This week’s Artist Spotlight is on Tina Turner!!!!!

She was requested by a lady at my job, who has been enjoying my excursions into the history of R&B. It wasn’t a hard choice….I think all of you were shaking a tailfeather with Angela Bassett! Tina is also very special to me because she was living proof that you could leave an abusive relationship and still prosper. She did and I did too! Join me in celebrating a strong Black woman!!!!!!!

Enjoy the following playlist, the downloads are available underneath the playlist.

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Biography after the jump!

Turner was born Anna Mae Bullock in Nutbush, Tennessee on November 26, 1939 to Zelma Currie, a factory worker, and Floyd Richard Bullock, a Baptist deacon, farm overseer and factory worker. Tina is of Cherokee and Navajo descent making her one of many people of Native American and African American descent in which people over look her heritage. Turner and her elder sister, Alline Bullock, were abandoned by their father and temporarily by their mother. They moved from Nutbush, Tennessee to St. Louis to reunite with their mother in 1956. In St. Louis, Little Anna met Ike Turner, a noted pioneer of rock and roll, and later asked him if she could sing for him. Ike was initially skeptical, but after much persistence on Anna’s part, Ike Turner eventually decided to let her perform for him.
Bullock first started working with Ike Turner in 1958. She began as an occasional vocalist in his show at the age of 18, but within a couple of years, not only did she have a new name – Ike named her Tina after Sheena: Queen of the Jungle, but was also the spotlight of a popular soul revue led by Ike Turner and his Kings of Rhythm.
In 1960, when a singer scheduled to record the song, “A Fool In Love”, didn’t appear, Bullock stepped in and recorded the vocals instead. “A Fool In Love” was a huge R&B hit reaching #2 crossing over to the top 30 of the US pop chart. After this, Ike changed Bullock’s name to Tina Turner and his band’s to the Ike and Tina Turner Revue. In 1962, the two married in Mexico.
Throughout the 1960s and into the 1970s, Ike & Tina rose to superstardom. As times and musical styles changed, Tina developed a unique stage persona as a singer-dancer-performer which thrilled audiences of the group’s live concerts. Tina and the Revue’s backup singers, The Ikettes, wove intricate and electrifying dance routines into their performances and influenced many other artists including Mick Jagger (for whose 1966 UK tour they opened).
Ike and Tina Turner recorded a string of hits in the 1960s, including “A Fool In Love,” “It’s Gonna Work Out Fine,” “I Idolize You,” and the groundbreaking “River Deep, Mountain High” with producer Phil Spector in his Wall of sound style. By the end of the decade, Tina had discovered rock and roll and the duo began including their interpretations of classics such as “Come Together”, “Honky Tonk Woman,” and “I Want to Take You Higher” in their act. In fact, their high-energy cover version of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s 1968 “Proud Mary” remains Tina’s signature hit and one of her longest enduring standards. “Proud Mary” was the duo’s greatest commercial success peaking at number four in March 1971. The single also won a Grammy for “Best R&B Vocal Performance By A Duo or Group.”
While many of its original recordings failed to chart, the Ike and Tina Turner Revue was lauded by The Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Sly Stone, Janis Joplin, Cher, James Brown, Ray Charles, Elton John and Elvis Presley. A one-night gig at a small, predominantly-black supper club in the South could be followed in the same week by a show at a major venue in Las Vegas or a national TV appearance. Ike acted as the group’s manager and musical director, calling all the shots and ruling the act – and Tina – with an iron fist. While a fine musician and an early rock and roll influence, Ike’s control of the Revue’s management, recording contracts and performances eventually led to their decline as his drug abuse worsened. This controlling (and often violent) atmosphere caused the musicians and backup singers to come and go frequently, and Tina later reported being isolated and physically abused by Ike on a regular basis for most of their marriage.
Turner raised four sons — Ike Jr. and Michael (from her former husband Ike’s previous relationship), Craig (born 1960, from her earlier relationship with Raymond Hill, a saxophone player in Ike’s band) and Ronald (son of Ike and Tina; born 1961).
By the mid-1970s, Turner’s personal life and marriage began to deteriorate. Ike’s drug use led to increasingly erratic and physically abusive behavior. Their act was losing speed largely due to Ike’s refusal to accept outside management of their recording or touring as well as the cost of maintaining a rather voracious alleged cocaine habit. Touring dates began to decline and record sales were down, their last major hit being “Nutbush City Limits”, a song penned by Tina about her home town, which reached US #22 and UK #4 in 1973.
Having opened his own recording studio – Bolic Sound – following the lucrative success of Proud Mary, Ike produced Tina’s first solo album, Tina Turns the Country On! in 1974. It failed to make an impact on the charts, as did the follow-up, Acid Queen (1975), released to tie in with Tina’s critically acclaimed big-screen debut in the role of the same name in The Who’s rock opera, Tommy.
