Rock music legend Tina Turner died today after a long illness at her home in Küsnacht near Zurich, Switzerland. She was 83. “With her, the world loses a music legend and a role model,” her spokesperson, Bernard Doherty, said.
She sold over 100 million records worldwide. She received 12 Grammy Awards. “In the context of today’s show business, Tina Turner must be the most sensational professional onstage,” Ralph J. Gleason wrote in a review of a Rolling Stones concert in Oakland in November 1969.
“She comes on like a hurricane. She dances and twists and shakes and sings and the impact is instant and total.”
“I’d be writing songs with Little Richard in mind, but I didn’t have no Little Richard to sing them, so Tina was my Little Richard,” Ike Turner wrote in “Takin’ Back My Name: The Confessions of Ike Turner” (1999), “Listen closely to Tina and who do you hear?
“Little Richard singing in the female voice.”
Turner began her career with Ike Turner’s Kings of Rhythm in 1957. Under the name Little Ann, she appeared on her first record, “Boxtop”, in 1958.
In 1960, she debuted as Tina Turner with the hit duet single “A Fool in Love”. The duo Ike & Tina Turner became “one of the most formidable live acts in history”.
They released hits such as “It’s Gonna Work Out Fine”, “River Deep – Mountain High”, “Proud Mary”, and “Nutbush City Limits” before disbanding in 1976.
Her 1984 multi-platinum album Private Dancer contained the hit song “What’s Love Got to Do with It”, which won the Grammy Award for Record of the Year and became her first and only number one song on the Billboard Hot 100.
At age 44, she was the oldest female solo artist to top the Hot 100.
Her chart success continued with “Better Be Good to Me”, “Private Dancer”, “We Don’t Need Another Hero (Thunderdome)”, “Typical Male”, “The Best”, “I Don’t Wanna Fight”, and “GoldenEye.”
During her Break Every Rule World Tour in 1988, she set a then-Guinness World Record for the largest paying audience (180,000) for a solo performer.[8]
Turner also acted in the films Tommy (1975), Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985), and Last Action Hero (1993).
In 1993, What’s Love Got to Do with It, a biographical film adapted from her autobiography I, Tina: My Life Story, was released.
🚨 BREAKING: Singer Tina Turner has died at the age of 83 after a long illness in her home in Küsnacht near Zurich, Switzerland, her spokesman has saidhttps://t.co/iBjGZgOV1h pic.twitter.com/f5gqwk4uTR
— The Telegraph (@Telegraph) May 24, 2023
12 Grammys
3 Grammy Hall of Fame awards
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award
The first Black artist and the first female to be on the cover of Rolling Stone
In the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Twice.
And had her biggest hit when she was in her 40s
Tina Turner has died aged 83. pic.twitter.com/zP2CJVmFil— Eric Alper 🎧 (@ThatEricAlper) May 24, 2023
Tina Turner, the raspy-voiced fireball who overcame domestic abuse and industry ambivalence to emerge as one of rock and soul’s brassiest, most rousing and most inspirational performers, has died. She was 83. https://t.co/pL2JRPfYlV
— Rolling Stone (@RollingStone) May 24, 2023
