Tina Turner - Classic or Dud?

Dud.

Ike & Tina is classic.

Tina as Acid Queen is fooking classic.

i like this sentence of Sean's quite a bit. really.
but i'm still undecided as to which bits from it i'd take to piece together a sentence of my own...

"not", "funny" and "sic", these for sure.
...and not any others, it seems.

yep, and produced by Nellee Hooper

No dear, you're thinking of Madge.

In fact, I have an aunt that does this.

Usually to 'The Best' - surely one of the most hideous songs ever written.

Tina Turner - looks to me like she's escaped from a Ty Phoo advert - and a granny in thick supporting tights and a frightwig - never good.

Ike & Tina amazing stuff.
Private Dancer - one of the defining albums of the 80s (and my first big concert age 11 or so)
she was Auntie Entity - you try walking around in the desert wearing a chainmail outfit that weighs 80 pounds. that's tough.

more recent stuff hasn't done much for me tho thought the song she did for the biopic was pretty good.

Die, Grandma, die!

(on the other hand there're also things like "Proud Mary"...)

It's official: ILM hates black people.

(Sorry for the non-racism, Dan. But keep hope alive!)

Or has she done that already.....?

one of the best all time performers EVER. but saying that, i dont know how many of ike and tina turners songs i actually like, apart from nutbush city limits, proud mary, river deep mountain high and maybe one or two others. maybe i just dont know enough. but seeing them live must have been phenomenal, going on the dvds ive seen.

"ike turner beats tina to death"- i've just seen this headline.

come on you sons of bitchez

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJGoNeM3WzY

Even fucking Iggy Pop couldn't do better than that you better kick your sexist ass out of town

PRIVATE DANCER

Dud. totally ruined Let's Stay Together.

Classic! What the fuck? So many haters! I seriously need to buy that Private Dancer album.

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Sunday, May 25, 2003 3:18 PM (8 years ago) Bookmark

good Lord, miccio is 1,000% OTM here, overriding even the otherwise unimpeachable alex in nyc. (the rest of her solo stuff, except for the "thunderdome" song, is admittedly meh.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mC41K6lL6GY

Classic for Thunderdome. Keep only what's necessary to make her performance in Thunderdome possible. Private Dancer, too. Also classic for Ike's line, "I'm only doin this cuz I love you, baby."

(i should've been more clear ... the private dancer album and the "thunderdome" song are absolute classics from her solo career; what came AFTER that, though, is kinda meh. obv. the stuff with Ike and some of the solo stuff before private dancer is also totally classic.)

Two Tina thread revivals! You're excited!

I love Break Every Rule's "Typical Male" and "What You Get is What You See."

Tina rulez. saw her last year and she's still got it. plus she had a huge Thunderdome set for just the one track. so OTT!

Only found out recently that she did a cover of Robert Palmer's great "Johnny and Mary" (buried on the soundtrack to the film Summer Lovers), and it may be my favourite version of the song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUiOKwxQ3Yk

wow

i thought this bump would be related to the kygo thing :( he really needs to stop

Upcoming documentary

https://www.hbo.com/documentaries/tina

Tina rulez. saw her last year and she's still got it. plus she had a huge Thunderdome set for just the one track. so OTT!

― I'm A Genius, Too! (Jamie_ATP), Sunday, July 10, 2011 3:08 PM (nine years ago) bookmarkflaglink

I still haven't seen the movie, but I've been obsessed with this song lately and this just adds to that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SuO_8VlYAfk

first episode of the doc is great

the way it starts, with her explaining she didn’t want there to be a story of her life because “it wasn’t a good life” is a punch to the gut.

What you get is what you see!

oh man. i watched the whole thing. it’s devastating.

At least she has found some happiness and satisfaction late in life

i cried so much

really beautifully done, its so powerful hearing her story in her voice

i am sad to say goodbye to her but love that she is doing it, she has given so much of herself

i don't think it's a first episode, is it? wasn't that the whole thing? It was good.

look at all these bad takes at the start of this thread

It was the whole thing; I was confused.

