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Long Live The Queen

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[This post is by Rosalind and seemed enough of a different nature from mine that it deserved its own space. So here we go]

The summer before my senior year at UC Santa Cruz I got a job at the local record store where one day a 12” EP arrived – Tina Turner’s cover of Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together”. My female co-worker and I wore that single out, and counted down the months to the release of Tina’s new album, “Private Dancer”.

Tina Turner at this point in her career was considered more an Oldies act, playing clubs, her hit songs in the past. That EP single re-awakened the world – and the music industry – to her talents, and led to a record deal that produced “Private Dancer”. This record and its multiple hit singles stormed up the charts and Tina took home Best Female Rock Vocal Performance, Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, Song of the Year and Record of the Year at the next year’s Grammy Awards.
Comeback is too small a word to describe what happened next. Tina vaulted into arenas then stadiums touring the world for years to come. She claimed that center stage spot and held it in her spike heels and sequins and oh those powerful legs. When the time came for her to step offstage, she returned to her home in Switzerland and her peaceful life with her beloved husband.

Her previous chapter in life has been covered in depth ad nauseam. She bore with resigned disappointment that the press would forever put that past into the first questions, the first paragraphs when she had goddamned earned that solo spotlight.

And in that light you will shine, forever.

Rest in Peace, Queen.

RIP Riverboat Queen

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As you may have heard, Tina Turner has passed at the age of 83. It is pretty hard to describe how incredible, and important, she was over so many decades. When I was a kid, I knew of the Ike and Tina Turner Revue. Later just Tina.

One thing was consistent: Tina Turner blew the lid off of any joint she played. I saw her twice and that is exactly what she did. Won’t say that about too many acts, but it is easy as to Tina.

Wiki indicates:

“In the 1980s, Turner launched “one of the greatest comebacks in music history”. 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. Aged 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.”

Eh, not sure that was so much a “comeback” as proof she was fine without the abusive Ike. She was the first black artist and first woman to be on the cover of Rolling Stone. That says something important.

And she almost never stopped from there. Until now, and that sucks.

Tina Turner was a force to be reckoned with. She demanded that attention, and rightfully got it.

There are two videos attached, one early Tina, and one much later. The force that she was is truly visible in both.

Marcy asked our intrepid Roving Reporter Rosalind to write something, and I very much hope she does. I will incorporate into this post the second it appears.