|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
| Tina Turner was born Anna Mae Bullock on November 26th, 1939 in Nutbush, Tennessee to a sharecropper (dad) and Zelma. She always had a good voice, on films she saw families that were happy, and that�s how she wanted hers to be. Her father contantly beated on her mother and one day it became too much, Her mother Zelma and 13 year-old sister, Eileen, left for St. Louis, leaving 10 year-old. Anna to live with her father and maternal grandmother. When Anna was 13, her father remarried and moved to Detroit. In 1955, When Anna was 16, her grandmother died, and she went to live with her mother. Her sister Eileen was a bartender at the Club Manhatten, a night club were famous bands play. One night she took Anna with her, and a band called the The Kings of Rhythum was looking for a lead singer. The mike landed in Anna�s hand. She rocked the joint. She became the new lead singer, but there was one stumbling block in her way, her mother wanted her to finish high school and become a nurse, but she soon gave in.. Tina said �Ike treated me like a younger sister, he bought me expensive gifts and tought me alot about the music business.� When Anna was 16 Ike was 24. Soon, she gained interest in the band�s saxophone player, Raymond Hill. In 1957, when she was 18, she became pregnant. She had a baby Boy named Raymond Craig Turner. (it became Turner when Ike and Anna got married, Ike adopted him.) Anna moved in with Ike, who was already involved with a girl named Lorraine, and he had two sons, Ike, Jr. And Michael, (who Tina adopted after her and Ike were married). When Lorraine found out she moved in, she thought Ike was having an affair so she attempted suicide, but she survived. After Anna had her baby, Raymond left the group and Ike changed Anna�s name to Tina and they were married in Tijauna, Mexico, Ike soon adopted Craig. He formed a group called Ike, Tina and the Ikettes. �A fool in Love� hit the top on the charts, both black and white. Ike and Tina moved to California. There marriage began good, When she was twenty she had Ike�s baby, Ronald (aka Ronnie). He started the �Ike and Tina revue�, also. Ther marriage started to become rocky, everything Ike wanted Tina to do she did, and if she didn�t he�d beat her. Phil Specter asked her to record �River Deep Mountain High� which was thought to be another hit, but it only reached #88 on the U.S. pop charts. She was named the hardest working woman in rock. Despite the lack of the sucess of �River Deep Moutain High� she had another hit, Creedance Clearwater�s �Proud Mary�In 1977, she had had enough with Ike she left him and divorced him. It became final in 1977. Now she felt all the weight on her shoulders was gone. She was a free woman and she loved it. With the help of her australian manager, Roger Davies, she released her multi-platinum album in December of 1984, Private Dancer, with the hit �What�s Love got to do with it�. At first Tina didn�t like the song, but she recorded it anyway. She came out with an autobiography �I Tina� which led to the movie �What�s Love Got To Do With It�. She turned 63 in November of 2003, with thirty years of experience under her belt, she still catches the hearts of her fans with her heart-felt voice and soulful dancing. |
| After 40 years in the music business, Tina Turner has become one of the most commercially-successful international female rock stars to date. Her sultry, powerful voice, her incredible legs, her time-tested beauty and her unforgettable story all contribute to her legedary status. Born to a mixed race (Native and African American) sharcropping family in the segregated South, Anna Mae Bullock (Tina) and her sister were basically abandoned by their sparring parents early on. After her grandmother's death, she eventually moved to St. Louis to reunite with her mother. This opened up a whole new world of R & B nightclubs to the precocious 16-year-old. Before long she had given up early aspirations of a nursing career and had joined Ike Turner's Kings of Rythym. Ike Turner wanted to turn his local fame into national stardom and quickly saw the potential of the talented, but unmolded, teen-aged Anna Mae. One thing led to another; they got married in Mexico between the birth of Tina's two sons - one son was Ike's and the other was the result of an earlier relationship of Tina's. Before too long the Ike and Tina Turner Review was tearing up large and small R&B and Soul venues throughout the early and mid 1960s. The hits were relatively few, but the unsurpassed energy and excitement generated by the live stage show (read: Tina) made the Revue a solid touring act, along with the likes of James Brown and Ray Charles. Their big "crossover" break came in 1966 with the recording of the Phil Spector production, "River Deep, Mountain High". While it was a commercial flop in the US, it was a monster hit in Europe -- the start of Tina's European superstar status, a status which never faded during her long stint of relative obscurity in the US (late 70s-through the early 80s). The Revue entered the 1970's as a top touring and recording act, with Tina becoming more and more recognized as the star-power behind the group's international success. Ike, while having been justly described as an excellent musician, a shewd businessman and the initial "brains" behind the Revue, was also described (by Tina and others) as a violent, drug-addicted wife beater who was not above frequently knocking Tina (and other women) around both publically and privately. Tina finally had her fill of this in 1976, when she fled the marriage (and the Revue) with the now famous 36 cents and a Mobil gasoline credit card. Tina, now nearing 40, climbed a long, and at times humiliating, trek back to superstardom through working many substandard gigs and and performing current Top 40 hits and old Ike & Tina tunes at hotel ballrooms and supper clubs. She now claims she was having the time of her life at this point, just performing on her own and getting away from Ike. She refused to take a cent from the divorce, and was strapped with many huge debts as well. Taking on new management around 1980 was Tina's shewdest career move to date. With Roger Davies as her manager, before long Tina was back in the saddle with her smash 1984 comeback album, Private Dancer. The rest is rock and roll history. Since that time, Tina has toured the globe several times, released several more hit records (none as big as Private Dancer) and appeared in several movies (her admitted dream is to cross over to films). Tina, now nearing 60, has apparently semi-retired, but she can still thrill audiences seemingly through any venue she desires: concerts, TV appearances, charity benefits. Tina Turner is the undisputed Queen of Rock and Roll. |
|
|