams, including Martyn Ware of Heaven 17 and Rupert Hine. Tina was at first reluctant to take on one proposed track that had previously been recorded by Bucks Fizz. Finally she relented and ‘What's Love Got to Do with It’ became the album’s standout single.

The resultant ‘Private Dancer’ album, released in 1984, was a runaway success.  Certified five times platinum in the United States, it sold 10 million copies worldwide, and the following year Tina won three Grammys.

‘I didn’t consider it a comeback album. Tina had never arrived. It was Tina’s debut for the first time. That was my first album.’

'You must understand, though the touch of your hand makes my pulse react,
That it's only the thrill of boy meeting girl, opposites attract.
It's physical.
Only logical.
You must try to ignore that it means more than that.
What's love got to do, got to do with it?
What's love, but a second-hand emotion?
What's love got to do, got to do with it?
Who needs a heart when a heart can be broken?

'What's Love Got to Do with It’ (T Britten / G Lyle)

Tina continued recording, touring and scoring hits for her adoring fan-base. In 1988 she performed in front of 180,000 in Rio de Janeiro, setting a record for the largest paying concert attendance for a solo artist. She had achieved her dream of becoming the Queen of Rock’n’Roll.

‘I will receive it when I’ve earned it.’

In the years after her divorce from Ike, Tina was constantly asked about the split. In a 1981 interview with People Magazine she reluctantly revealed the facts of the domestic abuse in order to put the whole story behind her. But the questions kept coming.

When in 1993 a movie of her life story, ‘What’s Love Got to Do With It’ (starring Angela Bassett), was released, Tina couldn’t watch it. At the Venice Film Festival she explained:

‘I’m not so thrilled about thinking about the past and how I lived my life…The story was actually written so that I would no longer have to discuss the issue. I don’t love that it’s always talked about. You see, I made a point of just putting the news out to stop the thing, so that I could go on with my life. And this constant reminder is not so good and I’m not so happy about it. So, do I want to sit with a screen and watch all the violence and brutality? No… That’s why I haven’t seen it.’

By shining a light on her experience of domestic abuse, Tina helped a vast number of women all over the world. And she illustrated the complex emotions playing out in victims and survivors. In time Tina was happily remarried and found peace.

‘At a certain stage forgiveness takes over. Forgiveness means not to hold on. You let it go.’

As Tina’s mother, with whom she had a difficult relationship, observed, she was fundamentally a courageous, independent spirit.

‘Some people [are] afraid to climb a ladder unless someone’s holding it. But she’s not. Once she’s made that first step on that ladder, she’s climbing… up, up, up.’

At the heart of Tina’s extraordinary triumphant story was huge personal resilience. We should all aspire to her strength of character.

'I didn’t have anybody really, no foundation in life, so I had to make my own way. Always, from the start. I had to go out in the world and become strong, to discover my mission in life.'

'Left a good job down in the city,
Working for the man every night and day.
And I never lost one minute of sleeping,
I was worrying about the way that things might've been.
Big wheel keep on turning,
Proud Mary keep on burning,
And we're rolling, rolling,
Rolling on the river.’

‘Proud Mary’ (J Fogerty)

No. 448