After a final vicious beating before an appearance in Dallas over the Fourth of July weekend in 1976, Tina abruptly left Ike fleeing with nothing more than thirty-six cents and a gas-station credit card. She spent the next few months hiding from Ike, staying with various friends and relying on food stamps to exist.
Tina credits her newfound Buddhist faith with giving her the courage to eventually strike out on her own. By walking out on Ike in the middle of a tour, she learned she was legally responsible to tour promoters for the cancelled tour. Needing to earn a living, Tina decided to strike out on her own as a solo performer pulling a lounge act together and supplementing her income with TV appearances on shows like The Hollywood Squares, Donny and Marie, The Sonny & Cher Show and The Brady Bunch Hour.
Tina’s divorce was finalized in 1978 after 16 years of marriage, later accusing Ike of years of severe spousal abuse and rampant drug addiction in her autobiography I, Tina which was later made into the film What’s Love Got to Do with It?. To put the marriage (and Ike) behind her, Tina walked away with no money or property, retaining only the use of the stage name Ike had given her, and assuming responsibility for the huge debts incurred by the cancelled tour, as well as a significant IRS lien.
Turner ended the decade by releasing her first album since her separation from Ike. Rough (1978) was a departure from the R&B sound of the Revue, and featured strong readings of rock songs, demonstrating the direction in which she wished her musical career to progress. The record did not sell well, and 1979′s Love Explosion – an attempt to attract the disco market – was similarly overlooked, leaving Tina wondering if she would ever shake off the bad reputation with which her association with Ike Turner had left her.
Turner began touring extensively around the world but her career stalled until teaming up in 1982 with B.E.F. (British Electric Foundation) for a remake of the Temptations’ Ball of Confusion. The producers were so impressed by the recording, they persuaded Tina to record a cover of Al Green’s Let’s Stay Together.
While she was largely considered to be unmarketable by the American recording industry, her popularity as a top stage act never faded in Europe and other parts of the world. Capitol signed her to a limited deal with their UK label. She divided her time between appearing at small venues in the US in order to keep herself in the public eye but continued to sell out major venues in Europe and other parts of the world despite her problems in the United States.
When Tina Turner’s version of “Let’s Stay Together” was released in the United Kingdom, it became a huge hit that peaked at number six and marked a major turning point in Turner’s solo career. Capitol released the record in the US where it made the Top 20. It was a major success on the R&B charts reaching number four and also reached number one on the Billboard Dance/Club Play Charts. Given this turn of events, Capitol Records was quickly forced to review their previous assessment of Turner’s chart ability and put forth the resources to let her record an album.
In the spring of 1984, Turner released her fifth solo album, Private Dancer. The album was a huge success and established Turner as a credible solo artist. Private Dancer charted a total of five top forty singles and three singles reached the top ten in the states. After the success of “Let’s Stay Together”, Capitol issued the number-one hit ” What’s Love Got to Do With It”, which helped Turner win Record Of The Year, Song of the Year (won by the songwriters Graham Lyle and Terry Britten) and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance at the 1985 Grammy Awards. The third single, “Better Be Good To Me” reached number five on the charts and won the 1985 Best Female Rock Vocal Performance Grammy. Originally, Tina hated the song “What’s Love Got To Do With It” because she felt it was too “Pop” and not “rough” enough. She thought that “Better Be Good to Me” should be the second single from the album but Capitol convinced her otherwise and Tina grew fond of What Love Got To Do With It after it inched up the American charts. The album’s title track, written by Mark Knopfler, peaked at number seven pop in early 1985. The Private Dancer album additionally received a Grammy nomination for Album of the Year. The fifth single, “Show Some Respect” entered the top forty and stayed there for a respectable three weeks. Private Dancer peaked at number three on the US album sales chart and sold consistently throughout the year. It also remained at number-one for five weeks on the US R&B album sales chart. Private Dancer remains one of the best-selling albums of all time. Worldwide the album has been estimated having sold up to ten to eleven million copies, but also some sources estimating it sold over 20 million copies, thus making Private Dancer Turner’s most successful solo album.
In 1985, Turner released a duet with Bryan Adams entitled “It’s Only Love” which was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Rock Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group. Turner also contributed her voice to the best-selling charity song “We Are the World”, along with various famous musicians, including Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Diana Ross and Dionne Warwick. In July of that same year, Turner famously duetted with Mick Jagger of The Rolling Stones in a performance of “State of Shock” and “It’s Only Rock ‘N Roll” at the Live Aid benefit concert at JFK Stadium. The same year Turner won four Grammy Awards — Best Female Rock Vocal Performance in “Better Be Good to Me”, and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance and Record of the Year (shared with Terry Britten) in “What’s Love Got to Do with It.”