At least she has found some happiness and satisfaction late in life

― curmudgeon, Sunday, March 28, 2021 10:33 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

this is true, but i think what i valued so much about the doc (and what broke my heart) is how honest she was about how hard her life post-Ike was...saying that the good in her life didn't necessarily outweigh the bad. it refused to be a triumphant resilience story, even though, of course, she's a survivor and has accomplished amazing things. and so much of the footage of her, either being interviewed alongside Ike or alone afterward, bore witness to her tortured feelings about their relationship. the most chilling footage was where she would just go kind of blank and withdraw into herself. i really appreciate how the doc refused to gloss over the long-term toll Ike's abuse took.

i think it's amazing that she succeeded in becoming a huge star in a different musical mode than R&B, as she wanted to, but it felt melancholy to me that all the amazing footage of her dancing and singing while she was with Ike must feel so fraught and tainted to her--those performances are so amazing! but he shaped them and even gave her her name!

i also didn't know about her mother and father. it's just such a sad story.

I had no idea she was having so many health problems:

"Like all documentaries produced with the cooperation of its subject, there are blind spots in Tina. Now age 81, Turner has struggled with health problems. She had a stroke in 2013, was diagnosed with intestinal cancer in 2016 and had a kidney transplant – donated by [her husband Erwin] Bach – in 2017. But none of that is mentioned in the film."

https://www.npr.org/2021/03/27/979683306/tina-turners-life-explored-in-new-documentary

I had forgotten that Bucks Fizz were the first to record What's Love Got To Do With It.

I had no idea either, but this explains it:

It was intended for possible inclusion on their next album I Hear Talk but was shelved when Turner released her version first. The Bucks Fizz version went unreleased until it was included on a re-issue of their Are You Ready album in 2000.

also:

The song was written by Terry Britten and Graham Lyle, who originally offered it to Cliff Richard, but it was rejected. It was then given to Phyllis Hyman, who wanted to do the song, but Arista Records head Clive Davis would not allow her. The song then was offered to Donna Summer, who has stated she sat with it for a couple of years but never recorded it.

Donna Summer, who has stated she sat with it for a couple of *years* but never recorded it.

the Bucks Fizz version they showed in the tina doc was so LOL, i had no idea about that at all

i loved the detail about her working w Phil Spector - the instruction to “sing it how SHE would sing it” blew her mind

and similarly w What’s Love, the producer just says sing it how you would sing it & she feels so free doing that

it kinda breaks my heart but makes me see her solo stage presence so differently, like that joy was 100% real & she was living her best life singing everything her way

never really occurred to me before how grim the irony is that in 1966 her respite from the abusive controlling belittling behavior of ike was working with... phil spector

yeah that was not lost on me either :/

River Deep, Mountain High is my least favorite thing that Tina Turner ever did. And I love so much of her work, my mom and dad were the hugest fans, just not with Phil Spector.

I don't trust a song that uses the word "puppy" in the lyrics.

it's her only masterpiece sorry. and I usually don't care for Spector.

it's her only masterpiece sorry.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0GVixJvt-g

I guess I'll be the first to speak up and say I love a lot of Spector's records (if not the asshole himself), I love Tina Turner and I love "River Deep, Mountain High."

I will say it's the only memorable record they made, partly because they didn't do much, just barely enough to fill one LP side.

Sky have just reported Tina has died aged 83

Sadly yes

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/may/24/tina-turner-legendary-rocknroll-singer-dies-aged-83

Just heard, damn it.

saw her about 10 years back, still incredible. had a big thunderdome stageset for just the one song, on the other hand also did a stripped back mini set of r&b stuff. wonderful evening and very glad to have caught it.

One of the few people I thought immortal.

My god:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rj9Um8T88KM

Whenever the deep cuts station here busts out some of her primal stuff it just knocks me back in my seat.

RIP.

Mick Jagger's dance moves are pouring one out for her right now.

Queen.

Man, there were some dire "opinions" being expressed upthread years ago. Sad.

RIP Tina.

yeah, this one hits hard.

one of those few times when the cover version is better than the original.

r.i.p. tina.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xAXkmo-HTI

Damn, what a loss.

i knew she was sick but it really feels impossible

when I was 11-12 i had an oversize Tina Turner tshirt that I wore everywhere, man I love her so much

so gutted

i knew she was sick & cried over the documentary thinking “what if she dies” but i tried to put it out of my head

RIP queen

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtm9qlG5xoo

also i am a corny mf but i love the stuff she did with Rod Stewart, they’re so great together

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdvSk3PLMI0

:)

another of those times when the cover version is better than the original.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqAkdxjneig

RIP Queen.

RIP Tina Turner and a hearty fuck you to the beginning of this thread

The first half of this thread is as depressing to read as a GOP Florida twitter thread. Fuck these people.

