A soul survivor with sex appeal
Thursday, December 1, 2005
By Scott Galupo
Accounts of the life of Anna Mae Bullock of Nutbush, Tenn., known to the world as Tina Turner, read like survivor stories. There was the sharecropper childhood in the segregated South and the abandonment by her parents. The turbulent marriage to a domineering alcoholic whose abuse drove her to attempt suicide. And that stint on welfare.
Tina Turner emerged from all this -- the physical and mental cruelty, the waxing and waning of fickle fame -- as a towering figure in pop music, a symbol of black female resiliency.
This weekend, Miss Turner will receive a Kennedy Center Honor. The tribute comes on top of seven Grammy awards and membership in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. (She shares the last with notorious ex-husband Ike Turner.)
Miss Turner is 66 and, like many an aging Kennedy Center honoree, past the peak of her creative powers. It's been six years since her last studio album and five since her last concert tour. A putative movie project, "The Goddess," for which Miss Turner was tapped to play a Hindu deity, was nixed after the death of director Ismail Merchant.
Yet her shadow is long. "My role model," talk-show veteran Oprah Winfrey recently cooed of Miss Turner. Indeed, it is hard to imagine the likes of Janet Jackson or Beyonce Knowles without Miss Turner's influence.
She was hardly the first woman to overtly use her sexuality as an artistic device. But she was arguably the first to do so in the rock arena. She was the frenetic, downtown alternative to Diana Ross' polished urbanity, the foremother of every pop diva who unabashedly flashes her gams.
Miss Turner bluffed her way into Ike Turner's band, the Kings of Rhythm, in a St. Louis club. They began cutting singles such as "A Fool in Love" in 1960 and married hastily in 1962 in Tijuana, Mexico. Success was modest at first. "River Deep, Mountain High," a galvanizing 1966 set produced by Phil Spector, was a disappointing seller.
Bigger hits came later, when Mr. Turner retooled the band to appeal more broadly to white audiences. In addition to the soul and funk rave-ups for which they were known, Ike and Tina covered rock songs such as the Beatles' "Come Together" and Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Proud Mary," the latter interpretation reaching the Top 5.
The red-hot images of Miss Turner captured by Albert and David Maysles in the documentary "Gimme Shelter" -- the Ike and Tina Turner Revue opened for the Stones in 1969 -- are, in retrospect, still quite provocative. As she croon-moans her way through an aching cover of Otis Redding's "I've Been Loving You Too Long," Miss Turner grips the microphone in ways that are blush-making to this day. "Her male audience sat transfixed while she crooned and panted her way to the grand finale," wrote a young and breathless Bob Geldof in a 1974 review of an Ike and Tina show for the Vancouver Sun.
In 1985, Mr. Geldof, by then the world's most famous humanitarian impresario, paired Miss Turner with an exquisitely appropriate male counterpart, Mick Jagger, for the grand finale at Live Aid. There, in the heat of a duet, Mr. Jagger snapped off Miss Turner's skirt. Unsuspecting and, at first, perhaps a touch embarrassed, Miss Turner quickly gave in to the moment; she can be seen reveling in the sexual abandon of the stunt. Credit Miss Turner, then, with the first "wardrobe malfunction" in the history of live television.
The litheness of Miss Turner's body was as vital an element of her appeal as was the expressive rasp of her voice. An indelible image on MTV in 1984 (the high point of her "Ike who?" comeback) was of a denim-clad Miss Turner, her hair a spiky, feral pile, strutting down a city street in high heels and spitting out the cautionary lyrics of "What's Love Got to Do With It," her lone No. 1 hit.
Miss Turner won four Grammy awards in 1984, including record of the year for "What's Love Got to Do With It" and best female rock performance for "Better Be Good to Me." The success of the album "Private Dancer" -- it sold 11 million copies worldwide -- was the culmination of a slow recovery that began with separation from Mr. Turner in 1975. (The couple divorced in 1978.)
Miss Turner followed "Dancer" with "Break Every Rule" in 1986. The world tour that followed proved an enormous draw, with more than 180,000 fans turning out to see her in Brazil. With one foot firmly in pop music, Miss Turner hewed close to her rocker supporters, touring with Rod Stewart and performing songs by the Beatles, David Bowie and Mark Knopfler.
