By Elliott West
“Sometimes you’ve got to let everything go – purge yourself. If you are unhappy with anything… whatever is bringing you down, get rid of it. Because you’ll find that when you’re free, your true creativity, your true self comes out”.
Tina Turner
Introduction
It began in the sweat of toil, the cotton fields of Nutbush, Tennessee where a certain Anna Mae Bullock was born in 1939. A different time and a bygone age where you were judged on the colour of your skin and children worked alongside their parents picking cotton under the blaze of the searing sun. I am talking about the girl who would become a woman and one of the world’s biggest-selling musical artists, Tina Turner, but at this stage was just a dream. When her parents moved to Knoxville to work at a defence facility during World War II, Anna was sent to live with her grandparents, Alex and Roxanna, a deacon and deaconess, a far cry from the parents who she said didn’t love or want her.
Despite a reunion with her parents after the war had ended, her mother ran away when Tina was 11 to escape the abuse of her husband Floyd and he would subsequently leave two years later to be with another woman who he would go on to marry in Detroit. Tina and her sisters were sent back to live with their grandparents and it was here that she discovered the powerful draw of the Baptist church, joining the choir whilst working as a domestic for the Henderson family. A self-confessed tomboy, Tina would join as a school cheerleader and a member of the basketball team. After her grandmother died, she went to live with her mother in St Louis at the age of 16 and would go to work as a nurse’s aide at Barnes -Jewish hospital when she graduated from school.
Ike
Ike Turner could be described as the man who discovered Tina but in the end ultimately almost destroyed her. A taskmaster who she met in the Manhattan Club in East St Louis, falling in an almost trance when she heard him play in his band. This would be the start of a musical and later physical relationship that quickly turned abusive and toxic. Tina became a battered woman who literally lived with the bruises and scars that Ike inflicted on her, even to the point of utter depravity when he raped her with a coat hanger on one occasion. He taught her the foundations of being a great singer but ultimately he was the devil incarnate who wanted to live off her success but remain the centre of attention, keeping her prisoner in a unbearable marriage. A marriage that she only agreed to, to avoid another fight.They toured and toured until Tina was not only physically exhausted but couldn’t bear the abuse any more. After a very violent attack by Ike, she summoned up the courage to leave, crossing a main highway in the few clothes she had on, bleeding and an emotional wreck. All from a man who Tina said was initially good to her.
Success
The only thing that Tina kept of Ike’s was the stage name that he had given her. He wanted to own her but she left with the diamond that would cause her career to shine. Through the highs of the seventies and the lows of the early 1980s, Tina somehow managed to keep a burning desire to succeed even if that meant adapting her style. It wasn’t until 1983 that Turner became that superstar that we all remember and would go on to fill stadiums across the globe. Her trademark voice, big hair and frenzied dancing taught to her by Mick Jagger would produce a catalogue of smash hit singles that are still played across the airwaves and in personal collections. Finding solace with the man she called the love of her life, her second husband Erwin Bach, a man who she asked to make love to her when she went back to California. The pair would go on to live out their retirement in Küsnacht, Switzerland but she never could get away from the numerous interviews about Ike that she had firstly bravely revealed to Time magazine. A musical legend whose work is eternal and her spirit lives on in us, the fans. Tina passed away aged 83 after a long illness.