Turner appeared as the character, “Aunty Entity” in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome with Mel Gibson and scored additional hits from the movie’s soundtrack: “We Don’t Need Another Hero,” and “One of the Living”.[24] “We Don’t Need Another Hero” (which earned a Grammy nomination for Best Pop Vocal performance, Female) was a huge success on the radio charts, peaking at number two in the US and hitting number one across Europe. The song remains one of Turner’s most popular and powerful songs. “One of the Living”, the second single from Thunderdome, peaked at number fifteen on Billboard’s Hot 100, was also quite popular, later winning Turner a Grammy Award for Best Rock Vocal Performance.
Tina’s popularity throughout Europe had never faded during the tough times. She moved there permanently in 1986 to share a home with Erwin Bach, a German-born EMI record company executive 16 years her junior. In addition to a lakeshore home on the Goldküste (literally, “the Gold Coast”), the most exclusive district of Zurich, Switzerland, Turner has an estate in France at Villefranche-sur-Mer, a small town about four miles (six kilometers) east of the city of Nice. Her home there sits atop Mont Vinaigrier, overlooking the Mediterranean Sea.
In 1986, Tina Turner released her sixth solo studio album, Break Every Rule. The album was another big-seller, and the accompanying world tour was a record-breaking success in tickets sales. It spawned a number of hit singles including “Typical Male”, which peaked on the Billboard Hot 100 at number two and went number-one on the United World Chart. “Typical Male” received a nomination for the Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Performance. Break Every Rule garnered Turner her third consecutive Female Rock Vocal Performance Grammy for the Bryan Adams-penned “Back Where You Started.”
Tina entered the Guinness Book of World Records during her Break Every Rule tour when she performed in front of the largest paying audience ever to see a single performer. The audience was made up of over 184,000 fans at the Maracanã Stadium, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The concert, sponsored by Pepsi, was broadcast live to a worldwide audience.
In 1988, Turner released Tina Live In Europe which brought her a fourth and final Female Rock Vocal Performance Grammy Award. She shares the title for most, and most consecutive, Female Rock Vocal Grammy Awards with Pat Benatar.
In 1989, Tina Turner released her last album of the 1980s, Foreign Affair. This album sold over 6 million copies worldwide. The album received a Grammy nomination for Best Female Rock Vocal performance at 1989 Annual Grammy Awards. The following year, Steamy Windows, received a Grammy nomination for Best Female Rock Vocal performance. It spawned a variety of different hit singles with the most enduring being the hit “The Best” (often referred to as “Simply the Best”), originally a song on a Bonnie Tyler album. The song peaked at number 15 on the U.S. Hot 100, and peaked at number five in the United Kingdom. Also, “I Don’t Wanna Lose You,” peaked at #8 on the UK Charts. The album package was also nominated for a Grammy for Best Packaging Design, but lost to David Bowie.
Tina began the decade with her record-breaking Foreign Affair European Tour, which ran throughout the spring and summer of 1990. Also in that year, she contributed a song – Break Through The Barrier – to the soundtrack of the Tom Cruise film, Days of Thunder, and recorded a version of It Takes Two with Rod Stewart for use in a high-profile Pepsi advertising campaign, this song was a big success in Europe, reaching Top 5 in the UK and other countries.
During the early 1990s, “The Best” became the theme song of three athletes: the legendary boxer Chris Eubank, the Brazilian Formula One racer Ayrton Senna (Tina even called him onstage during an Australian concert in 1993, a few months before his death), and retired tennis legend Martina Navratilova. A version of the song featuring Jimmy Barnes was also used to promote Australia’s professional rugby league football competition. This advertising campaign brought a great deal of interest to the game and reached its height when Turner performed the song at the 1993 New South Wales Rugby League premiership’s Grand Final. A rugby league version of the song’s video clip was also released at around the same time and remained in the top ten videos in Australia for a long time. The song was also used very successfully in advertisements for HBO, previewing shows and movies, unofficially becoming HBO’s second theme, for years.
In 1991, Tina released her first greatest hits compilation, Simply the Best, which contained three new tracks. The compilation album went platinum in the U.S. In 1993, Tina received a Grammy nomination for Best Rock Vocal performance, Female, for her cover of Elton John’s “The Bitch is Back” from the Two Rooms tribute CD. She also had a cameo in the Arnold Schwarzenegger film, The Last Action Hero.
This was also the year that her 1986 autobiography I, Tina (an international best-seller) was made into a motion picture entitled What’s Love Got to Do with It?. Angela Bassett won the role of Tina Turner in the movie (Whitney Houston had declined due to imminent maternity; Halle Berry had also auditioned for the role) and was nominated for an Academy Award for her performance. Laurence Fishburne played Ike and also received an Academy Award nomination for his portrayal.
