One of the most successful careers in music history, Tina Turner had a 50-year run. Examine her life in pictures after her passing at the age of 83.
Tina Turner was raised in poverty and was given the name Anna Mae Bullock on November 26, 1939. When Tina was 11 years old, her poor sharecropper parents divorced, leaving Tina and her sister Alline in the care of their grandmother in Nutbush, Tennessee. Shortly after, her father remarried, and her mother relocated to St. Louis after escaping the toxic marriage.
Tina also relocated to St. Louis after the passing of her grandma when she was sixteen. She became active in the music industry there, where she also met Ike Turner, the man who would become her husband.
Ike asked Tina, who was 17 at the time, to play onstage with his previous band, Kings of Rhythm, at a concert in 1965. Ike was fascinated by her natural stage presence and raspy voice and eager to nurture her blossoming potential, so he let her hang around with the band.
When the vocalist who was scheduled to record “A Fool in Love” failed to show up for the recording session, preparation met opportunity, and Tina seized the moment.
Ike felt he wanted Tina in his group when “A Fool in Love” became an immediate smash. She became the main singer for what became known as the Ike & Tina Turner Revue when he gave her the new name Tina Turner.
Although Tina said in the HBO Max documentary, Tina, that she first saw Ike as a big brother, their relationship eventually developed into romance, and they were married in 1962.
But there was no romantic love tale behind their relationship. One is that the “Proud Mary” singer learned about the wedding ceremony the same day the couple wed in Tijuana.
In an interview with Gayle King for CBS Good Morning, she said, “When Ike asked me to marry him, I knew it was for a reason.” But I knew I had to say yes or there would be a fight.
Ike was infamous for abusing his wife, and 16 years later the couple filed for divorce.
Although “Proud Mary” is inextricably linked to Tina, the song is not an original Ike and Tina composition.
The song was composed in 1967 by Creedence Clearwater Revival’s lead vocalist John Fogerty, according to Biography.com, and it quickly became popular with the audience whenever Ike and Tina Turner Revue played.
Tina requested Ike include the song on Workin’ Together since it had been so successful on tour when the couple was working on their second album. To make it the smash we know today, Ike added the renowned guitar riffs and other production components.
According to Biography.com, “Proud Mary” peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 5 on the R&B chart in 1971. The pair won the Grammy Award for outstanding R&B vocal performance by a group for the song, which has sold over a million copies.
Tina divorced Ike in 1976 when she was able to elude his hold. Despite wanting the rights to her stage name, which she was able to get, the “I Don’t Wanna Lose You” singer decided not to fight for any of the assets they had accumulated together.
Tina found herself in financial trouble after divorcing Ike. She was in charge of the four children the couple shared while the procedures dragged on, in addition to the company obligations that needed to be paid.
She went back on tour to make ends meet and started her return by singing covers.
She joined with Capitol Records in 1983, and together they put out Private Dancer. Hits from the album included the title track, “Private Dancer,” “What’s Love Got to Do With It,” and “Better Be Good to Me.”
One of the greatest comebacks in musical history, the record won three Grammy Awards.
After the successful album’s release, Tina went on tour from February through December of that same year. A staggering 182 concerts were included in the Private Dancer tour, which took place in Europe, North America, Australia, and Asia.
For her contributions to culture, Tina was among the artists to receive a Kennedy Center Honor in 2005. Other superstars including Robert Redford, Tony Bennett, Suzanne Farrell, and Julie Harris were in her class.
After 27 years together, Tina and her longtime partner, music producer Erwin Bach, were married in 2013. In Zurich, Switzerland, they spent their time peacefully together.
At the airport in Cologne-Bonn, where Bach was sent to pick up the singer, the two first saw each other in 1986. The connection happened right away.
He was sixteen years younger than I was. He had the most attractive face and was thirty years old at the time. In an HBO Max documentary on her life, Tina said, “I mean, you cannot [explain] it. “It was crazy, like. Where did he come from, I wondered. He was quite attractive. My hands were trembling, which indicates that a soul has met, and my heart was racing.
Eight years of well-earned downtime later, Tina declared during an appearance on The Oprah Show that she would be returning to the stage after a well-earned break. She was 68 years old.
A total of 84 sold-out concerts were scheduled for the 50th Anniversary Tour, which ran from October 2008 through May 2009 in both North America and Europe.
She announced her retirement once the tour was over, making this her last appearance.
When Tina: The Tina Turner Musical debuted on Broadway in 2018, the living superstar made one final entrance into the public eye. The play covered Tina’s famous life and career, much like the 1993 movie What’s Love Got to Do With It, although it concentrated more on her comeback phase and blockbuster successes.
Tina won several honors throughout the course of her five-decade career, including eight Grammys, three AMAs, seven Billboard Music Awards, and many more.
For “What’s Love Got to Do With It,” “River Deep, Mountain High,” and “Proud Mary,” she was honored with three Grammy Hall of Fame Awards.
She was twice inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: first in 1991 with Ike and once in 2021, just weeks before she turned 82.
After a protracted illness, Tina passed away at the age of 83 on May 24, 2023 at her home in Küsnacht, Switzerland, close to Zurich.
She leaves behind a “music legend and a role model,” according to a statement from her spokesman, Bernard Doherty.
