A WHOLE LOTTA TINA TURNER

November 26, 1939 - May 24, 2023

The death of any figure I first encountered in my childhood, immediately recreates watching our first color tv, eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and wearing PJs before bed time. Tina Turner is absolutely one of those figures. I’m not sure if it was the Ed Sullivan Show, the Midnight Special or some random variety show, but Tina, the malevolent mastermind Ike Turner and the gyrating, titilating Ikettes still fill my mind with soul, wonder and awe. I’m pretty sure they were performing “Proud Mary” that inflamed me with its slow, sultry opening and world shattering second half. I met some strong willed, rough voiced sistas growing up, but no one in my world sounded or moved quite like Tina. Trained in the shake shacks or rowdy clubs of the Midwest and South, and chitlin’ circuit theaters like the Apollo, playing three and four shows a day before demanding audiences, she never cheated the ticket buyers and was a fiery female counterpoint to James Brown, Otis Redding and her other male peers. Both those men, by the way, started their careers as Little Richard acolytes. Well for over five decades, Tina was the true inheritor of rock & roll’s first quasar. Even when rock & roll became rock, and was white washed by radio and record labels and ignored by the black music business, her voice connected the dots between the black church, rowdy road houses and stadiums. Whether it was with Ike, the manic production of Phil Spector, covering Al Green, the Who and Led Zeppelin, or singing ‘80s synth based anthems, Tina’s voice was a time capsule that connected the gut bucket past of Nutbush, Tennesse with ‘80s MTV and massive Euopean tours. There’s no better way I can think of to honor her than to listen to how she conquered everything she sang.