Turner returned to the Top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100 with the film’s theme song, “I Don’t Wanna Fight” (which earned a Grammy nomination for Best Pop Vocal performance, Female) and embarked on a tour of North America and Australasia. Tina, What’s Love Live! was broadcast by FOX in the United States at the conclusion of her tour.
In 1995, Turner recorded the title theme of the James Bond movie GoldenEye, penned by Bono and The Edge of U2. Shortly thereafter, Turner released her eighth original studio album, entitled Wildest Dreams. In the same year she embarked in her record breaking Wildest Dreams World Tour becoming one of the most extensive tours ever by a single performer grossing over $100 million in Europe alone. The video, “Tina Turner Live in Amsterdam,” was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Video, Long Form. After the tour ended in 1997, she teamed up with Italian singer Eros Ramazzotti to record “Cose Della Vita/Can’t Stop Thinking Of You”, which was a hit in some parts of Europe. In 1999, Tina recorded the theme song for “The Lion King II: Simba’s Pride” called “He Lives In You”. She also performed on VH1 Divas Live ’99 in April 1999, alongside artists such as Cher, Whitney Houston, Elton John and Mary J. Blige.
Turner’s ninth studio album, Twenty Four Seven, was released in November 1999 in usic1999]]. It produced several hits including “Whatever You Need” and “When the Heartache Is Over” which was a UK Top 10 hit and peaked at #3 on the US Dance/Club Play Charts. It was not as successful as Tina’s past albums, but was still a success. It sold one million copies in the US, becoming platinum. Following the release of her album, Tina officially announced that she would embark on her last major arena and stadium promotional tour. Ending on a high note, her Twenty Four Seven World Tour grossed over $80 million in the US alone (23 international sold out stadium shows were not taken into consideration—with mid-range ticket prices) during the summer becoming the 5th biggest concert tour ever in the U.S. earning her the title of top-grossing tour in the year 2000.
Turner retired from major tours after her most recent in 2000. However, she continues to make public appearances and collaborations. In 2001, Tennessee State Highway 19 between Brownsville and Nutbush was named “Tina Turner Highway”. In 2003, she teamed up with Phil Collins to record the song “Great Spirits” for the Disney film Brother Bear.
In 2004, Turner released her latest greatest hits compilation album, All the Best. The album is both her highest debut on the Billboard 200 and her highest-charting album ever in the U.S. (Private Dancer peaked at #3). The album included a new single, “Open Arms”; the song failed to crack the Billboard Hot 100 in the US but reached the UK Top 25.
In early 2005, Tina gave several live television performances in the US and Europe, and appeared at a private charity ball in St. Petersburg, Russia in November. Tina was also honoured as one of Oprah Winfrey’s 25 legends – African-American women who broke barriers through their work.
At the end of the year, Tina was recognised by the Kennedy Center Honors at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC and was elected to join an elite group of entertainers including contemporaries Aretha Franklin, Quincy Jones, Ray Charles, Little Richard, and Chuck Berry. Several artists paid tribute to Tina that night including Oprah Winfrey, Melissa Etheridge, Queen Latifah, Beyoncé Knowles, and the Reverend Al Green. Oprah stated, “We don’t need another hero. We need more heroines like you, Tina. You make me proud to spell my name w-o-m-a-n,” and “Tina Turner didn’t just survive, she triumphed.”
In early 2006, the All the Invisible Children soundtrack was released. Turner sang “Teach Me Again” with Elisa which charted at #1 in Italy. In April, the NRL (National Rugby League), one of the most popular sporting competitions in Australia and New Zealand, announced that Tina would return as the face and spokesperson of the rugby league in 2008 due to the overwhelming popularity of Tina’s previous campaign.
In October 2006, in an interview with Billboard Magazine, Guy Chambers, Robbie Williams’ former producer, revealed that his next project is Tina Turner’s comeback album. At the premiere of the new Bond film Casino Royale in Zurich November 16, 2006, Tina confirmed that she has recorded several new tracks for the album. This will be her first full recording of new material in 8 years. In May of 2007, Tina returned to the stage to headline a benefit concert for the Cauldwell Children’s Charity at London’s Natural History Museum. This was her first full show in seven years.
Jazz pianist Herbie Hancock released an album, paying tribute to his longtime associate and friend, singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell, entitled River: The Joni Letters on September 25, 2007. Tina contributed her vocals to a version of “Edith and The Kingpin”. On October 16th, 2007, guitar legend Santana released an album entitled Ultimate Santana, which features Tina singing “The Game Of Love” a song she recorded in 2002 but was previously unreleased.
On December 12, 2007, her former husband Ike Turner died. Turner issued the following brief statement through a spokesperson: “Tina is aware that Ike passed away earlier today. She has not had any contact with him in 35 years. No further comment will be made.”