She also followed up in earnest her interest in movies. Ten years after appearing briefly as the Acid Queen in a misbegotten big-screen adaptation of the Who's rock opera "Tommy," Miss Turner starred opposite Mel Gibson in "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome." (Its soundtrack yielded the hit "We Don't Need Another Hero.")
With help from rock journalist and MTV talking head Kurt Loder, Miss Turner set down an account of her life in the 1987 autobiography "I, Tina," in which the singer cited her Buddhist faith as a decisive factor in her post-Ike recovery. (The book would become the basis of the 1993 biopic "What's Love Got to Do With It," starring Angela Bassett.)
Throughout the 1990s, Miss Turner recorded sporadically; she retreated from the scene, became unadventurous. The louche "Steamy Windows" and the anthemic "The Best," both 1989 singles, were the last gasps of the rejuvenated singer.
Eventually, Miss Turner found herself literally in retreat, living permanently in Europe. (Semiretired, she shares homes with German-born record tycoon Erwin Bach in Switzerland and France.)
"Success in America -- what I find with my homeland, nothing lasts very long," Miss Turner told CBS' Mike Wallace in 2002. "Europe is different. You're right there with them until you come back."
Perhaps a celebratory weekend in the nation's capital will once again nudge Tina Turner home.
sexta-feira, 2 de abril de 2010
She's Got Legs (People's Choice Article)
She's got legs
9:21 am on May 18, 2009
Jennifer Aniston, Tina Turner, Gisele Bundchen
“She knows how to use them.” When ZZ Top sang these immortal words back in 1983, I’m thinking they had Tina Turner in mind. (Jennifer Aniston would have been a little too young then, and Gisele Bundchen would have been 3, so they weren’t really eligible at the time.) But now it’s 2009 and all three women have gams to beat the band. Our friends at Yahoo’s The Thread want to know who has the all-time best.
This could be our toughest poll yet. I mean, really, how can one possibly choose between these lovely and talented women? Tina’s been strutting her stuff on stage for decades, and her legs are still as sexy as they were on the back cover of her Private Dancer album back in the mid 80s. Jennifer has displayed her considerable charms on TV and in the movies for twenty years and gets more attractive every year. And Gisele… well, you don’t get to be an international supermodel without a great pair of legs. Hers seem to extend all the way back to her native Brazil. Who’s got the all time best? Voice your choice in today’s featured poll.
Source: People's Choice
Link: http://blog.peopleschoice.com/2009/05/18/shes-got-legs/
9:21 am on May 18, 2009
Jennifer Aniston, Tina Turner, Gisele Bundchen
“She knows how to use them.” When ZZ Top sang these immortal words back in 1983, I’m thinking they had Tina Turner in mind. (Jennifer Aniston would have been a little too young then, and Gisele Bundchen would have been 3, so they weren’t really eligible at the time.) But now it’s 2009 and all three women have gams to beat the band. Our friends at Yahoo’s The Thread want to know who has the all-time best.
This could be our toughest poll yet. I mean, really, how can one possibly choose between these lovely and talented women? Tina’s been strutting her stuff on stage for decades, and her legs are still as sexy as they were on the back cover of her Private Dancer album back in the mid 80s. Jennifer has displayed her considerable charms on TV and in the movies for twenty years and gets more attractive every year. And Gisele… well, you don’t get to be an international supermodel without a great pair of legs. Hers seem to extend all the way back to her native Brazil. Who’s got the all time best? Voice your choice in today’s featured poll.
Source: People's Choice
Link: http://blog.peopleschoice.com/2009/05/18/shes-got-legs/
quinta-feira, 1 de abril de 2010
Tina Live 2008/09 Era: O2 scores a hat-trick as world’s favourite music venue (Tina Turner: the biggest show of 2009 at the 02 Arena, UK)
O2 scores a hat-trick as world’s favourite music venue
Alistair Foster
14.01.10
The O2 has been named the world's most popular music venue for the third year running — selling 75 per cent more tickets than its nearest rival.
The Greenwich arena sold 2,349,952 tickets last year. By contrast, only two on the list of 100 venues sold more than one million.
