CMEDIA: Tina Turner, the American-born singer who electrified audiences from the 1960s and went on to release hit records across five decades, died peacefully in her Swiss home at the age of 83 after a long illness, her representative reportedly said Wednesday.
It was in the 1950s during the early years of rock and roll, that Turner began her career, which later evolved into an MTV phenomenon.
In the video for her chart-topping song What’s Love Got to Do with It, Turner called love a “second-hand emotion,” and epitomized 1980s style through New York City streets.
Tina’s taste for musical experimentation and bluntly worded ballads facilitated her to blend with an ’80s pop landscape in which music fans valued electronically produced sounds and hippie-era idealism.
Nicknamed often as the “queen of rock ‘n’ roll,” Turner garnered her six of her eight Grammy Awards in the 1980s and landed with a dozen songs on the Top 40, including Typical Male, The Best, Private Dancer and Better Be Good to Mewon.
Turner’s 1988 show in Rio de Janeiro drew 180,000 people, one of the largest concert audiences for any single performer.
By then, Turner had been free from her abusive marriage to guitarist Ike Turner for a decade.
She described bruised eyes, busted lips, a broken jaw and other injuries that repeatedly sent her to the emergency room.
“Tina’s story is not one of victimhood but one of incredible triumph,” singer Janet Jackson wrote about Turner, in a Rolling Stone issue that placed Turner at No. 63 on a list of the top 100 artists of all time.
“She’s transformed herself into an international sensation — an elegant powerhouse,” Jackson said.
Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones said he was saddened by Turner’s death, writing on Twitter. “She helped me so much when I was young and I will never forget her.”
Following the release of ninth solo studio album “Wildest Dreams,” April 1996, Turner visited Russia in Nov 1996, in support of her album.
Turner sold the rights to her music catalog reportedly in October 2021 for a reported $50 million to the music publishing company BMG.
Even years after her retirement, her name continued to draw audiences. The musical stage show Tina: The Tina Turner Musical, with Adrienne Warren was a hit first in London’s West End in 2018, and later on Broadway, and is still running.
A documentary about her life,Tina. was released in 2021 by HBO.
