Consider This from NPR - Remembering Rock and Roll Icon Tina Turner

Episode Date: May 26, 2023

Tina Turner, one of Rock and Roll's greatest stars, died this week in her home in Switzerland at the age of 83, after a long period of illness.In a career that spanned six decades, Turner left behind an indelible legacy in music, on the stage and on screen. Host Eric Deggans looks back on her tumultuous, and triumphant, life. Also we answer whether the "Queen of Rock and Roll" was somehow still underappreciated.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

This message comes from Indiana University. Indiana University is committed to moving the world forward, working to tackle some of society's biggest challenges. Nine campuses, one purpose. Creating tomorrow, today. More at iu.edu. Here's a story for you. Tina Turner, one of America's greatest rock and roll stars, said she was even bigger in Europe than the U.S.

during the height of her superstardom. Here's the icon herself in a 1997 interview with Larry King. Basically, Europe has been very supportive of my music. More than America? Yes. Yes, hugely. Hugely more? Yes. You're a major star here. You're a superstar in America.

Not as big as Madonna. I'm as big as Madonna in Europe. I'm as big as, in some places, the Rolling Stones. Turner would find her final resting place in Europe, Switzerland, at the age of 83. And Switzerland, with its reputation for peace and neutrality, feels like a perfect fit for a woman who often had to fight against abuse and exploitation to build the peaceful life she wanted. That's a fight you can hear in her songs of love.

I think it's gonna work out fine. I feel it's gonna work out. And in songs of electrifying fervor. Turner filled four memoirs with stories of her struggle. She inspired an Oscar-nominated film and most recently was the subject of the 2021 HBO documentary simply titled Tina. Its directors Dan Lindsay and T.J. Martin spoke with NPR about doing justice to her story. I think there is just an inherent contradiction or paradox or complication that we were interested in the beginning. And it's this idea that Tina's story as a survivor can be very powerful for people,

and especially for other survivors, right? But the thing that we, I think, often fail to realize is, or maybe we assume because Tina has this seemingly strength and resilience that she herself is somehow superhuman. And I think what we wanted to try to show in the film is that she is human like everyone else. But as T.J. Martin says, what she could do with music, what she could do with that voice, made her unlike anyone else. She says herself, you know, it was a gift. She sang in choir, but she never actually had like actual vocal training.

Same thing with dance. She sang in choir, but she never actually had actual vocal training. Same thing with dance. She never had dance training. And yet here she is. She just, as she'll say, it's just once the music plays, it just, something comes natural to her. Consider this. There's never been anyone quite like Tina Turner. We look back on her tumultuous and triumphant career

and also how a performer lauded as the queen of rock and roll may still be underappreciated. From NPR, I'm Eric Deggans. It's Friday, May 26th. This message comes from WISE, the app for doing things in other currencies. Send, spend, or receive money internationally, and always

get the real-time mid-market exchange rate with no hidden fees. Download the Wise app today or visit wise.com. T's and C's apply. Support for NPR comes from NPR member stations and Eric and Wendy Schmidt through the Schmidt Family Foundation. Working together to create a just world where all people have access to renewable energy, clean air and water, and healthy food. The Schmidt Family Foundation is part of the philanthropic organizations and initiatives created and funded by Eric and Wendy Schmidt to work toward a healthy, resilient, secure world for all. On the web at theschmidt.org. It's Consider This from NPR. Tina Turner's star power was always immediate and captivating. Armed with a hard-charging stage presence, she had dance moves and choreography that inspired everyone from Mick Jagger to Beyonce. Her eye for stagecraft led to eye-popping costumes and a skin-tight backing band. And her voice, bold as a Mack truck, steeped in gospel,

