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Standing in that weary confessional — the ladies' room line — at Tina Turner's recent sold-out engagement at Radio City Music Hall, I overheard a woman confide to her friend, "I told my husband, 'There's two things I want to do before I die: see the Pacific Ocean and Tina Turner live.' "
At 58, Turner has that Eighth Wonder of the World status. You do have to see her to believe her; like her good pal and, some say, psychic twin, Mick Jagger, she is the shouting, shimmying embodiment of rock & roll. Her legendary legs — supported on this last tour by the corporate puissance of Hanes hosiery — bracket classic rock & roll imagery. They straddle decades and styles, from the roughest R&B to the creamiest contemporary pop.
At this point, Turner's arduous rock odyssey — made public in her 1986 autobiography, "I, Tina," and in the 1993 film "What's Love Got to Do With It" — has settled firmly into modern pop mythology. Detailing the years of physical and mental abuse by her ex-husband and stage partner, Ike Turner, and Tina's subsequent triumph as a solo act, it is the tale of a soul survivor.
Herewith, a few pertinent facts: Leggy, coltish Anna Mae Bullock was born in 1939 to a sharecropper's family in Nutbush, Tenn. Hers was the lonely childhood resulting from a broken home. She spent her early years being cared for by relatives. When her mother, Zelma, left the South and relocated to St. Louis, she took her teenage daughter, who wanted desperately to be a singer. Anna Mae was discovered in a club in East St. Louis, Ill., by Ike Turner.
Sharp, talented and worldly, Ike Turner had a rocking, well-known R&B band, the Kings of Rhythm. His 1951 hit, "Rocket '88," has often been cited as the first true rock & roll record. Ike signed Anna Mae, dressed her, renamed her Tina, set her out front with some Ikettes ... and they hit the road. It was Tina's arresting vocals that got the group a hit, in 1960, with "A Fool in Love." She ripped some wild, hormonal screams across the demure girl-group backup of those "shoop-shoop" times. The song's punch line would prove eerily prescient: "You know you love him and you can't understand/Why he treat you like he do when he's such a good man."
They remained a raucous R&B roadshow, largely unknown to rock and pop audiences, before the couple — married in 1962 — met up with producer Phil Spector. Legend has it that Spector paid Ike to stay out of the studio while the producer wrapped his mammoth Wall of Sound around Tina's vocal firepower, torqued up the tempo and came up with 1966's "River Deep, Mountain High." The record stiffed here but was a huge hit in the U.K., which led to the Rolling Stones inviting Ike and Tina to open for a tour there. It proved a swell exchange program: Mick Jagger got some dance tips, and Tina cozied up to rock & roll, cutting a successful cover of "Honky Tonk Women" in 1969.
She did not escape her domestic hell until Independence Day of 1976; she took off with 36 cents and a Mobil credit card, later astounding the divorce court judge when she also walked away from the money, the real estate, everything, just to get away clean and fast. By then, Tina was deep into Buddhism, chanting daily. She knew that security lay within her own thrumming rib cage and not in a pricey pile of stucco in the Los Angeles hills.
Tina Turner's "comeback," in 1984, was with the triple-Grammy-winning "What's Love Got to Do With It?," a few minutes of alternating rage and resignation that speaks to a lifetime of serious experience. Suddenly, Turner, who had torn up the big screen in her brief turn as the Acid Queen in the Who's "Tommy," was a glowing MTV presence. She camped, vamped and seethed at Mel Gibson in "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome" and sang its hit theme,"We Don't Need Another Hero." Subsequent albums ("Break Every Rule," "Foreign Affair," "Wildest Dreams") have kept her on the road with lavish shows, which, this time around, featured two and a half steamy hours of Total Tina, dancing just as ferociously as she did 30 years ago with the Ikettes.
She was in New Jersey, at the very end of her two-year "Wildest Dreams" tour, when we spoke by phone. As with the last time we'd visited, in a Manhattan hotel suite, Turner was packed — headed home to her villa in the South of France — and she couldn't wait. She'd been renovating, making the old house totally hers in a very womanly way, she said. Assistants and an acupuncturist buzzed about her hotel room. She was so tired and itchy to leave, it "hurt." "But hey," laughed the road warrior, "let's do it!"
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What are the first female voices that really knocked you
out?
Well, it was a church person in the early days, Mahalia Jackson.
And Rosetta Tharpe. These spiritual, very strong voices. I only
knew that they were the figures in the black race,
recognizable and respected. But I must admit, I've always covered
the songs of males. I haven't followed up on women or listened to
that much women's music.
Can you recall what it was like the first time you took
the stage?