RIP

JFC, this thread had a shitty beginning, almost as low as Phil Spector's Ike Turner eulogy.

This hit me hard too, like even harder than usual. There's not a whole lot of records I listen to - mainly the great 1984 comeback LP and a good selection of her best stuff with her ex-husband - but her life story is just titanic. Like anyone who's been subject to abuse, whether at the hands of a partner or your family, can find solace and inspiration in Tina Turner, even if you've never seen or heard a single one of her amazing performances. The fact she made it this far after so many horrendously low points in her life is moving as hell. This sounds corny, but had I ever met her, I feel like if I would have broken down crying.

RIP Anna Mae Bullock, RIP Tina

http://www.youtube.com/watched?v=Yj3WhcGoSA4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yj3WhcGoSA4

rip tina, fuck ike forever

amen

xp to birdistheword

I was so happy "I Don't Wanna Fight" became this surprise smash in 1993: she doesn't rise above the period A/C production, she owns it. I wanted her to keep having them.

found an old comp of ike-n-tina that i have never been able to rip due WB cd weirdness of a certain era.
hopefully tomorrow once i boot up my old XP machine then i will be able to add it to to the archive.
has been on the 'to do' pile for ages.

https://www.discogs.com/release/4533495-Ike-Tina-Turner-Greatest-Hits

so true, I love that song, for so many reasons

xp to Alfred

yeah it’s gorgeous

her vocal on the "i don't wanna fight" bridge might be the best of her career

“I’m so saddened by the passing of my wonderful friend Tina Turner,” Jagger captioned a series of photos of him performing with the late icon from decades past. “She was truly an enormously talented performer and singer. She was inspiring, warm, funny and generous. She helped me so much when I was young and I will never forget her.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wyuwJP-u9Q

RIP, Cher is talking about this right now on MSNBC

I don't know why, and this makes no sense, but I never thought about the possibility that Tina Turner would die

Martyn Ware, perhaps unsurprisingly given his role in her renaissance, has turned into a one-man RT machine of just about every last tribute to her he can find:

https://twitter.com/martynware

I don't know why, and this makes no sense, but I never thought about the possibility that Tina Turner would die

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown),

exactly my first reaction

the ike adulation looks terrible totally separate from what it means to use it to handwave away what tina was

but tbh it always struck me as tryhard muso opinion *even aside from that aspect* because any glance at a sixties/seventies tina live performance clearly demonstrates a goddess

Tina Turner hanging off the Eiffel Tower.

One of Peter Lindbergh’s most iconic photographs. pic.twitter.com/TzkhHadVpX

— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) May 24, 2023

RIP Tina, queen, goddess, auntie

i'd forgotten how nasty some ILM threads used to be back then, tear down the old gods or what have you

was inspired to look up the date of my first stadium concert which had mentioned way upthread Aug 5, Capital Center in MD Aug 85 so 13 at the time, Tina was really a force of nature - and truly seemed immortal

she will be missed

and that Eiffel tower photo is iconic

Yeah it felt for a while the popular opinion was her solo material paled to the Ike and Tina stuff, but I grew up on her solo songs, love many of them, and I know that era far better than the Ike and Tina one. RIP

Temporarily breaking silence for a RIP VMIC

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9F942fNKIc

IIRC there's no satisfying compilation of the Ike & Tina years, partly because no one wants to go through the hassle of licensing across so many different labels. Time-Life did a three-disc set that comes sort of close, but it's still missing some EMI-owned tracks and most egregiously the original "River Deep - Mountain High" (probably still owned by Phil Spector's estate but possibly easier to license now that he's dead). A shame because a two-and-a-half hour collection of that era or even a broader one extending into her solo years would be absolutely essential. I probably lean towards those years with her ex-husband, but no LP from that era matches the statement she makes with What's Love Got to Do with It and no single, not even "River Deep - Mountain High," gets under my skin as strongly "What's Love Got to Do with It."