R&B, and rock shadings, made formulaic pop songs sound like classics and brought added power to old favorites, like her take on Ann Peebles' I Can't Stand the Rain. Beyond her performing skills, Turner had a life story that inspired millions and made her a legend. She survived abuse from her first husband, bandleader Ike Turner, divorced him, and then built a successful solo career which dwarfed her earlier work. It was a history that spawned several best-selling books, a musical, and an Oscar-nominated film. 1993's What's Love Got to Do With It featured Angela Bassett as Turner,

including a scene where she left Ike, running battered and bruised to a hotel. I'm Tina Turner. My husband and I just had a fight. I have 36 cents and a mobile card. But if you would give me a room, I swear I will pay you back. Turner was celebrated for speaking up about abuse at a time when few people did. Still, the singer often said recounting her past abuse was traumatic. She'd hoped to end discussion when she talked about it in her 1986 memoir, I, Tina. Turner even made that point at a press conference,

as shown in this clip from the 2021 HBO documentary, Tina. I'm not so thrilled about thinking about the past. The story was actually written so that I would no longer have to discuss the issue. I don't love that it's always talked about, you see. Born Anna Mae Bullock in 1939, Turner was raised in the tiny town of Nutbush, Tennessee before moving to St. Louis.

That's where she met Ike Turner and eventually began singing with his band. Ike wrote the song A Fool in Love for a different singer, but when she sang it in 1960, it became a rare crossover hit, scoring on black-focused R&B and white-centered pop music charts. Even as their musical partnership succeeded, Ike Turner became controlling and abusive. He picked the stage name Tina Turner for the singer without her knowledge. She found out when she saw the cover of a Fool in Love single, and he remained paranoid she would leave him. She talked about those days with CBS anchor Gayle King in 2013. He was cruel because he depended on me. He didn't like that he had to depend on me. And I didn't want to start a fight

because I was always a black eye, a broken nose, a busted lip. Tina Turner divorced Ike in 1978. Playing small shows in casinos, Turner initially resisted her manager's suggestion that she record a song she hated. What's love got to do, got to do with it? What's love but a secondhand emotion? What's love... That single, released in 1984, became her first number one hit and sparked a career revival that led to Grammy Awards, massive concert tours,

and a role opposite Mel Gibson in 1985's Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, playing an iron-fisted ruler rebuilding a town after an apocalypse. All this I built. Whether it was desert or it was a town. Whether it. She was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice, in 1991 with Ike Turner and in 2021 as a solo artist. She retired from performing in 2009 and faced a series of health challenges in her later years, including a stroke, intestinal cancer, and kidney failure, treated by a kidney donated from her second husband and partner of more than 30 years, Erwin Bach. Through it all, Turner remained a symbol of talent

triumphing over adversity, becoming widely celebrated as the queen of rock and roll. But is it possible that the artist known as the queen of rock and roll was somehow still underrated? That's what the host of NPR's It's Been a Minute, Brittany Luce, put forward in a conversation with Juana Summers. Brittany, I hope you can just start, if you can, by explaining how someone that the world knows as the queen of rock and roll did not get the due that she deserved. I mean, look, this is the thing. I'm just taking a cue from Tina. Tina said famously in a late 90s interview with Mike Wallace from CBS when he asked her if she felt

like she deserved all this, all this meaning her beautiful life, full of luxury, full of beloved fans and sold out tours, she said, I think I deserve more. I deserve more. And I 100% agree. Tina Turner is an architect of rock and roll. And I'm just not sure she's seen that way. I think for many people, when they close their eyes and they think of a rock star, they picture a rock star. They picture someone like Mick Jagger. But Mick Jagger learned how to dance, learned how to perform, standing in the wings watching Tina Turner when they toured together in the 1960s. Tina Turner essentially taught Mick Jagger how to be Mick Jagger. And I just feel like, despite all of the accolades, I don't know if she really received

in her lifetime the queen of rock and roll treatment, as the moniker so goes. So I think we can all agree that there are a lot of people who did not fully appreciate Tina Turner for who she was. But you point out that there is one person who really does get it right. And that is Oprah Winfrey. I just want to listen for a second to one of the ways that she talked about Tina Turner. We are so in love with Tina. We are in love with Tina. She is our goddess of rock and roll, Tina. Not a queen, a goddess. Say more, Brittany. Oh, a goddess. Oprah's 150% right.

