Simply the best – Kommersant

Legendary American singer Tina Turner died this night in Switzerland at the age of 84.

Tina Turner was the first black blues and rock superstar. However, before receiving the title of “Queen of Rock and Roll” from journalists, she had to go a long and difficult way.

Her name was Anna May Bullock and she was born in 1939 in Brownsville, Tennessee. Its roots are the very salt of black America. Grandfather and grandmother served in the Baptist church, so she acquired her early musical skills in the church choir. At the same time, physical labor in her life was also in abundance, she even had to comb cotton, which was fully consistent with the traditional image of a bluesman. But not the blues woman.

At the age of 16, Anna May Bullock moved to her mother in St. Louis. By this time, her parents had long since separated and lived separately from their children. After Anna’s grandmother died, her mother had to take responsibility for her daughters. However, Anna was already much more interested in nightclubs than at home. In one of them, she met musician Ike Turner, the leader of the Kings Of Rhythm band. At the age of 18, she was already the leading and central vocalist of his show, and five years later, since 1962, she was his wife.

In the first 20 years of her career, Tina Turner was completely dependent on her husband – physically, financially and creatively. Ike Turner was a monster. He beat her with shoe strings and clothes hangers, and then raped her in the bedroom, which she has since had nightmares about. Turner’s madness was largely based on unsatisfied vanity. Ike Turner was the author of the song “Rocket 88”, which is considered one of the first written in the rock and roll genre. Ike Turner was not included among the “fathers of rock and roll” for a purely formal reason: on the cover of the single was the name of his band’s saxophonist Jackie Branston, who recorded the vocals.

Resentment ate Turner from the inside for years. And then it suddenly became clear that the young wife drew all the attention of the audience to herself. It is believed that the girls from The Ikettes, the vocal section of Ike Turner’s backing staff, created the canons of the stage show of that time, and even Mick Jagger himself “copied” a lot of his stage style from them. Turner insisted that “Ike and Tina Turner” be on all records and posters. He did not consider it necessary to warn Anna May about the name change – he simply put it before the fact. Ike Turner was so cruel and unpredictable that once the singer even tried to commit suicide by drinking a horse dose of Valium. When she ran away from Turner, the only thing she took with her was the name “Tina”.

During their collaboration, the most incredible rhythm and blues and rock and roll hits of the decade were born. And best of all, Tina and Ike managed to recycle hits from leading rock bands – The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and Creedence Clearwater Revival. Then, in the 1960s, they began to receive their first Grammy nominations. The first triumph was in 1972 when Ike and Tina finally won an award for their version of the Creedence Clearwater Revival song “Proud Mary”. And the last joint hit of Ike and Tina was the song “Nutbush City Limits”, which then became one of her calling cards and was reworked and remixed many times.

Despite all his insanity, expressed in drug abuse and literally in the diagnosis of “bipolar disorder”, Ike Turner managed to launch Tina Turner’s solo career and even her film career. With his submission, she got a role in the film adaptation of The Who’s rock opera “Tommy”. After that, an album was released, named after the on-screen character of the singer – “Acid Queen”. It included, among other things, an uninhibited and inventive cover version of Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love”, which once again showed how deeply Tina Turner feels the very essence of modern music.

In the mid-1970s, Ike Turner still had big plans for the duo. However, after his next breakdown, accompanied by assault, Tina Turner simply moved out of him to a hotel across the street. It was in Dallas, she had 36 cents in her wallet and a credit card from a gas station. Ike Turner had to cancel their joint tour, and Tina Turner sent him money for a long time to pay off debts and taxes.

Two solo albums released by Tina Turner did not become a breakthrough. And yet, young producer Roger Davis believed in her when he saw her at a concert in Las Vegas. It was visible to the naked eye: she wanted to become in black music and at the same time in women’s music the same thing that Mick Jagger became in men’s and white music – stadium rock artist No. 1. Roger and Tina needed a major label deal. But few people understood what she was without Ike Turner. And then Roger Davis came up with the idea of ​​an interview with People magazine in which Tina Turner would talk about the humiliation that she endured in her marriage to Ike. Tina Turner’s career took a turn not because of a song or an album, but after an interview with a story about domestic violence.

Tina Turner’s independent career might not have worked out if she hadn’t exposed herself to People readers. Everything came together at one point: a unique voice, incredible stage talent, powerful repertoire, PR and management.

After an interview with People, Roger Davis received a call from John Carter of Capitol offering a contract. Tina Turner’s first album on Capitol was “Private Dancer” with songs by The Beatles, Al Green, Mark Knopfler, David Bowie and Chinn & Chapman. It was an instant classic, the album hit the Top 5 worldwide, and Turner cemented the success by starring in Mad Max 3.

The peak of Tina Turner’s solo career was the album “Foreign Affair” (1989), which immediately after the release topped the British chart – Tina without Ike in England was always loved more than at home. This album was legally released by the Soviet company Melodiya. Among other things, our compatriots heard the song “The Best” performed by Tina Turner, which was previously performed by Bonnie Tyler without much success. “The Best” in the version of Tina Turner is the absolute pinnacle, where the boundaries between rock and pop music, black and white, male and female are erased. Tina Turner climbed this peak at the age of 50, hand in hand with her young lover Erwin Bach.

In the 1990s, Tina Turner returned to the Old World charts with the Bond song “Golden Eye” and the Wildest Dreams album, which was worked on by Sting, Pet Shop Boys, U2, Trevor Horn and even Antonio Banderas. As part of the tour in support of him, she also visited Russia. It was a work polished to a shine – and the last to which the truly general public paid attention. Over time, the show industry began to burden Tina Turner. She told the story of her relationship with Ike Turner hundreds of times, including on the silver screen and in her memoirs. In the new century, she practically did not release new music, but continued to tour, setting records in ticket sales.

Ike Turner died in 2007. Tina Turner’s press office released the following statement: “Tina knows Ike passed away today. She had no contact with him for 35 years. No further comments will be made.”

In the late 2000s, Tina Turner went on a big farewell tour, and then, together with Erwin Bach, settled in Switzerland, whose citizenship she accepted in 2013. In the last 10 years, she was burdened by any contacts, except for family ones. She was diagnosed with bowel cancer, then kidney problems began, Turner thought about euthanasia, but Erwin Bach gave her his kidney. In 2018, Tina Turner went to New York for the premiere of the musical “Tina”, but in fact it was a farewell to America.

Tina Turner did not just record hits and give concerts. She realized her dream – she toured the stadiums on a par with The Rolling Stones and Michael Jackson. She was the first black woman to achieve such success, and the first woman in principle – until Madonna jumped on this step. She was equally great in rock and pop music, in vocals and stage movement, in dance music and dramatic ballads. There are few figures of such magnitude and significance left in popular culture, and soon there will be none at all.

Igor Gavrilov