My favorite Tina cover is Missing You

she absolutely belts the shit out of this live version, it gives me goosebumps

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTVEE3id7Kc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEw0FSxCO5g

fkn iconic… so good!!

can we go back to when she was alive
this sucks so hard

I don't know why, and this makes no sense, but I never thought about the possibility that Tina Turner would die

^^^ I mean this is like finding out that Wonder Woman is mortal.

i also love love love her cover of Help
she does it in the style of the John Farnham version from 1980 (which i also love) and wow talk about taking you to church

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoQKXdQ3U8Y

jfc this starts off even worse than the Bonnie Raitt thread. og ilm was a hellhole.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKTlK4E2gaU

Brian Johnson auditioned for AC/DC with Nutbush City Limits, which is such an insane vocal performance but presumably he nailed it, or got close enough anyways

But yeah fuck Ike and boo to the start of this thread, what a legend

I too assumed she was immortal. I had the same feeling when I heard James Brown died, like hearing someone say, “oh, the sun, yeah, it stopped, it’s not a thing anymore.”

Among the many things that piss me off about corporate media consolidation is the fact that individual radio DJs (or even program directors) apparently no longer have any control. That is, all the Clear Channel stations are so tightly controlled that, when I flipped around the radio hoping to hear tributes to Tina Turner today, it was the usual playlists on the oldies stations. I’m reminded of what Carlos Santana said about how broadcast media in France immediately switched over to all-Miles Davis programming when he died; something like that seems sadly inconceivable these days. When James Brown died, I was driving through the northeast, and throughout the whole trip from DC to Massachusetts I could easily find 3-4 stations simultaneously playing all JB.

I had no idea Pepsi had Bowie and Tina in a commercial at the height of the cola wars.

I remember the Pepsi ad - which reminds me of a photo should find from her 83 Ritz residency I believe with Tina pouring champagne down Bowie's throat while Keith Richards lurks in back clutching a bottle of Jack Daniels

but saw George Miller sharing his memories of Tina in the Guardian and starting off with 'When someone was such a life force, you don’t expect them to go.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/may/25/tina-turner-remembered-by-mad-max-director-george-miller-she-was-the-opposite-of-a-diva

Tina's Pepsi ad We got the taste sampled here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qU2yaNQvmbI

hmmm. it didn't add the timestamp. is at 4.10.

H - saw it just this morning -

pic.twitter.com/TcLaiHfkOO

— Bowiesongs (@bowiesongs) May 24, 2023

RIP Tina

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrLl1o1shos
I think this may have been the footage that made me sit up and listen to Tina. If so I saw it in a bill in the Scala one New Year in the early to mid 80s. I did think it had a version of I Can't Believe What You Say in it.
Anyway extremely energetic performance.
the Kent Years cd is really good too but is lacking versions of songs I thought were on it. What is on it is pretty solid though from what I remember. Mid 60s r'n'b/soul that largely rocks. When it's not being more atmospheric like.

Looking at that Big TNT Show clip again alongside some slightly later footage, and it's striking how modernly and openly sexual Tina & the Ikettes are, particularly given the standards of the time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xq1mEX08DYs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdinfZKA_Fw

^^"The Acid Queen" from the Tommy movie.

I'm sad about this death, but in some ways it's good to encounter this sort of untainted closure. Did anyone really have anything bad to say about Tina Turner? She got to live to a respectable age, got to be wildly successful, inspired millions, doesn't really have any dings against her name. This is how you live a life, or relive a life, in her case.

I get all that. Kinda felt the same way about Aretha. Will feel the same way when we (hopefully a long, long, long time from now) lose Dolly.

Is it Claudia Lennear upfront in that TNT clip?

Looks like she didn't write much after leaving Ike, but I cannot imagine a better autobiographical song than Nutbush

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_songs_written_by_Tina_Turner

The Bowie/Turner/Keef pic is supposedly from the night that Bowie told the EMI crew "Yeah thanks for your party but I'm going to see my favorite singer" so they all tagged along and that led to her signing eventually and etc. Per Rob Sheffield's story in RS, Ron Wood and the three of them apparently just took over a hotel piano and did Motown covers the rest of the night while getting sloshed. How to live, if you ask me.

Holy shit

Yeah, typical masterful Bowie PR tactics at work.

bendy: in my obit I mentioned a couple other Tina-written numbers. I'm fond of this one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUZQWLw84MM

I love this line Sheffield quotes from Debby Miller's Private Dancer review: "Last year, I heard Tina Turner sing that awful Terry Jacks song ‘Seasons in the Sun’ on television, and she found something in it that broke her heart. Imagine her doing the same thing to good songs.”

That did of course start out as a decent song before somebody translated it mawkishly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2J-5NfXbSiA
I got a really good 2cd of Brel on something like Primo a few years ago that i got into quite heavily at the time.

Did anyone really have anything bad to say about Tina Turner?

