Rock legend Tina Turner dies at 83

He died Wednesday at his home in Kusnacht, Switzerland, near Zurich, the New York Times reported, citing his publicist Bernard Doherty.

Known for her hyper-energetic dance moves—she reportedly taught Mick Jagger how to move on stage—as well as her powerful and sultry vocals, Turner initially collaborated with her husband in the 1960s. Attained fame singing rhythm and blues as part of the duo, Ike. After a divorce and fallow period, he revived his career in the mid-1980s as a solo artist, selling out massive stadiums.

Turner won her first Grammy in 1971 for Proud Mary. Another tune from the era, What’s Love Got to Do With It?, served as the title of a 1993 biopic starring Angela Bassett as Turner.

The singer ventured into films, most notably as Aunt Entity in the 1985 action film Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome. She was the subject of a 2019 Broadway musical and a 2021 HBO documentary, both called Tina.

Despite all her success and a long love affair with German music executive Erwin Bach, Turner took a serious view of her travels when asked about it in the documentary.

“It was not a good life,” Turner said, revealing that she suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of beatings during her first marriage. “The good didn’t balance out the bad. I’ve had an outrageous life, there’s no other way to tell the story.”

She and Ike were inducted into the Rock Music Hall of Fame as a duo in 1991, largely based on their enduring songs Proud Mary and River Deep, Mountain High. He was reunited three decades later, this time for his solo career, which began in the mid-1980s.

As a middle-aged singer, she struggled as a solo act following her 1978 divorce from Ike. Duets with artists such as Rod Stewart followed a cabaret act in Las Vegas.

It was not until 1984 that he released his first solo album, Private Dancer. The recording, which included several hit singles, sold over 20 million copies and won several Grammy Awards, including Record of the Year and What’s Love Got to Do With It? Best Female Vocal Performance, which became her signature song.

Turner received the Kennedy Center Honor in 2005 and gave her final performance in 2009. After that, she lived a quiet life in Switzerland with Bach, whom she married in 2013 after a long romantic relationship.

Turner was born Anna Mae Bullock on November 26, 1939, in Nutbush, Tennessee, the town made famous in her song, Nutbush City Limits. His parents, Floyd and Zelma Bullock, were sharecroppers. Her father abandoned the family, and Turner was briefly raised by her grandparents.

“She didn’t want me,” Turner said of her mother.

Nonetheless, she was reunited with her mother in St. Louis, where she attended high school and performed in R&B nightclubs as a teenager.

In one of them, she ended up singing for Ike Turner, who at that time was the leader of a group called the Kings of Rhythm. She liked what she heard, realized it was the key to commercial success, and in 1960 she recorded A Fool in Love. After it begins, he marries her and urges her to change her maiden name to Tina. As the Ike and Tina Turner Revue, the duo became popular at the R&B venues.

Turner had two biological sons. The first was Raymond Craig Hill, whose father was Raymond Hill, saxophonist of the Kings of Rhythm. Ike adopts him and changes his last name to Turner. She had a second son, Ronald, with Ike and later adopted her two children, Ike Jr. and Michael, from a previous relationship.

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Updated: May 25, 2023, 12:53 AM IST