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AUGUST 27,
2020 ROCKWiRED REWiND: TiNA TURNER
- BREAK EVERY RULE (1986)
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I remember my mom turning up the music after the haunting synth line over the first few bars of the light reggae groove of WHAT'S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT had come on. Contrasting what sounded like some rather state-of-the-art pop music was that voice. Clearly this woman was no DIANA ROSS or DENIECE WILLIAMS. This voice was smooth yet rough. Like honey and rock salt. Like a voice that had been through something. I asked my parents who she was. My dad said she was TINA TURNER. I loved the name already. My dad also said that she had been around a long time and that she was probably as old as my grandmother. I learned later that TINA and my dad were only 10 years apart. I was eight going on nine years old and I had no idea what was sexy as I still played with STAR WARS action figures, but this song, WHAT'S LOVE..., gave me a good idea of what it was and this was without visuals. Long after the test drive was over and my dad signed the title to the new car, the voice of TINA TURNER and her new single continued to haunt me. Before long the song was everywhere. One night, I caught the video on FRIDAY NIGHT VIDEOS. Filmed in vibrant, full color the opening shot is a panoramic view of the New York City skyline along the Hudson River. The camera stops when it focuses on TINA from behind. This was my first time seeing this woman and I was blown away by the crazy, spiky ash blonde hair (which I learned later was a wig), the bright red lipstick and those legs – which I was told by my mom was her trademark. Throughout the video TURNER emerges as a world weary woman reflecting on the uselessness of love and the virtues of protecting yourself from the harm that only love can cause. Dressed in a black miniskirt, a jean jacket, fishnet stocking and high heels, TURNER confidently struts the streets of the Big Apple to the song's galloping groove. In an age when the right music video could set an artist on the trajectory to superstardom, the video for WHAT'S LOVE... made this TINA TURNER a larger than life figure and I was curious to see more. A profound impression was made on me and the rest of the civilized world. 1984 was a good year for my family but it was a much bigger and better one for Ms. TURNER. As most the rock artists on MTV were young and white it was fascinating to see an older black female artist ascend to the top of the charts with WHAT'S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT and her 25x platinum album PRIVATE DANCER. This was the musical comeback that all musical comebacks have been judged by. Forget about ELVIS in '68. TINA TURNER in 1984 showed the whole damned world what survival of the fittest in rock n roll was all about with the release of her fifth solo album PRIVATE DANCER. The singer born ANNA MAE BULLOCK has boasted one of those few musical careers that have reached legendary proportions and had the sort of biblical backstory worthy of CECIL B. DEMILLE's TEN COMMANDMENTS. Forget the Old Testament stuff. The unwanted sharecroppers daughter from the backwoods of Tennessee made her way to St. Louis where she became enthralled with local music star IKE TURNER and his KINGS OF RHYTHM. It turned out the little girl from Nutbush had one hell of a RAY CHARLES growl and soon found herself at the center of the action. With that voice, BULLOCK cut the single A FOOL IN LOVE and the TINA TURNER (a name inspired by the amazonian heroine SHEENA QUEEN OF THE JUNGLE) persona was born. As a duo, IKE AND TINA TURNER enjoyed sporadic success on the charts with such classics as their high octane rendition of PROUD MARY to the all out ruckus of NUTBUSH CITY LIMITS, but it was their blistering live set that put them in a class all by themselves. And of course there is the dark matter of the violent marriage that TINA found herself in with IKE. The tumultuous relationship between her and husband and band leader IKE TURNER resulted in a climactic battle in Dallas Texas which according to pop legend had TINA running for her life. The marriage marked by years of physical abuse ended with TINA having to start over from square one but this time, the goal was world domination. The first release from PRIVATE DANCER was a pristine cover of AL GREENE's LET'S STAY TOGETHER but before long, TINA would have the world on its ear with what has come to be her signature solo classic WHAT'S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT – a reggae-fied piece of eighties soul pop marked by TINA's distinctive purr. Other performances include the positively churning BETTER BE GOOD TO ME, a EURYTHMICS-styled cover of the ANN PEEBLES classic I CANâ€T STAND THE RAIN, the exquisite jazz rock title track brought to her by MARK KNOPFLER and the all out rock n roll rant STEEL CLAW featuring a fierce JEFF BECK on guitar. And there was that time she hit the big screen. It should be mentioned that TINA TURNER turned down the role of SHUG AVERY in STEVEN SPIELBERG's 1985 OSCAR-nominated film THE COLOR PURPLE in favor of working with director GEORGE MILLER for the third installment of the MAD MAX films. BEYOND THUNDERDOME took the MAD MAX series into uncharted territory with its massive budget. The extra money helped and BEYOND THUNDERDOME was a box office smash where TURNER finally got to show what she was made of as an actress playing the morally ambiguous AUNTIE ENTITY - a villainess with a tremendous sense of fairness. It's been said that director GEORGE MILLER had to talk TINA out of doing her own stunts. The film also gave TURNER the chance to shine musically with two contributions to the film's soundtrack. WE DON'T NEED ANOTHER HERO is the subdued, cynical outlook on a messiah complex that people remember the most with it's pulsating reggae beat a'la WHAT'S LOVE... but the better moment is the HOLLY KNIGHT penned ONE OF THE LIVING. The strident, apocalyptic-themed rocker earned the woman her fifth GRAMMY for BEST FEMALE ROCK PERFORMANCE yet is not available on any greatest hits collection. To say that
expectations were high following PRIVATE DANCER was an
understatement. They were to the moon! Was it possible to capture
lighting in a bottle twice? The answer is 'no' but TINA and her
producers and songwriters have a lot of fun trying. BREAK EVERY RULE
repeats the multiple producer approach of PRIVATE DANCER and boasts
songs from rock n roll giants such as DAVID BOWIE and MARK KNOPFLER.
