Tina Turner: Legendary rock’n’roll singer dies aged 83

Tina Turner who initially found fame in a turbulent musical partnership, became one of the biggest acts in the world as a solo artist and one of the defining pop icons of the 1980s.

Tina Turner, the pioneering rock’n’roll star who became a pop behemoth in the 1980s, has died aged 83 after a long illness.

Turner passed away following a long illness, her representatives announced on Wednesday, May 24th. “There will be a private funeral ceremony attended by close friends and family,” the statement added. “Please respect the privacy of her family at this difficult time.”

Early Life and Education of Turner

Anna Mae Bullock, who later became known as Turner, was born on the 26th of November, 1939 in Brownsville, Tennessee. She experienced a difficult childhood and adolescence during the Second World War, as she had a troubled relationship with her parents and lived mostly with her grandparents. Tina Turner showed signs of being a spirited and athletic young woman, participating in the choir of her local church, as well as the cheerleading team and girls’ basketball team at her high school. She completed her education in 1958 and pursued a career as a nurse’s aide.

Turner’s Later Work and Legacy in Music

In the mid-1950s, Turner and her sister frequented jazz clubs in the vicinity of St. Louis, where they occasionally witnessed Ike Turner performing with his bands the Kings of Rhythm. One night in 1957, during a break in a Kings of Rhythm show, she seized a microphone and sang B.B. King’s blues ballad “You Know I Love You.” She immediately became a regular performer.

After label president Juggy Murray convinced Ike to make Tina the “star of the show,” he bestowed her with the name Tina Turner, creating her stage persona around comic book heroines like Sheena, Queen of the Jungle. Tina Turner’s first release under her stage name was Ike and Tina Turner’s 1960 song “A Fool In Love,” which reached No. 2 on the Hot R&B Sides chart and No. 27 on the Billboard Hot 100.

In the following decade, Ike and Tina Turner released a number of successful singles, attracting the admiration of legends such as David Bowie, Janis Joplin, James Brown, and Elvis Presley. They supported The Rolling Stones on their 1969 US tour, and appeared on TV shows such as The Ed Sullivan Show. In the late ’60s, they incorporated more rock songs into their repertoire, including renditions of Beatles hits such as “Come Together” and “Get Back.” In 1971, Ike and Tina Turner achieved their biggest hit with their version of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Proud Mary.”

Ike’s heavy cocaine use began putting a strain on his relationship with Tina. They had married in 1963, and Tina later revealed that their relationship was much more tumultuous than it seemed. She said Ike was abusive throughout their marriage, leading to her 1968 suicide attempt. In 1976, Tina abruptly left Ike, and their divorce was finalized two years later.

Tina Turner’s Diverse and Experimental Style

Tina Turner reintroduced herself with a sexier image in 1977, and started to headline cabaret shows at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. She launched her first solo tour around this time, boosting her career from a nostalgia act to an artist who defined a generation.

On September 1st, 1984, Turner achieved her first and only No. 1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100, “What’s Love Got to Do with It,” which later earned her the Grammy Award for Record of the Year. Her tenth and final studio album was 1999’s Twenty Four Seven.

Turner amassed numerous accolades: She won a total of 12 Grammys, including a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. She received the Kennedy Center Honors and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and was twice inducted into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame. Outside of music, she played The Acid Queen in The Who’s Tommy, Aunt Entity in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (for which she won the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actress in a Motion Picture), and The Mayor in The Last Action Hero. Turner published a total of four memoirs and appeared in a number of documentaries, including 2021’s Tina.

Turner raised a total of four sons: Two biological, and two adopted from Ike. After 27 years of dating, she married German music executive Erwin Bach in 2013.

>>> Don’t miss out on the latest music news and trends. Follow Honateez today and stay in the loop!