I remember, in the 80s, that her performing in apartheid-era South Africa was controversial enough for them to ask her about it in a TV interview.

Pete Townshend:

https://www.thewho.com/tina-turner-1939-2023/

“Sad to hear we have lost Tina Turner. She had been ill for a long time, and struggling to stay in touch with old friends. She will have some peace now.

An astonishing performer, and astounding singer, she was also an R&B groundbreaker. We don’t want to say too much about Ike Turner – her abusive husband – but her early records with him were simply out of this world. She always took flight when she worked with him, leaving him like a fifth wheel, chipping away at his basic riffs. When she was finally free of him her work ascended to new, even higher heights. It didn’t seem possible.

If you ever had the privilege of seeing Tina perform live you will know how utterly scary she could be. She was an immense presence. A female Little Richard. She seemed like a giant: shaking, sexual, physical and stunningly beautiful. In the flesh she was fragile, vulnerable and a truly sweet and empathetic person.

She was of course my Acid Queen in the Tommy movie, and it is often my job to sing that song with The Who, so she always comes into my mind. It isn’t easy to deal with. The song is about abuse at the hands of an evil woman. How she turned that song on its head! All the anger of her years as a victim exploded into fire and bluster and a magnificent and crazy cameo role that will always stay with me.

She has been in my mind for the last ten years, I kept meaning to track her down, and see how she was. I truly thought she would live forever.”

The South African show was before Private Dancer, which is not to let her off the hook.

Good read, this:

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/tina-turner-country-music-album-legacy-1234741627/

Always wondered why she recorded so little after the 80’s

Pretty amazing even aside from obv. context https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUCm99rKA28

During the blog days I downloaded her country album -- it's no hidden classic but it deserves recognition and absolutely needs to be written about.

Haven't heard that!
xpost May not be the best take of this from the vast post break-up spills, but close enough (& omg Bill Withers strikes again)

The South African show was before Private Dancer, which is not to let her off the hook.


I suspect there were unscrupulous promoters for Sun City who misled many of the acts regarding the true nature of the situation (e.g., that Sun City being in Bophuthatswana meant it wasn’t “technically” part of South Africa, so performing there didn’t violate the boycott). I wouldn’t be surprised if Tina Turner had essentially been tricked into the gig, or at least that the truth about the situation in South Africa, as it relates to performing there, was kept from her.

(To be removed from the UN blacklist, an artist had to issue an apology and refuse to return to South Africa. The O’Jays did, and were apparently deeply embarrassed about the situation. I’m not aware of any others who made an apology. Linda Ronstadt made a point of refusing to do so.)

xps Don't forget, she more or less retired from recording and performing in 2000 after she had enough of showbiz and came back only for a 50th anniversary tour before retiring again. I think she just had enough - she was in her 50's by the time the '90s rolled around and she toured relentlessly since she was 20. She already recorded a LOT of records, and I think as the '90s wore own, she started winding down. I don't think she really lived both comfortably and happily in luxury until the mid '80s (she was still paying off massive debts for a few years after her own breakthrough) so it kind of makes sense if she wanted have more time off for herself.

okay so there's no good way to do this other than acknowledging he was a fucking monster, but I think Townsend's framing here:

"She always took flight when she worked with him, leaving him like a fifth wheel, chipping away at his basic riffs."

is pretty bogus. Ike was a great guitarist, an arranger, session musician. you could argue "Rocket 88" is the ur-text for rock n' roll, a full four years before Chuck Berry releases "Maybelline". His ratty almost proto-punk tone on stuff like "Nutbush City Limits" is striking today. Those Ike & Tina records sound great, even as you have to acknowledge the suffering that went into them.

True. Ike Turner is exhibit A when it comes to great talents who are exactly the opposite of what we would hope they would be in their personal lives. In terms of the records he made without Tina, I have Rhythm Rockin' Blues from Ace (a collection of Modern recordings he was involved with) and Trailblazer from Charly (a collection of Federal recordings). The latter probably features his best work, particularly for the guitar playing - it's the closest thing to the 1976 Red Lighting' compilation I'm Tore Up on CD, an LP Robert Palmer highly recommended in Deep Blues. I also have the 1993 Cobra Records box set where he plays on a lot of tracks and has some credited to him and his band. Nearly all of these recordings feature a lot of different singers fronting them, all before Tina.

