Vale Tina Turner

[Shai]

Words cannot express the influence this classy lady had on music, her amazing voice lives on.

 

[CliffMcTainshaw]

Simply the Best.

 

[DEVO]

Very Sad.

RIP Tina Turner.

 

[peetoo]

Sounds like her last marriage was great for her and her husband.

Will be missed

Elton Freddie Tina Debbie .. soundtrack of an era

 

[Zuma]

Profound influence on the likes of Mick Jagger, Beyoncé and most in between. Affinity with many Aussies from staring in Mad Max, the Magnificent We dont need another hero and the NRL promotions culminating in the duet with Barnsey of her hit The Best. Tina simply was the best and let her music blast today and always. RIP AMB

 

[Professor Knowall]

I concur with all the above tributes and Tina thoroughly deserved the title “Queen Of Rock & Roll”, with those massive pop-rock power ballads in the 1980’s - a true musical legend. If anyone doubts Tina’s greatness as a singer, just listen to her cover of Bonnie Tyler’s ‘Simply The Best’. Now Bonnie’s original is stunning - IMO, about her best song, but then Tina took it to another level again - just the way she drops her voice when she sings - “… You’re better than anyone / anyone I ever met …”, she turned Bonnie’s hit into a mega hit.

Tina was more than just a rock & roll great. Her sound was grounded on the music she grew up with - gospel-based Southern soul music, mixed with R&B (with which she and her abusive first husband, Ike Turner, had hits in the 1960’s) and country music (her first solo album in 1974 was a country album - ”Tina Turns the Country On!” and she actually recorded a trove of country music). The region she grew up in, in western Tennessee, about an hour NE of Memphis, is soaked in a rich musical heritage, where country meets blues, R&B and soul, birthing rock & roll and seemingly every town boasts of being the home of at least one or more pioneering musician from one of these genres.

Like so many other rural Southerners, Tina had to pick cotton at an early age - from a little bit of personal experience those cotton balls have sharp prickly spurs that scar those forced to pick as a living - and sing in the church on Sunday. And like so many (I’ve covered literally dozens with a similar background of having a poor cotton picking background in the country music thread), she sought an escape through a career in music (as did her abusive but innovative music pioneer husband, Ike Turner, who grew up in the cotton fields of the nearby Mississippi delta region).

The first song Tina ever wrote, in 1973, was a great composition about her tiny home town (the title ‘Nutbush City Limits’ is deliberately ironic) - the ginhouse (an old but still functioning cotton gin, not a distillery) mentioned in the song is still there, but the shop was deserted when I was there (but did have the sign “Welcome to Nutbush Tennessee, birthplace of Tina Turner” at its front). There’s a church (also mentioned in the song), a few sheds and no more than half a dozen houses scattered around - and that’s it! It must’ve been a bit bigger when Tina grew up there, but not much. Here’s the descriptive yet economic lyrics, omitting the repeating chorus -
“A church house, gin house / A school house, outhouse / On Highway Number Nineteen / The people keep the city clean / …
Twenty-five was the speed limit / Motorcycle not allowed in it / You go t'the store on Fridays / You go to church on Sundays / …
You go t'the field on week days / And have a picnic on Labor Day / You go to town on Saturdays / But go to church ev'ry Sunday /
No whiskey for sale / You get caught, no bail / Saltpork and molasses / Is all you get in jail / …
Little old town in Tennessee / It's called a quiet, little old community / A one-horse town /
You have to watch / What you're puttin' down in old Nutbush …”

One can see this wasn’t exactly a song of nostalgia, but more about why Tina escaped from the limits of living in Nutbush! The town “you go to … on Saturdays” is Brownsville, a town of about 10,000 (though it seems smaller), about a 10 minute drive down “Highway Number Nineteen”, now re-named the Tina Turner Hwy (though it’s really just a road). Brownsville boasts the Tina Turner museum, which has various artefacts about her life, including about her early upbringing. The museum is actually in Tina’s little old two room school which was re-located from Nutbush to the more assessable Brownsville, on the junction of two interstate highways.

Just a couple of other things about Nutbush City Limits - the music has an innovative meld of funk, jazz and rock, set to a country Tennessee stomp beat (that was Ike Turner’s doing). And that Nutbush line dance we all know and love here - it’s completely unknown in the U.S, as I found out to my surprise over there. It’s uniquely an Australian thing.

Anyway, enough of my ramblings -

R.I.P. Tina - truly one of the music’s greats.