Oprah Winfrey is larger than life, and she has been for decades. She doesn't even need to use her last name. We all know Oprah as just a complete sentence. But the way we act when we see Oprah is the way Oprah reacts when she sees Tina Turner. And I love that. I love that somebody as accomplished and as known and as famous and as just huge as Oprah is understands the power of Tina Turner and also knew well enough to call her a goddess. There are so many beautiful moments of Oprah and Tina together on various Oprah shows and in Oprah interviews over the years. Oprah invited Tina Turner to her Legends Ball back in

2005, the incredible weekend she hosted at her home for so many black women trailblazers. And Oprah, I think, is somebody who absolutely showed Tina the utmost respect throughout her life and really not just champion her story, but champion her artistry. I think of one story in particular, I think Oprah in some ways wanted to be Tina Turner. For an episode of the Oprah Winfrey show, she got a wig, a Tina wig made so that they could kind of match. She wore it in that episode. She continued wearing it though after that in many other episodes, started wearing it on the weekend, started wearing it to bed until eventually Stedman told her, I hate to break it to you, but you're never going to be Tina Turner. To me, that sort of breathless fandom is the only way to regard the goddess of rock and roll like Tina.

Okay, so we just heard Oprah talking about Tina Turner's wildest dreams tour, but I mean, she was such a performer. I mean, this is Tina Turner on the Live Aid stage in 1985, and she was just electric. But Brittany, I understand that when you think about Tina's greatest performance, you've got a different answer. Yes, I think many people think of Tina only as a stage performer, which, I mean, obviously she was one of the best to ever do it. But she also was electrifying on film. I'm thinking of the 1975 movie based on the album The Who's Tommy, where she plays this character, the Acid Queen. The Acid Queen has this long solo in the middle of the film. I mean, Tina's changing costumes.

She's belting. She's shaking and quaking with her whole body. She's wearing these tall, I mean, maybe six, seven inch tall, like lipstick red platform heels. And she's giving it her all. I mean, this is a film, you got Roger Daltrey in every scene. You got Elton John in one of the songs, also performing in this film at one of the peaks of his fame in the mid-70s. But in a film full of rock stars, Tina, to me, stands out as the true supernova.

I mean, look, there is no question that Tina is talented and powerful and was a multi-genre force across music. But one thing I find really interesting is that I understand that you didn't know much of Tina Turner's backstory when you became a fan. When you first encountered her, you met her as this powerful and successful performer, period. You only learned of her backstory, including the years of abuse that she suffered at the hands of Ike Turner, her ex-husband, period. You only learned of her backstory, including the years of abuse that she suffered at the hands of Ike Turner, her ex-husband, later. Do you think that altered the lens through which you viewed her? I absolutely think that that shaped my understanding of her. When I first got to know Tina, I saw her as a woman who had come already on the other side. She was one of the biggest stars in the world to me.

And I think I kind of assumed that things were always that way for her. As I got older and I read her memoirs and also like many people watch the Tina documentary that came out on HBO a couple years ago, I really came to understand not just what she survived, but how she continued to advocate for herself, hold space for herself and maintain her peace. Even, you know, years after she had escaped her first marriage, you know, understanding just how common what she survived is, how common intimate partner violence and domestic abuse are. Her story has really just deepened my appreciation for her, not just as an artist, but as a woman, as a human being.

That was It's Been a Minute's Brittany Luce speaking with Juana Summers. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Eric Deggans. Support for NPR and the'm Eric Deggans. Support for NPR and the following message come from Carnegie Corporation of New York, working to reduce political polarization through philanthropic support for education, democracy, and peace. More information at carnegie.org.