Tina Turner Archives - chimesfreedom

Tina Turner The Best

Tina Turner was born as Anna Mae Bullock in in Haywood County, Tennessee on November 26, 1939. She has had an incredible music career, including her work with Ike Turner and Phil Spector in the 1960s as well as her great solo work in the 1980s, including the album Private Dancer (1984).

1980s Music

In 1989, Turner released the album Foreign Affair, which did not do as well as Private Dancer, which had hits like “What’s Love Got to Do With It?” But Foreign Affair was a solid album and did include a song that became one of her signature hits, “The Best.” That song was written by Mike Chapman and Holly Knight and had previously been recorded by Bonnie Tyler.

Turner also did some great duets beyond her work with Ike, including a hit recording of “It’s Only Love” with Bryan Adams. Below she performs “Tonight” with David Bowie in 1985. The song was written by Bowie and Iggy Pop. This live version appeared on the live album Tina Live in Europe (1988).

On the Big Screen

Turner also appeared on the big screen, such as acting in the 1985 movie Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. She also appeared as the Acid Queen in The Who’s Tommy (1975).

In addition to acting on the big screen, she has been portrayed in a movie. Her abusive relationship with Ike Turner was portrayed in What’s Love Got to Do with It in 1993.

Retirement

Turner followed those movies with some more music releases and performances. But she announced her semi-retirement in 2000 and formally retired from the stage in 2009.

Today, Turner lives in Switzerland with her husband, and she became a Swiss citizen in 2013. Unfortunately, we do not get to hear from her much nowadays. She of course deserves her privacy and happiness after the life she gave to us through her music.

But she did return to the stage in 2015 around her birthday to perform “The Best,” and she showed us that at 76 years of age she still was the best.

Absence as Solo Artist from Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

There is one thing that Turner deserves from us. While she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as the duo of Ike and Tina Turner, she has not yet been inducted as an individual artist, even though she has been eligible since 1998. She more than deserves it based on the quality of her solo work (not even addressing the way women have been treated in rock). So, hopefully the Hall will correct the injustice while she can still attend the induction. UPDATE: In 2021, Turner was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a solo artist.

And that brings me to my favorite Turner solo track, “Better Be Good To Me,” which is from Private Dancer and one of the best songs of the 1980s.

What is your favorite Tina Turner song? Leave your two cents in the comments.

American Idol & the Curse of “River Deep, Mountain High”

Lou Reed Inducting Dion Into Rock Hall

John Prine New Single: “Summer’s End”

Little Eva: Loco-Motion & More

New Track from Darlene Love: “Forbidden Nights”

Darlene Love’s Final Letterman Performance of “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)”

(Some related Chimesfreedom posts.)

Last week’s American Idol shocked viewers when Pia Toscano went home in ninth place. There are various theories about why the audience did not vote for the excellent singer, who reportedly will come out okay with a new record contract anyway. Perhaps voters felt confident that Toscano would advance and so did not vote for her. Some have argued that this season’s judges — without Simon Cowell — are praising everyone to the same degree, so the judges do not help viewers distinguish the wheat from the chaff. There is another possibility: Maybe Toscano lost because of her divisive song, “River Deep, Mountain High.”

“River Deep, Mountain High,” originally by Ike and Tina Turner with a Phil Spector production, is both loved and hated. Some see it as one of Phil Spector’s last great songs, while others see it as overblown crap. Rolling Stone magazine recently listed it as number 33 on the “500 Greatest Songs of All-Time,” as ranked by people in the music industry and updated last year. But in The Heart of Rock & Soul (1989), critic Dave Marsh did not even list the song among the top 1001 singles every made. He explained that the song is not on his list “because it sounds to me like a muddle, an album’s worth of sounds jammed onto one side of a 45, with a little girl lyric that completely contradicts Tina Turner’s true persona as the Queen of R&B Sleaze.” (p. 545.)

When “River Deep, Mountain High” was released in 1966, critics gave it mixed reviews. The song went to number 5 in the U.K., but on the other side of the pond, it flopped and only went to number 88 in the United States. As one critic later reasoned, “The general consensus in America was that the record was too black for white radio stations to play, and too white for the black stations to play.”

Even the recording of the song was divisive. Tina Turner noted that working on the song was like “carving furniture.” One of the songwriters threw the finished acetate across the room in disgust. In her autobiography, singer Darlene Love described the sessions as “a miserable experience,” adding that only Phil Spector was happy with the results. The now-incarcerated Phil Spector later explained that “River Deep, Mountain High” “was like my farewell. I was just saying goodbye, and just wanted to go crazy, you know, for a few minutes—four minutes on wax, that’s all it was. I loved it, and enjoyed making it, but I didn’t think there was anything for the public.” After the disappointing public reaction to the song, Spector went into early retirement and into his decline with personal demons.

So maybe when Pia Toscano sang the song on American Idol, the haunted song was too much for the public. Or maybe some viewers did not like her singing a song unfortunately associated with men like Phil Spector and Ike Turner. I do not know if the song choice had anything to do with the American Idol elimination. I just know I am in the camp that loves the music. Every time I hear it, it gets stronger in every way.

Bonus “River Deep, Mountain High” Versions: Although Ike Turner is listed with his wife on the original recording, Darlene Love later recounted that he had nothing to do with the sessions for the song. Tina Turner later recorded another version of “River Deep, Mountain High.” In addition to the American Idol Pia Toscano version, there is a recent Glee television show version. Both do a good job, and it is great to see the song still appearing in mainstream performances, but neither rivals the original Tina Turner version. As far as I can tell, the song only appeared on American Idol once before. Amanda Avila sang it when she was in the top 16 during Season 4 (2005). The judges did not love her performance. And, like Pia Toscano, she was eliminated after her performance of the cursed song.

[May 2012 Update: During the 2012 season, Hollie Cavanaugh sang “River Deep, Mountain High” when she was among the five finalists. Perhaps she broke the curse, as Skylar Laine, not Hollie, was sent home after that show. Hollie was in next-to-last place.]

What do you think of “River Deep, Mountain High”? Was Pia Toscano’s elimination the most surprising ever on American Idol? Leave a comment.

Tina Turner: Simply the Best