Singer Tina Turner dies in Switzerland at the age of 83

The singer Tina Turner died this Wednesday at the age of 83 near Zurich (Switzerland), her spokesperson announced in a statement.

Often called the “Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll,” Turner was one of the greatest recording artists of all time, known for hits like “What’s Love Got to Do with It” and “(Simply) The Best.”

”Tina Turner, the ‘Queen of Rock’n Roll’, died peacefully today at the age of 83 after a long illness at her home in Kusnacht, near Zurich, Switzerland.”, the statement says.

Turner began his career in the 1950s during the early “rock and roll” years and evolved into an MTV phenomenon.

In the video of his song “What’s Love Got to Do with It”which topped the charts and in which he called love a “secondhand thrill,” Turner epitomized 1980s style as he strutted the streets of New York with his hair dyed blonde and wearing a leather jacket. denim, miniskirt and stiletto heels.

With his penchant for musical experimentation and ballads, Turner blended seamlessly into an ’80s pop landscape where fans valued electronically produced sounds and scorned hippie-era idealism.

Turner won six of his eight Grammy Awards in the 1980s, a period in which he charted a dozen Top 40 songs, including “Typical Male”, “The Best”, “Private Dancer” and “Better Be Good to Me”. His 1988 show in Rio de Janeiro drew 180,000 people, one of the largest recital audiences for a single artist.

By then, Turner had already left her decade-long marriage to guitarist Ike Turner behind.

The superstar opened up about the abuse she suffered from her ex-husband during their marital and musical relationship in the 1960s and 1970s, citing bruised lips and eyes, her broken jaw and other injuries that repeatedly sent her to the living room. of emergencies.

“Tina’s story is not one of victimization but of incredible triumph,” singer Janet Jackson wrote of Turner, in a Rolling Stone issue that ranked her 63rd on a list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.

ANDn 1985, Turner put a fictional spin on his reputation as a survivor. She played the ruthless leader of a nuclear wasteland outpost, acting opposite Mel Gibson in the third installment of the Mad Max franchise, “Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome.”

Most of Turner’s hit songs were written by others, but she enlivened them with a voice that New York Times music critic Jon Pareles called “one of pop’s quirkiest instruments.”

“It’s three levels, with a low nasal register, a howling, cutting middle register, and a high register so startlingly clear it sounds like a falsetto,” Pareles wrote in a 1987 concert review.

“SMALL TOWN”

She was born Anna Mae Bullock on November 26, 1939, in the rural Tennessee community of Nutbush, which she described in her 1973 song “Nutbush City Limits” as a “quiet little old-fashioned community, a one-horse town.”

Her father worked as a farm supervisor and her mother abandoned the family when the singer was 11, according to her 2018 memoir “My Love Story.” When she was a teenager, she moved to St. Louis to join her mother.

Ike Turner, whose 1951 song “Rocket 88” has often been called the first rock and roll record, discovered it at age 17 when he picked up the microphone to sing at his club in St. Louis in 1957.

The bandleader later recorded a hit song, “A Fool In Love” with his protégé and gave her the stage name Tina Turner, before the two married in Tijuana, Mexico.

Tina used her strong voice and energetically rehearsed dance routines as the lead vocalist in an ensemble called the Ike and Tina Turner Revue. She collaborated with rock royalty, including The Who and Phil Spector, in the 1960s and ’70s, and appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone issue two in 1967.

Ike and Tina Turner went through numerous record labels, largely fueled by resounding commercial success and a relentless pace of touring. His biggest hit was a cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Proud Mary.”

Turner left her husband one night in 1976 at a tour stop in Dallas, after he hit her during a car ride and she hit him back, according to her memoirs. Their divorce was finalized in 1978.

The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inducted Ike and Tina Turner in 1991. Ike Turner died in 2007.

RENAISSANCE IN EUROPE

After leaving her husband, Turner spent years fighting to regain prominence, releasing floppy solo albums and singles and playing corporate conferences.

In 1980, she met manager Roger Davies, an Australian music executive who went on to work with the singer for three decades. This partnership led to her number 1 hit with “What’s Love Got to Do With It”. After her, in 1984, her album “Private Dancer” put her at the top of the charts.

“Private Dancer” became Turner’s best-selling album, the cornerstone of a career that saw her sell more than 200 million records in total.

In 1985 Turner met German music executive Erwin Bach who became his partner and in 1988 he moved to London, beginning a decades-long residency in Europe.

He released two studio albums in the 1990s that sold well, especially in Europe, recorded the theme song for the 1995 Bond film “GoldenEye” and went on a successful world tour in 2008 and 2009.

After that, he retired from show business. She married Bach, she renounced her US citizenship and became a Swiss citizen.

He battled a series of health problems after retiring and in 2018 faced a family tragedy when his eldest son, Craig, took his own life at age 59 in Los Angeles. Her youngest son, Ronnie, died in December 2022.

His name continues to attract audiences years after his retirement.

The musical stage show “TINA: The Tina Turner Musical”, with Adrienne Warren initially acting and singing the star’s life story, was a hit first in London’s West End in 2018, then on Broadway, and is still going strong. on billboard. And in 2021 HBO released a documentary about her life, “Tina”.

He is survived by Bach and two of Ike’s children whom the star adopted.

Prepared with information from Reuters