Despite the economic downturn, the O2, which opened in the former Millennium Dome in 2007, smashed its 2008 record of 1,806,447 by more than 30 per cent.
Highlights from last year included five nights by Tina Turner, seven from Beyoncé, an eight-night residency by Britney Spears and shows by The Killers, Paul Weller, AC/DC, Bob Dylan, Kings of Leon, Cliff Richard and the Shadows, and Sir Paul McCartney.
It also featured events such as Star Wars: A Musical Journey, Ben Hur LIVE and the inaugural Barclays ATP World Tour Finals.
In second place on the venues chart, compiled by concert magazine Pollstar, was the Manchester Evening News Arena with 1,346,090 ticket sales. The Sportpaleis Antwerpen in Belgium was third with 1,090,407.
The Madison Square Garden Arena in New York was fourth with 977,868, while Wembley Arena was eighth with 611,096 sales.
David Campbell, president and chief executive of AEG Europe, owner and operator of the O2, said: “These results really are quite amazing.
I want to thank all the artists, agents, managers, promoters, the more than 2,500 people who work at the O2. and all our partners.
“Events like the ATP Tour Finals at the O2 really did put the eyes of the world on us. London deserves a world-class entertainment destination and we will keep working hard in the next decade to ensure we remain a world leader.”
The arena has set its sights just as high this year, with a line-up including the world's biggest screening of Mamma Mia! The Movie, Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, Lady Gaga, Dizzee Rascal, Lily Allen, Peter Gabriel, Whitney Houston, Black Eyed Peas, Rihanna, Michael Bublé and Rod Stewart.
It will also see the return of Julie Andrews to the London stage after 30 years, the venue's first complete opera, Carmen, and a summer residency by Bon Jovi.
It marks an extraordinary turnaround for the site after the £800 million Dome was branded a white elephant for costing taxpayers millions and failing to attract enough visitors. The Government struggled to find a use for it.
The biggest shows of 2009
Tina Turner
3, 4, 7, 8 March; 3 May
Takings: £6m
First time Turner had played the UK for nine years, all dates sold out. The Standard's John Aizlewood: “Where she aches this morning must remain between her and her doctor but I was exhausted just watching her. Glorious.”
Beyonce
25, 26 May; 8, 9 June; 14-16 November
Takings: £4.6m
Visited London seven times last year, recording her live DVD here. The Standard's David Smyth praised: “a dazzling show that featured all the best elements of arena entertainment.”
Britney Spears
3-14 June
Takings: £5.8m
Her Circus tour pitched its tent for eight nights and was noted for its spectacular visuals as well as her alleged miming. Smyth wrote: “She spun and dangled, writhed and stamped but probably didn't sing in a frantically entertaining set.”
AC/DC
14, 16 April
Takings: £2m
The mighty rockers' raucous show came complete with a train that crashed through the back of the stage. Smyth: “During the world-beating, epic solo that dominated Let There Be Rock, it was as if the guitar was playing him.”
Sir Paul McCartney
22 December
Takings: £1.35m
Macca's visit on his brief eight-date European tour
was the venue's last gig of 2009. Smyth's verdict: “McCartney offered a
curfew-busting set packed with sufficient hits to leave people punch-drunk.”
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23795070-o2-scores-a-hat-trick-as-worlds-favourite-music-venue.do
quarta-feira, 31 de março de 2010
terça-feira, 30 de março de 2010
Foreign Affair 1989/1990 Era: Interview with Tina (The Sun, July 1990) Complete Article
INTERVIEW WITH TINA
The Sun 20 July 1990
Tina Turner wows fans all over the world with her X-certificate stage show - who can believe she is 50 years old and a grandmother?
But Tina, currently on tour in the UK, is used to dishing out surprises. After an unsettled early life, she fought back to become one of pop’s biggest stars.
Her album sales have made her a multi-millionairess and after a disastrous marriage she now boasts a toyboy lover.
Q: You had a difficult childhood. What were your parents like?
A: I am part Navajo and Cherokee Indian and was born in the tiny backwoods town of Nutbush, Tennessee in 1939 where my father worked in the cotton fields. I was not close to my father, I felt he didn’t like me. I didn’t get much love or affection because my parents were always fighting.