It was at a club in East St. Louis. It was the story of Ike
discovering a talent. I had wanted to get onstage with him before
— was just dying to get up there, because of the
musical attraction, you know. But I was always this kind of very
skinny girl, and I didn't look the part, so I was never called. And
then, finally, my sister was dating the drummer, and he was teasing
her 'cause he knew that she couldn't sing. He gave her the
microphone, and she passed it on to me, and I started to sing. And
I got onstage with Ike, and I was, of course, very
excited. Very competent, because I've been a singer all my life. I
did a song of B.B. King's. And that was how Ike recognized me. Then
I started to sing regularly on weekends. I was still in high
school.
Your look has always been so distinctive. How did you
put yourself together for those early gigs?
Ike took me out and bought me a wardrobe. I was very young —
17, 18. And so that was my first sequined dress: blue sequins. He
bought me long gloves, the costume jewelry, a little fur. I was
still at home with my mother, and he brought them over: There were
three dresses, the gloves, the bare-back shoes and the stockings
with the seam in the back. That was, you know, really grown-up
clothes. And I was very excited, riding in a pink Cadillac. I've
always been crazy about movie stars. I felt like I was Bette Davis
or somebody. I had my chin up and all of that [laughs].
But I outgrew that pretty quickly.
How do your stage preparations now compare with those
days?
I start my relaxed mental state as I do my makeup. I arrive at
work, get rid of whatever meetings in terms of corrections for the
musicians and all. When I start makeup, it brings me right down to
the place where I'm relaxed. I'm in control of that. The more time
I have to just play with myself and putz around, the better. I've
always done my own makeup for live shows. I don't like it too
professional onstage; sometimes it's really not you. It might work
for video or something, but it's not for real life. Yes, there is
something calming about putting myself together to face people on a
stage. We love makeup. It's just girls playing.
What's Tina's road kit like these days — that
little carry-on bag that will get you through any
emergency?
Basically, my wardrobe is dark, usually [Yohji] Yamamoto. There's
always a sweater that can go with everything. A pullover that can
make the trousers work. In layers. And I have a little Dunhill
old-style carrier. Everything is in there if the luggage doesn't
make it. There's a T-shirt always and the shampoo, the makeup
— the everything.
Any cassettes for the road?
I don't listen to music when I'm working. I'm not one who listens
to a lot of music normally, anyway. I like the silence when I'm
relaxing. I have a lot of spiritual books. The one I'm really into
is Conversations With God. I'm also a real Anne Rice fan.
That's about it. I get a lot of rest. I sleep a lot.
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What do fans want to know from Tina
Turner?
[Laughs] Sometimes I feel like I'm Mother Teresa.
Fortunately, I did not have an easy life. I've experienced a
lot, and I can share it in terms that might help people. Let's
just say I've offered good advice; I've been fortunate to give
that. But it's all the time. I think people put a bit too
much on me sometimes.
People want to know, of course, how I got through my life. They ask about relationships with men, but it's mostly to do with changes in life. A lot of people can't deal with changes.
After the big change came for you and you left Ike, when
did you feel like you'd actually become the boss?
I must tell you, "boss" never fit into my way of thinking. I
started coming into my own those last years with Ike, because I was
in charge of the girls and the basic performance. I had also gotten
involved with the arrangements. I don't play but I was able to
communicate verbally with the musicians — Ike's musicians. So
by the time I got my band, I was equipped.
I'd say I was about 30 when a lot of realizations happened. I remember I had always respected airline stewardesses. It was a fantasy, you know — the traveling, the way they dressed in their hats and suits. And on my 30th birthday, I remember sitting on a plane. I don't know what happened, but I finally saw that they were really making people comfortable and serving food. I don't mean it disrespectfully, but I thought, "Oh, my God, they're waitresses." I'd only seen the beauty and the glamour.
After that, I really started to think about everything in terms of movies and life and whatever is created. I started to analyze life and things dealing with my career. It all came from one thought: It's just creation. Materialization. And then it lasts or it doesn't.
Have you sensed any changes over the years in the public
perception of who Tina Turner is?
I haven't changed a thing. What got me here was from the life that
I live, that I went public with. Before, it was raunchy Tina, legs
open, her red lips, her long hair. Wild! They just thought that I
was just another of those raunchy singers, 'cause no one knew the
other side. Only people very close to me knew. I've always been
very spiritual, but my image — in terms of my work —
was very far from that. And then when the book came out, and 60
Minutes filmed me chanting and being into meditation,
everybody went, "What?" Everyone started to take a
different view.
Did that old image make you unhappy?
The raunchy, the wild, sexy — it was uncomplimentary. But I understood it. I still see photographs, and my stance and my body form is very much like that. I have to stand like that to hit high notes, and high-heeled shoes will give you a certain body form. So I never liked [being thought of that way], but I thought, "Well, that's what you've done, Tina. I mean, you have stood there with crotch open, ripped at the seams."