One thing that's frightening about Ike is when I first saw him on a PBS special on Sun Records. He was interviewed with Sam Phillips and there was no mention of his wrongdoings, just his involvement at Sun (which took me by surprise - I didn't know or forgot that "Rocket '88" among others was recorded there). He was actually jovial and turned on the charm. If you didn't know better, you'd think he was an all right guy who may be a lot of fun. To be honest, I'm sure that's why he was able to abuse so many women - if he didn't have any charisma, I don't think he could've drawn so many under his influence and manipulate them the way he did. It's not until I saw his other TV interviews (check for Arsenio Hall and I think Whoopi Goldberg on YouTube) that he revealed himself to be an unrepentant shit. Not an iota of remorse when he was questioned about his past.

The take of "Use Me" I have (somewhere) is on the apparently legit comp Golden Empire, with the Pre (?)-Princely/totally I & T title track and other analog funktronic support, incl. a bit of pleasingly primitive synth (or something), going good w guitar & voc; some of these were demos for the Stones, according to liners

you could argue "Rocket 88" is the ur-text for rock n' roll, a full four years before Chuck Berry releases "Maybelline".

If you haven’t already checked this out, I highly recommend it: https://500songs.com/podcast/rocket-88-by-jackie-brenston-and-the-delta-cats/

it’s a natural digression so i’m not saying don’t talk about him ever… but if there is to be extended deep diving into him then i’d appreciate if you could do that on another thread (there’s at least three or more)

Tina is not synonymous with Ike and hasn’t been for 40 years and i want to make sure that boundary is clear to everyone ITT

FWIW, even if Ike wasn't such a monstrous shit, there was still something missing about his overall body of work - maybe a lack of artistic vision, but it says a lot that once Tina came into the picture, she seemed to remedy the problem to a certain extent, and you really see what she had when she found success with other collaborators. It's probably a good basis for an entire book, how the right singer fronting the band isn't necessarily just a voice or an interpreter for someone else's songs. I think that's partly why someone like Rod Stewart had such tremendous respect for Tina, because he knew what she was bringing besides her voice and stage presence.

Sounds right, thx
btw xpost

and other analog funktronic support

Are: Tina in the 2000s

She cut a handful of tracks for hits collections, but mainly stuck to touring occasionally and working in Vegas. Her 2009/10 tour was pitched as a farewell. She had a major stroke in 2013, which she a few years recovering from.

i also love love love her cover of Help
she does it in the style of the John Farnham version from 1980 (which i also love) and wow talk about taking you to church

📹

VG - totally understood, apologies for the digression I think there something about Townsend's dismissiveness of R&B playing as basic that rankled me but as you said it's not the time

Ike was a horrible person who was a marvelous producer. We talk about his guitar -- what about his Moog touches? Wonderful.

Townsend's dismissiveness of R&B playing as basic

Not to drag this out, but Townshend absolutely revered Jimmy Reed and Steve Cropper. And I think what he said about Ike was primarily“this is neither the time nor place to discuss him.”

(Apologies for the “Yeah! Stop replying-all, everyone!” but I just thought that point needed clarifying.)

Re Tina playing South Africa, had a vague memory of this from reading I Tina for a college class and if I recall correctly the South Africa tour was right after divorce when Tina was saddled with all the debts to promoters, IRS etc and supporting 4 kids and taking any job she could get.

She later described herself as naive about the South Africa situation - knowing it was segregated but feeling ‘well I grew up in a segregated country, and the shows are integrated, not white only’ and she later turned down offers from Sun City and other gigs and apologized.

OK, google tells me shows were in 79 and knew Dusty Springfield was deported from South Africa in 64 for insisting her shows be integrated, and I just found out Gram Parsons quit the Byrds in 68 rather than play in South Africa so there were def. people who were aware enuf but others continued to play even after the UN Cultural Boycott came into effect in 1980.

(Side note, my passport growing up had a stamp in it - good for all countries except South Africa - and the first Olympics old enuf to remember watching ’76 Montreal was boycotted by most African countries to protest New Zealand’s participation as they were breaking the sports boycott with the All Blacks playing in South Africa)

Reason I’d originally come back to thread was I found myself oddly moved yesterday when looking at the Martyn Ware twitter thread Ned had posted above.

He’d been happily posting about football and going to Wembley, then posted “Tina’s gone” and then there was an hour gap before next post when he paid tribute to her. It just felt like he saw the news, had to say something and then gather himself before writing a statement.

