American singer Tina Turner has died at the age of 83, according to Sky News. She was called the queen of rock and roll, and the artist’s career lasted more than 60 years, containing dozens of hits, millions of albums sold and one of the most famous comebacks in the history of popular music.
The singer died after a long illness
Turner died at her home in Küsnacht in Switzerland, whose citizenship the artist received in 2013. According to representatives of the singer, her death was preceded by a long illness. In the last years of her life, Turner had many health problems: in 2016 she was diagnosed with bowel cancer, and in 2017 she underwent a kidney transplant. She spoke about other serious illnesses in the book My Love Story, published in 2018: according to Turner, back in 2013 she suffered a stroke, after which she had to learn to walk again, and because of cancer, she seriously thought about voluntary care. from life.
Tina and Ike Turner, 1964
Photo: GAB Archive / Redferns / Getty Images
Tina Turner became famous by working with her future husband Ike Turner
As her relatives stated in the announcement of the singer’s death, “the world has lost a music legend and a role model.” Anna Mae Bullock (real name of the artist) was born in Tennessee in 1939 and then in her memoirs she told how, as a child, she and her family often picked cotton in the local fields.
As she recalled Turner, she wasn’t wanted and her parents didn’t love her
She lived most of her childhood with her grandmother, and only after her death did she reunite with her mother, who had moved to St. Louis by that time. Anna May Bullock began singing in Tennessee in the school choir. Already in St. Louis, the 16-year-old girl convinced the musician Ike Turner to take her as a vocalist in his band Kings of Rhythm. According to Turner, whose ensemble had previously dispensed with female vocals, he refused Bullock’s offers to listen to her for a long time, but during a break in one of the Kings of Rhythm performances, she took the microphone from the drummer and sang You Know I Love You B.B. King. Impressed by her voice, Ike Turner took the girl to the group, began dating her and not only gave her the pseudonym Tina Turner, but also immediately patented it so that if she left the band, the name could be transferred to another singer. Tina Turner Ike and Tina Turner’s first recording, A Fool in Love, was released in 1960 and hit the top 30 in the US charts. Over the next five years, the pair released some fairly successful RnB singles and toured extensively with Kings of Rhythm. After appearing in the concert film The Big TNT Show, Tina Turner became famous throughout the country, and in 1967 she became the first woman and the first black artist to appear on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine. The artist’s final fame was her participation in the American tour of The Rolling Stones in 1969, and in the early 1970s she released several hits: Proud Mary, I Want to Take You Higher, Nutbush City Limits, Sexy Ida. However, success was accompanied by constant violence from Ike Turner.
Tina Turner in 1984
Photo: Aaron Rapoport / Corbis / Getty Images
Turner’s comeback in the 1980s is considered one of the legendary in the history of music
In the mid-1970s, cocaine addiction and marriage problems with Turner, who not only often beat Tina, but was unfaithful to her, forced the singer to leave her husband. She launched a solo career but ran into heavy debt due to the canceled tour of her duet with Ike – and was forced to earn money by appearing on TV shows as well as gigs in Las Vegas. In the early 1980s, Turner was considered a nostalgic artist, and her image as a rock diva from the previous decade looked dated. However, in 1984, with the release of Private Dancer and the smash hit What’s Love Got to Do with It, she managed to return to the top of the charts with a new image of a pop icon.
In the second half of the 1980s, Turner became one of the biggest pop stars in the world
Her autobiography, I, Tina, was a bestseller, the first to tell about the abuse experienced by Ike Turner and overcoming drug addiction. Turner got a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and each of her next albums sold tens of millions of copies.
Tina Turner in 1990
Photo: Rob Verhorst / Redferns / Getty Images
Turner’s stadium tours in the 1980s and 1990s attracted millions of viewers. The actress also played in several Hollywood films: “Tommy”, “Mad Max 3” and “The Last Action Hero”. albums and twice entered the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: with Ike Turner and as a solo artist Her life formed the basis of the film “What Love Can Do” with Angela Bassett as Turner herself. Subsequently, the plot of the film and Turner’s songs formed the basis of the musical of the same name, which is still successfully running on Broadway.