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It was only after I started chanting that I realized, well, that's what you've put out there. That's what people see. They have no way of knowing anything else. So that's what I accepted. And as soon as I got around to accepting it, that's when it all started to change — where the knowledge of who and how I am became public and people accepted me differently.
Do you think there is a double standard for physical
beauty in rock & roll? There are no female Meat Loafs or Alice
Coopers.
Yeah! It's always been a priority for me to look as good as I can.
Even when Ike was totally in control, telling me what I could and
could not wear, I did my best. I knew that I was always capable of
making myself look better. I'd look back at photographs, and I
wasn't pleased. And I wanted to be. Now that I'm in control, I'm
still working on myself. I don't think I'll ever stop. I'm crazy
when it comes to this. I think what people don't realize is that
it's important for self-esteem. It's not dressing always for
someone — for a man or for your public — it's for the
individual. It has to be for you. You must love and care for
yourself, because that's when the best comes out. You need to know
what is good for you.
The last time we talked, you were joking about coming to
terms with that unusual body of yours.
For me that was half the battle — taking a good, hard look. I
have a short neck. Very short neck. I have very long arms, very
long legs, and the torso is short — just like a horse. My
problem is to stretch myself, make myself look long. So I'm in the
mirror often; I care about open-toe shoes, how the foot is setting
in a shoe. It's down to that.
Ah, but anyone who's seen you dance knows it's some kind
of voodoo physics — to do what you do on such a small surface
area in such high heels. Tina locomotion is the bedrock mojo of
rock & roll.
Well, you know, it's because you're on your toes. I'm never
standing on my feet, with all the weight on both of them. I'm
always either on the right leg or the left. And it's basically with
the weight on the front of the foot. The only time it's full on is
when I'm doing a heavy dance step, because you need to balance. But
it's not about the high heel at all — it's the lift for me.
It keeps me up where I can have the spring, the ability to move
fast, to leap.
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Your show was two and a half hours long, and it was all
Tina. You've done this hundreds of times on this tour.
How?
I've always been a tomboy kind of girl. I'm always doing
something. So I don't get caught gaining weight. I've never worked
out at all. I started to run when I went into the change of life
because I was told that I needed to. But when I haven't run, it
hasn't bothered me. I'm a country girl, and I lived a full country
life, and it made me strong, I think.
Given the difficulties you had early on, have you been
able to count on the support of female friends?
I never really had girlfriends early on. When I left Ike, there
was Anna Marie Shorter — Wayne Shorter's wife. But she went
down in a plane crash. That was the first time having a girlfriend
— sitting, chatting, having a good time, learning to drink,
laughing and talking about everything. It was nice. I think it
would be nice now. But I just don't have a strong need for company.
My mind is always kind of going, you know. Instinctively, it's what
I've always done. It could come from when I was young and my family
separated, and I was a loner as a child. Maybe I got to that place
then.
For someone who's spent so many years on the road,
what's the importance of having a place to call
home?
When I travel, I am absolutely miserable. I talked to an
astrologist about it, 'cause I was really suffering. And he said
that, astrologically, I am a home person. I try to make the hotels
homey. I immediately walk into a room and get security to change
the room the way I want it. Some places it's impossible and you can
do nothing but sit there. I miss being at home very much.
What about the rock & roll life?
I enjoy it once I'm right there onstage. But every night, for over
200 days, to think that you've got to go onstage and have a party
... well, since I'm not a party person, I see it as a party without
drink for me. It's having a party with the people. And I don't
crave it, no! I'm fine when I'm there, I'm on a mission — to
give the people a good time, because that's what it's about. It's
not about a message or anything. It's about laughter and a little
bit of dancing. And all kinds of intrigue. That's basically it. But
I don't miss it when I'm not onstage. At all. It's a job out there
and people always think it's fun. It's fun to a point, yes. I
remember when it was more fun to put on those dresses and do the
makeup and all that stuff. But when you've had nearly 40 years of
it, it ceases to be that kind of fun and magic. It's a job that
you've got to go out there and do. And be successful at it. That's
the mission.
So you can imagine not doing it?
Oh, I can, absolutely. I'm looking forward to it. I know I'm going
somewhere else from the stage. I know that already.
And right now?
I have my acupuncturist here now. I think I'm just overanxious to
get home. I haven't been sleeping very well, so he's got to put
some needles in me. Listen, I want to go home!
One last question: What of that other stalwart road
warrior, Mick Jagger?
Mick is, and always has been, a boy. A boy that I'd be.
Now, if I was male and you said, "Who would you want to be like?" I
guess I could say I'd want to dance better than Mick. But
I like how he does it. He's naughty; he's got a great boy inside of
that man's body — no matter how old he gets, no matter what
is happening to him visually. We're not together often, but when we
are, it's as if we have known each other all of our lives. We
laugh, we play — it's almost like kids, you know?
[From Issue 773 — November 13, 1997]