Even the sound is more varied this time with some country and western
flourishes (WHAT YOU GET IS WHAT YOU SEE). You've even got BRYAN
ADAMS pushing TURNER into metal territory with the glorious rocker
BACK WHERE YOU STARTED which is probably the album's finest
moment.
The introspective title track plays like a sequel to I MIGHT'VE BEEN
QUEEN from PRIVATE DANCER and TYPICAL MALE demonstrates the woman's
finesse at delivering seamless Adult Contemporary Pop in the vein of
WHAT'S LOVE...Like the mid to late eighties, the music on BREAK EVERY
RULE is all over the place and thirty years after the fact, that is
what makes it such an enjoyable listen. ***
TYPICAL
MALE WHAT YOU GET IS WHAT YOU SEE
BACK WHERE
YOU STARTED
BREAK
EVERY RULE OVERNIGHT
SENSATION PARADISE IS HERE ***
"Charges that Tina has betrayed her precious heritage come twenty years too late--not since she and Ike reeled off five straight r&b top-tens between 1960 and 1962 has she pursued the black audience with any notable passion. Her benefactors of the late '60s were Phil Spector, Bob Krasnow, the Rolling Stones, and the Las Vegas International Hotel, where she and Ike were fixtures at the time of Elvis's comeback; their big numbers of the early '70s were the totemic rock anthems "Come Together" and "Proud Mary." That she should now realize the pop fabrications of white svengalis is just a couple more steps down the same appointed path, and she's damned good at it, even an innovator--Private Dancer remains the archetypal all-singles all-hits multiproducer crossover, and Whitney Houston should be so soulful. Unfortunately, the follow-up musters no archetypal crossover singles, and no totemic rock anthems either (Bryan Adams induces her to go metal, which is more than Bowie or Knopfler can claim). Fortunately, ranking svengali Terry Britten gets his own state-of-the-pop-art side. If he and Tina can't convince you that rich people have feelings too, you're some kind of bigot for sure." ROLLING
STONE noted something similar but their summation wasn't as cogent as
CHRISTGAU's summation. Oh and there is that life story of hers finding its way onto the big screen with the release of 1993's WHAT'S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT which further cemented the woman's Homeric pop odyssey and earned its stars ANGELA BASSETT and LAURENCE FISHBURNE Oscar nominations for their performances as TINA and IKE. Even the soundtrack to the film, featuring TURNER and her band re-recording some classic IKE AND TINA performances managed to reach platinum sales. Maybe music for film was the thing now. Two years later in 1995 she would lend her pipes to the JAMES BOND film GOLDENEYE - a grand SHIRLEY BASSEY inspired opus penned by BONO of U2. So great is the
woman's influence in the firmament of pop culture that her life story
found its way onto the stage of both
the West End and Broadway. TINA - THE
MUSICAL was a massive hit on London's West End when it premiered
in 2018. The show came to Broadway at the end of 2019 and was an
immediate hit until the COVID-19 pandemic put a freeze on the
Great White Way and society in general. In a time when pop
luminaries such as CHER have enticed audiences with
news of a never-ending farewell tour, TINA truly bowed out in 2009 at
the age of seventy. Since that time, she has revoked her U.S.
citizenship, settled in Switzerland and got hitched to her longtime
boyfriend ERWIN BACH. In 2018, she released another autobiography MY
LOVE STORY - a sequel to 1986's I, TINA. At this point in her life, many expected calmer seas for this venerable icon, but the new book recounts other instances of abuse at the hands of IKE as well as some frightening illnesses. Weeks after her marriage to BACH, TURNER suffered a stroke which rendered her immobile. There was also a bout of instestinal cancer and kidney failure which resulted in dialysis. Her husband BACH stepped in an donated his kidney, but there have been issues with her body rejecting the kidney. Despite these challenges, TURNER has soldiered on in recent interviews, demonstrating the very strength that has become her brand. In July of this year, that strength would be tested by the suicide of her first born son CRAIG. In a life filled with ups and downs, triumphs and tragedies and vitality and illness, TURNER's legendary survival skill set is something to be envied and sought after, especially now with a global pandemic and civil unrest. I'm not sure such a trait is all that imitable but the woman's fierceness and determination have made for some great music along the way. Even if sheis in retirement, the musical legacy lives on and in frightening and uncertain times as this, that is a major comfort.
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LUSH AT: djlush@rockwired.com
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