Music Flashback: Tina Turner

Tina Turner is an American Singer, Songwriter, Dancer, and Actress.

She was born Anna Mae Bullock in 1939 in Nutbush, Tn.

In a music career that first started in 1958, she has gone on to become one the best-selling female artists in Music History.

In 1958, at the age of 18, she started doing backing vocals for the group “Ike Turner and the Kings of Rhythm Band“.

By 1960, she was singing lead vocals for the group. Ike Turner changed her name to Tina Turner and changed the name of the band to “The Ike and Tina Turner Revue“.

The couple married in Mexico in 1962, though Turner insists they were actually married starting in 1958 when she joined his band.

Ike and Tina Turner were responsible for such hits as “A Fool in Love”, “It’s Gonna Work out fine”, “I Idolize You”, “River Deep, Mountain High”, “Nutbush City Limits”, and the classic song that has long been Tina Turner’s signature hit, “Proud Mary“.

“Proud Mary” Peaked at #4 on the Billboard Top-40 Charts in 1971 and led to a Grammy Award for Best R&B Vocal Performance.

With the decline in popularity of Ike and Tina Turner as a Duo, Tina Turner released her first Solo Album in 1974.

After decades of physical and emotional abuse, she left Ike Turner in 1976. They divorced in 1978.

Though she continued to release new solo material, and frequently toured the Globe performing, she could not find any musical success on the charts until the 1984 release of her classic Album “Private Dancer“.

Already in her mid 40′s at that point, the success of Private Dancer would launch Tina Turner to immense heights as one of the World’s most popular female artists.

Her Solo hits have included:

Let’s Stay Together
What’s Love Got To Do With It?
Private Dancer
Better be Good To Me
Show Some Respect
I Can’t Stand the Rain
We Don’t Need Another Hero
One of the Living
Typical Male
Two People
What You Get is What You See
The Best
Steamy Windows
I Don’t Wanna Fight
GoldenEye

Her top single has been “What’s Love Got to do with It?” which reached #1 on the Billboard Charts in 1984.

With as successful as she has been here in the US, she has been an even bigger hit overseas. To date, she has placed 29 singles on the British Top-40 Charts since her solo career took off in the early 1980′s.

Tina Turner has released 9 Studio albums and 3 Live Albums in the course of her solo career.

She has won 8 Grammy Awards in her career.

She was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991.

She has a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

As an Actress, she co-starred in the 1985 Mel Gibson film “Mad Max beyond Thunderdome“, and her other film credits include “Last Action Hero”, and “Tommy”.

She has sold more Concert Tickets than any other Female Performer in Music History.

Her life story was featured in the 1993 film “What’s Love Got to do with It?”. She was portrayed in the film by Actress Angela Bassett. The singing vocals were all Tina Turner’s.

She moved to Europe in the mid 1980′s and now divides her time between homes in England, Switzerland, and France. She has been in a relationship with German Record Executive Erwin Bach since 1985.