 

[Shai]

I concur with all the above tributes and Tina thoroughly deserved the title “Queen Of Rock & Roll”, with those massive pop-rock power ballads in the 1980’s - a true musical legend. If anyone doubts Tina’s greatness as a singer, just listen to her cover of Bonnie Tyler’s ‘Simply The Best’. Now Bonnie’s original is stunning - IMO, about her best song, but then Tina took it to another level again - just the way she drops her voice when she sings - “… You’re better than anyone / anyone I ever met …”, she turned Bonnie’s hit into a mega hit.

Tina was more than just a rock & roll great. Her sound was grounded on the music she grew up with - gospel-based Southern soul music, mixed with R&B (with which she and her abusive first husband, Ike Turner, had hits in the 1960’s) and country music (her first solo album in 1974 was a country album - ”Tina Turns the Country On!” and she actually recorded a trove of country music). The region she grew up in, in western Tennessee, about an hour NE of Memphis, is soaked in a rich musical heritage, where country meets blues, R&B and soul, birthing rock & roll and seemingly every town boasts of being the home of at least one or more pioneering musician from one of these genres.

Like so many other rural Southerners, Tina had to pick cotton at an early age - from a little bit of personal experience those cotton balls have sharp prickly spurs that scar those forced to pick as a living - and sing in the church on Sunday. And like so many (I’ve covered literally dozens with a similar background of having a poor cotton picking background in the country music thread), she sought an escape through a career in music (as did her abusive but innovative music pioneer husband, Ike Turner, who grew up in the cotton fields of the nearby Mississippi delta region).

The first song Tina ever wrote, in 1973, was a great composition about her tiny home town (the title ‘Nutbush City Limits’ is deliberately ironic) - the ginhouse (an old but still functioning cotton gin, not a distillery) mentioned in the song is still there, but the shop was deserted when I was there (but did have the sign “Welcome to Nutbush Tennessee, birthplace of Tina Turner” at its front). There’s a church (also mentioned in the song), a few sheds and no more than half a dozen houses scattered around - and that’s it! It must’ve been a bit bigger when Turner grew up there, but not much. Here’s the descriptive, yet economic lyrics, omitting the repeating chorus -
“A church house, gin house / A school house, outhouse / On Highway Number Nineteen / The people keep the city clean / …
Twenty-five was the speed limit / Motorcycle not allowed in it / You go t'the store on Fridays / You go to church on Sundays / …
You go t'the field on week days / And have a picnic on Labor Day / You go to town on Saturdays / But go to church ev'ry Sunday /
No whiskey for sale / You get caught, no bail / Saltpork and molasses / Is all you get in jail / …
Little old town in Tennessee / It's called a quiet, little old community / A one-horse town /
You have to watch / What you're puttin' down in old Nutbush …”

One can see this wasn’t exactly a song of nostalgia, but more about why Tina escaped from the limits of living in Nutbush! The town “you go to … on Saturdays” is Brownsville, a town of about 10,000 (though it seems smaller), about a 10 minute drive down “Highway Number Nineteen”, now re-named the Tina Turner Hwy (though it’s really just a road). Brownsville boasts the Tina Turner museum, which has various artefacts about her life, including about her early upbringing. The museum is actually in Tina’s old little two room school which was re-located from Nutbush to the more assessable Brownsville, on the junction of two interstate highways.

Just a couple of other things about Nutbush City Limits - the music has an innovative meld of funk, jazz and rock, set to a country Tennessee stomp beat (that was Ike Turner’s doing). And that Nutbush line dance we all know and love here - it’s completely unknown in the U.S, as I found out to my surprise over there. It’s uniquely an Australian thing.

Anyway, enough of my ramblings -

R.I.P. Tina - truly one of the music’s greats.

Perfect writeup, if anyone hasn't seen her story I recommend you take a look -

Tina Turner: Simply the Best (2021) - IMDb

 

[Spearman]

My intro to Tina

at a late night show that had bands and hard to find(back in the 70s) rock films.

actually there is a clip from this tour (1969) where Jagger definitely does a Tina move.

 

[Plugger35]

One of my Tina Turner favourites, the NRL used this song along with Simply the Best.




The NRL ran rings around the AFL back then when it came to music acts and they still do.

 

[Shai]

My intro to Tina

at a late night show that had bands and hard to find(back in the 70s) rock films.

actually there is a clip from this tour (1969) where Jagger definitely does a Tina move.

She was very much a woman and not ashamed to be who she was, love her beautiful soul.

 

[No eye deer]

My intro to Tina

at a late night show that had bands and hard to find(back in the 70s) rock films.

actually there is a clip from this tour (1969) where Jagger definitely does a Tina move.

Man, she was on fire during that Stones tour!

 

[Spearman]

There's a clip of the Stones doing I think Little Queenie, Mick does a Tina move. She definitely influenced him.