Tina Turner is passed away yesterday, in her home 83.
It was about this time forty years ago that radio programmers were asking “Tina who?“
I mean, she popped on on “oldies” radio.
She had some staples there, in fact:
But Turner was…
…well, in her forties. No woman in the Billboard Chart era had ever had a #1 hit at anywhere near her age.
And so everyone – me included – was kind of gobsmacked when perhaps the greatest comeback in the history of popular music happened about this time forty years ago; 43 year old Tina Turner climbed back from R&B obscurity to the top of the charts – the oldest woman to ever top the Billboard charts at the time, with a series of songs from “Private Dancer”, an album cut with a who’s who of the best sidemen in the business:
The story of the intervening years was a catalog of horrors…
…literally the stuff of movies. If you’re not aware of the, uh, turbulence in Turner’s life from 1960 to 1976…
…the movie is one of the better music biopics ever.
Anyway – I loved a lot of things about Tina Turner – but perhaps most of all, the fact that Turner danced with the one that brung her, as it were – she never forgot the sheer power of a hot, fast, sweaty rave-up.
Rest in peace, Tina Turner.
A life of resilience, determination, and of course immense talent. I remember reading a quote By Mick Jagger who said that standing next to Tina Turner on stage was ‘the hottest place in the universe’. Still makes me smile.
I saw Tina perform at Target Center in 2000, when she was 60. She put an incredible show of singing and dancing. Blew me away. Only comparable performance by an elder rock star was Rod Stewart at the X last year.