Q: What happened after you joined?
A: I married him and we formed the Ike and Tina Turner Revue. I became known as quite a dirty girl. When I was offered a part in porn movies I confess I was tempted. But Ike wouldn’t let me. I guess I did go over the top in that revue. But I was acting under orders and those orders were to give it everything I’d got musically and sexually.
Even in later years when I’ve been working on my own I admit I’ve tried to turn on the guys, but I’m not ashamed of it.
I don’t think I would have attracted so many fans standing at the microphone like a statue.
Q: Some people say that woman choose men who are like their fathers. Is that what happened to you?
A: Ike and I were friends for years and that’s how we should have kept it. Physically Ike was nothing like my father but I guess psychologically they were similar. My father fought with my mother and Ike fought with his women.
Q: Is that why you turned down the role eventually played by Oscar-nominated Whoopi Goldberg in Steven Spielberg’s blockbuster The Color Purple?
A: Even if I had received an Oscar for it, I would not have been really excited. Every time I looked at it, it would have reminded me of a side of my life I do not care to remember.
Q: You re-launched your career as a solo singer. How did you do it?
A: I worked at changing everything I didn’t like about myself. My red hair became wilder, I apply make-up much better, I’m thinner and my body is now in much better shape than it has ever been.
It had much to do with my being a happier person.
Q: People say Mick Jagger-who you teamed up with at Live Aid in 1985-learned to dance by watching you bop on stage. How did you meet him?
A: Mick wasn’t dancing when we toured with the Stones in 1966. I didn’t know who he was. I thought he had a very strange face. It was a really white, white face with big lips. He was always standing in the wings behind the speakers looking at me. Finally I said something to Ike and he said ‘That’s Mick Jagger’. Ike brought Mick into the room backstage with the Ikettes and I started to play around.
From then on Mick would always walk into the dressing room without knocking while we were dressing, and Ike was with Keith Richards and the guitars. After that Mick started to move around on stage.
Q: In the past you have put your back out. What happens?
A: A lot of my sexy dance moves are caused by pains in my back. I cannot stand up straight and hit some of the notes I hit. A lot of my body language has to do with the song I’m singing. Better Be Good To Me and Show Some Respect can actually injure me.
The legs are moving, the heart is really pumping, the body is straining-it’s wild.
That is one of the main reasons why I am touring again. I just get a tremendous thrill out of playing in front of all those people.
Q: Your hair has always completed your look and you have worn wigs for years. Why?
A: I started wearing wigs around 1960 when Ike was in St. Louis standing trial for a bank job he’d allegedly pulled. I decided to have my hair bleached because it was back in fashion but they left the heat cap on too long and my hair fell out. So I got into wigs.
Q: You make the wigs yourself. Does it involve much work?
A: Each wig is clipped to my real hair which I wear in little braids, so it doesn’t fly off in the show. You have to treat the wig hair and prepare it first. A lot of the hair I used to get came from Japan and you can’t colour their hair. Now I order the hair from Italy and each stage wig lasts around a year.
Q: You seem to have found happiness at last with Erwin Bach, a 32-year-old German record company boss, and have bought a house in Cologne to be near to him. What’s the attraction?
A: Erwin keeps me young. But believe it or not he is much more mature than I am. Sometimes he looks at me a little strangely. I don’t always act my age.
We laugh a lot. He’s definitely what I call a real man and not intimidated by me.
Q: Are you self-conscious about the age gap between you?
A: I always try to be attractive for myself rather than for any man.
Q: You’ve hinted this recent tour for the Foreign Affair album may be your last. Will you retire?
A: Dancing is very much part of my act so I don’t plan to carry on until I’m 60 or 80. I think I know this is the last real tour. You start degenerating at 50.
But I don’t really think about my age. Happiness is far more important.
The Sun 20 July 1990
Tina Turner wows fans all over the world with her X-certificate stage show - who can believe she is 50 years old and a grandmother?
But Tina, currently on tour in the UK, is used to dishing out surprises. After an unsettled early life, she fought back to become one of pop’s biggest stars.
