Anna Mae Bullock, or as we know her, Tina Turner, was born in Tennessee in 1939. She was the youngest daughter of a family of sharecroppers. While still in high school, Bullock was already singing in nightclubs around St. Louis, where she met bandleader and producer Ike Turner, who hired her in 1956 for his Kings of Rhythm. A break came in 1960 when “A Fool in Love” was a hit, with the newly named Tina’s voice all but overwhelming the microphone.
Not long after this, in 1962, Ike and Turner were officially married. After the success of “A Fool in Love,” Ike realized Tina’s star potential and created The Ike & Tina Turner Revue, stepping back into the role of bandleader and letting Tina have most of the attention.
Another opportunity came in 1966 when producer Phil Spector signed the pair to his label and created “River Deep – Mountain High,” which was a top ten hit in the U.K.
The success of “River Deep – Mountain High” was followed by a tour of Europe with The Rolling Stones, which brought them to much broader attention, especially from white audiences. Another milestone came in 1967 when Turner was the first Black artist and the first woman to be featured on the cover of the influential Rolling Stone magazine.
More hits followed, including “Proud Mary” in 1971, which sold over one million copies and earned them their first Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance.
In 1975, Turner had another opportunity to reach a wider audience when she appeared as The Acid Queen in the film version of The Who’s rock opera, Tommy.
As it turned out, “The Acid Queen” was her last single before her split with Ike. As she has revealed in numerous interviews and three memoirs, over many years, even while their act was prospering, Ike was violently abusing her. After 16 years of marriage, she finally had enough and left him. That also meant leaving behind the successful career she had built with him over the years.
It should be noted that she had two sons of her own by the time she was 19 and had adopted two of Ike’s children. So, with a family to feed and with the assistance of her friends Mick Jagger, David Bowie and Rod Stewart, Turner began her career as a solo artist in Europe, where she was actually a bigger star than in the U.S.
After several years and limited success, in 1984 she found the right combination for her fifth solo album, Private Dancer, which boasted seven singles, including the title track, “What’s Love Got To Do With It."
Private Dancer effectively redefined and relaunched Turner’s career with multi-platinum international sales, earning her three Grammy Awards, including for Record of the Year. She was 45 years old. In the 2021 documentary Tina, she said she didn’t consider the album a comeback. In her words, “Tina had never arrived."
Another triumph came in 1985 when she starred with Mel Gibson in the major motion picture Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, and in 1993, Angela Bassett starred as Turner in the biographical film What’s Love Got To Do With It, based on her 1986 autobiography.
Her 10th and final solo album, Twenty Four Seven, came in 1999, with the hit single “When The Heartache is Over.”
Turner’s final world tour was in 2009, marking 50 years in the music business.
In her life, she received eight Grammy Awards, with 25 nominations, and three of her recordings, "River Deep – Mountain High," "Proud Mary" and “What’s Love Got To Do With It,” are in the Grammy Hall of Fame.
To her fans, Tina Turner was more than a singer, she was also a survivor of domestic abuse, and a woman who defied the ageism, racism and misogyny of the entertainment business to become one of the most successful stars of her time.
