Musicopedia: Tina Turner

Anne Mae Bullock (no familiarity with Sandra) is nearly 72 years old but has an energy of a teenager that most nowadays artists can only dream of. She is the grandmother and queen of rock'n'roll with the most beautiful pair of legs the show business has ever seen.

Despite ups and (mostly) downs in her marriage to Ike Turner she rebuilt her career after divorcing Ike in 1978 due to abuse issues. After few years away from the spotlight Tina Turner came back with more hit singles everyone knows and loves. To leave the music business for retirement in 2009 she did a farewell tour that brought an amazing and one of best live concert DVDs in history. But, let's take a look at her glamour career from the very beginning.

As African-American-Indian she started in gospel church choirs and moved onto rhytm & blues genre after meeting Ike. She was also a back up singer for many artists before she landed as one herself. For short time in the 70s Jimi Hendrix was a band member along Tina and Ike. At first, not everything went so well for Tina and Ike Turner who started as a duo called Ike & Tina Turner Revue. They were successful artists that wrote great all time favorite singles like Proud Mary and River Deep Mountain High in the early 70s, but it was hell for Tina as her husband abused her. In her memoir I, Tina, she went down the memory lane and wrote about marriage nightmare she went through. The divorce was finalized in 1978 and they went separate ways - according to Tina's statement she had no contact with Ike for 30 years. To help her dealing with the past she went from baptist to buddhist and claims that becoming more spiritual helped her gain confidence. In 1993 biographical movie about Tina was released with outstanding performance from Angela Bassett as Tina.

Note: Ike Turner died in 2007 from cocaine overdose (which isn't unusual for many artists).

Tina came back in 1983 with her hit Let's Stay Together and Private Dancer album the next year. She landed numerous movie roles including famous cameo in Mad Max along Mel Gibson that brought up We Don't Need Another Hero hit single from Tina. She also appeared in Tommy as The Acid Queen, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (reference to The Beatles).

Tina sold nearly 200 millions of albums and singles while tickets to her shows were best sold in history. No one you can think of has the energy, movement and voice brings teenagers and adults to her concerts, because barely anyone else's music brings people together like that, and she was doing it for the past 50 years on stage. Private Dancer album brought a lot of top rated singles starting from Private Dancer (written by Mark Knopfler) to What's Love Got To Do With It and I Can't Stand The Rain and it's her best selling album so far. She also took part in We Are The World USA For Africa charity song along other great artists like Michael Jackson. Her music and movie roles brought Tina many industry awards from NAACP to Grammy, Golden Globe and many more. Tina also owns her very Star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame and also holds a record (along with Sir Paul McCartney) for performing in front of the largest audience ever – over 184,000 people which took place in Brazil in 1988. Each of Tina's solo albums after Private Dancer were major worldwide success with some best songs of all time like The Best, cover of In Your Wildest Dreams or John Waite's Missing You. Her other movie songs include Goldeneye from James Bond movie series and Why Must We Wait For Tonight. She collaborated with many artists like Bryan Adams, David Bowie, Herbie Hancock, Mick Jagger, Eros Ramazzotti, Eric Clapton, Phil Collins and others.

Her energetic performances could make some artists jelaous and prove that you don't need to dress up as Mickey Mouse to gather crowds at concerts. Despite having some plastic surgeries and wearing uncountable amount of wigs no one can say she looks overdone or unnatural. She's got it.

There's even a street named Tina Turner Highway.

Let's recall some Tina's amazing performances from now and then.

This is how you perform at the age of 69 …

Hello, legs!

With Bryan Adams...

xoxo,

Kasia