Her album sales have made her a multi-millionairess and after a disastrous marriage she now boasts a toyboy lover.
Q: You had a difficult childhood. What were your parents like?
A: I am part Navajo and Cherokee Indian and was born in the tiny backwoods town of Nutbush, Tennessee in 1939 where my father worked in the cotton fields. I was not close to my father, I felt he didn’t like me. I didn’t get much love or affection because my parents were always fighting.
Q: What happened after you joined?
A: I married him and we formed the Ike and Tina Turner Revue. I became known as quite a dirty girl. When I was offered a part in porn movies I confess I was tempted. But Ike wouldn’t let me. I guess I did go over the top in that revue. But I was acting under orders and those orders were to give it everything I’d got musically and sexually.
Even in later years when I’ve been working on my own I admit I’ve tried to turn on the guys, but I’m not ashamed of it.
I don’t think I would have attracted so many fans standing at the microphone like a statue.
Q: Some people say that woman choose men who are like their fathers. Is that what happened to you?
A: Ike and I were friends for years and that’s how we should have kept it. Physically Ike was nothing like my father but I guess psychologically they were similar. My father fought with my mother and Ike fought with his women.
Q: Is that why you turned down the role eventually played by Oscar-nominated Whoopi Goldberg in Steven Spielberg’s blockbuster The Color Purple?
A: Even if I had received an Oscar for it, I would not have been really excited. Every time I looked at it, it would have reminded me of a side of my life I do not care to remember.
Q: You re-launched your career as a solo singer. How did you do it?
A: I worked at changing everything I didn’t like about myself. My red hair became wilder, I apply make-up much better, I’m thinner and my body is now in much better shape than it has ever been.
It had much to do with my being a happier person.
Q: People say Mick Jagger-who you teamed up with at Live Aid in 1985-learned to dance by watching you bop on stage. How did you meet him?
A: Mick wasn’t dancing when we toured with the Stones in 1966. I didn’t know who he was. I thought he had a very strange face. It was a really white, white face with big lips. He was always standing in the wings behind the speakers looking at me. Finally I said something to Ike and he said ‘That’s Mick Jagger’. Ike brought Mick into the room backstage with the Ikettes and I started to play around.
From then on Mick would always walk into the dressing room without knocking while we were dressing, and Ike was with Keith Richards and the guitars. After that Mick started to move around on stage.
Q: In the past you have put your back out. What happens?
A: A lot of my sexy dance moves are caused by pains in my back. I cannot stand up straight and hit some of the notes I hit. A lot of my body language has to do with the song I’m singing. Better Be Good To Me and Show Some Respect can actually injure me.
The legs are moving, the heart is really pumping, the body is straining-it’s wild.
That is one of the main reasons why I am touring again. I just get a tremendous thrill out of playing in front of all those people.
Q: Your hair has always completed your look and you have worn wigs for years. Why?
A: I started wearing wigs around 1960 when Ike was in St. Louis standing trial for a bank job he’d allegedly pulled. I decided to have my hair bleached because it was back in fashion but they left the heat cap on too long and my hair fell out. So I got into wigs.
Q: You make the wigs yourself. Does it involve much work?
A: Each wig is clipped to my real hair which I wear in little braids, so it doesn’t fly off in the show. You have to treat the wig hair and prepare it first. A lot of the hair I used to get came from Japan and you can’t colour their hair. Now I order the hair from Italy and each stage wig lasts around a year.
Q: You seem to have found happiness at last with Erwin Bach, a 32-year-old German record company boss, and have bought a house in Cologne to be near to him. What’s the attraction?
A: Erwin keeps me young. But believe it or not he is much more mature than I am. Sometimes he looks at me a little strangely. I don’t always act my age.
We laugh a lot. He’s definitely what I call a real man and not intimidated by me.
Q: Are you self-conscious about the age gap between you?
A: I always try to be attractive for myself rather than for any man.
Q: You’ve hinted this recent tour for the Foreign Affair album may be your last. Will you retire?
A: Dancing is very much part of my act so I don’t plan to carry on until I’m 60 or 80. I think I know this is the last real tour. You start degenerating at 50.
But I don’t really think about my age. Happiness is far more important.
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