Thread

I have a story about Tina Turner. I worked for CBS News in the 1990s, and one assignment I had at "60 Minutes" was to watch old raw (unedited) interview footage, for some reason I can't recall. So I watched the raw footage of a 1996 Mike Wallace interview with Tina Turner.

— Leslie Molson (@lesliemolson) May 25, 2023

https://t.co/YRY0NBJZU9

Wow

Lizzo. Did. That.

That’s a fucking tribute. 💜pic.twitter.com/6FAAf9M9Ft

— LoLo Vonz (@LoLoVonz) May 26, 2023

this is wild and awesome

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtejfVN_tGc

Sirius/XM's Soul Town channel #49 is all-Tina for at least today!

Sirius/XM is also free this weekend for curious how listeners.

They just played this Bowie-penned number:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmvpZd1Bn5

^^"Girls", from Break Every Rule

That Lizzo clip is amazing.

Barely remember this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGHxjBftF_w

TIL that Ike & Tina borrowed half of their "Proud Mary" arrangement from the Checkmates Ltd.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvMGW9dLQVg

as C grisso mentioned, Soultown on sirius XM, which is ostensibly concerned with the soul diaspora from, say, 1961-1975, has been the Tina channel since saturday. I've heard "A Fool in Love" twice, a very clearly not 1963 recorded remake of "It's Gonna Work Out fine," "Nutbush City Limits" (i do love that moog break) each once, and "Proud Mary" and "River Deep" not once… the overwhelming majority played is the Private Dancer and post-Private dancer music… and since I never fucked with her 90s shit, hearing whatever song she does with Barry White is a treat! as is her version of "Unfinished Sympathy"… but its giving me the impression that, unlike peers like Aretha, before P.D., she doesn't have a lot of hugely enduring hits…like, have normies who like soul/R&B ever heard "A Fool In love?" or is it like expecting said normies to know "Rocket 88"? It appears that before P.D., her legacy rests on her live show, where she would do Stones covers or whatever songs happened to be big that she could do nice andf rough… what other songs did she do prior to PD other than the five I mention above could someone interested in R&B in the 1960s reasonably be expected to know?

and when I hear "The best" or "Steamy Windows," it makes me think that she must have had access to the same pool of songs and songwriters that Cher had in the late 80s… I can hear Tina doing ""heart of Stone" or " I Found Someone," same production ethic, same everything, really…

Ace of Base's "Don't Turn Around" was written for and performed by Tina.

Re your original point: no, she was never in the U.S. a major crossover artist other than the exceptions.

She is NOT Aretha.

this is wild and awesome

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown)

there's a special place in my heart for tina turner singing "gonna give you every inch of my dick"

wow there are dogshit opinions at the beginning of this thread

saw a cool post on facebook, paraphrasing:

the jist was "Nutbush City Limits" was a big hit in Australia the year that AC/DC formed. It was also apparently the first song they asked Brian Johnson to sing during his audition for the band. Listening through that lens the influence is very apparent especially in the guitar riff/tone...Johnson is such a dude I wouldn't think Tina until now but I could definitely see her influence on him.

hadn't heard this one before:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPZFBU_aUVo
Tina Turner - Unfinished Sympathy (Extended Olympic Mix)

I didn’t hear it until after she passed, but the original mix of her take on “Unfinished Sympathy” was really kind of an eye opener for me. I think I had a tendency to think of her post-PD material as a bit of a “Well, it’s nice she had the chance to come back and get her due” thing. But she certainly gives an incredible performance here that, if it doesn’t necessarily surpass Shara Nelson’s certainly matches its power and intensity – while also having a certain resonance because it’s Tina. The same is true of that performances linked upthread of “We Don’t Need Another Hero” and “Help.”

In retrospect, its kind of hilarious that Xgau was trying to tell us her voice was “shot” like forty years ago. Um, no.

what grade did he give dylan's latest phlegmfest?

it is so infuriating how little respect critics gave her throughout even when praising the material as if she was incidental to what made those records sound great

tbc he loved Tina Turner

Bob clearly thought her voice was gone back on Nutbush City Limits in 1973. As with all things Xgau, there's at least a hint of misogyny in his praise of female artists, ogling her legs, alluding to her submissiveness to Ike, the music industry, etc. But he was indeed a big fan.

Her vocal on Herbie Hancock's 2007 cover of Joni Mitchell's "Edith & The Kingpin" is quite something: a side to her that I hadn't heard before.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwDIJjYhQRo

^^A big discovery for me from the Sirius/xM playlist.