Tina Turner: My sons blame me for not finding themselves in life

Biography

One of the most popular singers of our time, Tina Turner, has always set high goals and pursued them without doubt or compromise. Success came quite late, but what a success. Today, on the threshold of her 80th birthday, the internationally recognized queen of rock and roll can safely say:

“I am happier now than I ever could have imagined.”

However, life, full of events and changes that would be enough for more than one biography, was not always so serene. The story of the cult singer is long-awaited fame and broken dreams, rebirth from scratch and happy love at the end, all in the best traditions of the American happy ending.

Young singer

Anna Mae Bullock (Tina's real name) was born on November 26, 1939 in Tennessee. She fell in love with singing at school, and from the age of 14 she often went to nightclubs with her older sister. At 16, she met musician Ike Turner there, and this meeting completely changed her life.

Anna began to spend days and nights in the studio and persuaded Ike to let her record some song. During this period, saxophonist Raymond Hill often stood up for her, with whom she eventually fell in love and gave birth to a son, Craig, on August 29, 1958.

One day, another recording was in jeopardy due to the fact that the guest vocalist did not show up, and Ike recorded Anna’s voice instead. He came up with her stage name - Tina Turner - and soon put the young singer into bed and proposed.

Childhood

In the childhood of Anna Mae Bullock, this is the singer's real name, there was nothing unusual that could portend a great future. In the provincial town of Nutbush, Tennessee, it was customary to listen to music on the radio, and the first stage for a girl with a clear and strong voice was the church choir.

Tina Turner in her youth

The family was neither strong nor particularly prosperous. The parents' relationship was far from ideal; they divorced and left their children. Anna and her sister were raised by their grandmother; after her death, the girls moved to their mother in St. Louis.

Tina and Ike Turner

The big city brought new meetings, hobbies and premonitions of something extraordinary. The girls attended a regular school and were fond of musical parties. The city was in full swing with lively evening life, and on her birthday, Anna and her sister found themselves at the Manhattan club, where The Kings of Rhythm often played rock. The leader of the group came onto the stage, took a guitar and began to sing, this was Ike Turner - the first serious musician and a real chance in the musical career of a future star.

Tina Turner's early years, childhood and family

Anna Mae Bullock (this is what Tina Turner's real name sounds like) was born in the town of Nutbush (Tennessee).
Her mother worked at one of the local factories, and her father was simultaneously a farmer, a worker and a deacon in the local Baptist church. When our today's heroine was only ten years old, her parents separated, and therefore she and her older sister were raised together with their grandmother. The old woman looked after the girls for several years. However, she subsequently began to fall ill often and soon died. After this, sixteen-year-old Anna May moved to St. Louis with her mother and sister.

Tina Turner in her youth

In her new place, Anna attended a local school and also lived the life of an ordinary girl. One of her main hobbies during this period was nightclubs. It was they who one day changed her whole life. The thing is that during the next party Anna Mae met musician Ike Turner, who at that time was the leader of the group “Kings of Rhythm”.

Having heard their performance, the girl was so amazed by the new music that she very soon began to ask Ike to let her perform with them. At first the musician was very skeptical. However, after much persuasion, he finally succumbed. And subsequently I never regretted it.

“Little Ann” became the real soul of the entire team. She was loved by the public, who perceived her signature stage style, characterized by an abundance of dancing, as something completely special. Thanks to this, the group gained popularity. The team recorded several bright hits, and therefore by the early sixties they became very popular.

At this point, Anna Mae and Ike Turner decided to get married. The singer took her husband’s surname and also decided to change her name. This is how Tina Turner appeared on the American stage.

Music

The musicians' performance amazed the aspiring singer with its novelty and expression; Ike was already a star then, and she only dreamed of the stage. Ike reacted skeptically to Anna’s offer to sing together, but promised that she would soon have such a chance. It is not known how long she would have had to wait for what was promised, but Anna’s desire to sing was so strong that she took advantage of the first favorable opportunity. The hour had come - at one party, in response to a playful offer from a band member to perform something for her sister, she simply took the microphone and sang Bebe King's hits with the passion of which she was only capable.

Tina Turner in her youth

Turner could not help but appreciate the talent - Anna became the vocalist of the “Kings of Rhythm” group. Ike had a presentiment of success and selflessly created his Galatea - he bought shiny dresses and jewelry, furs and concert stilettos, chose hairstyles and sent them to the dentist - this is how signature style elements arose: a snow-white smile, the most beautiful female legs on stage, tight-fitting outfits, a chic head of hair careless hair.

The special stage style and manner of performances were received with a bang by the public; “little Ann” quickly became the soul of the group, the leading soloist and the audience’s favorite.

Tina Turner's performances were very impressive

The group recorded several brilliant hits and was very popular in the 60s and 70s. The ascent to musical heights began with the theme “A Fool in Love” - the singer did not come to the recording, and the single was recorded by accident; in a short time it became a hit in America and brought the first widespread popularity. Then there were “It's Gonna Work Out Fine”, “I idolize you” and a cover version of “Proud Mary”, for which Tina Turner received her first Grammy.

In 1962, Anna and Ike decided to get married, so “Tina Turner” appeared on the scene: little Ike’s favorite character was the queen of the jungle, Sheena, and she turned into Tina, who became his own queen and savage from a fairy tale. The stage name from childhood remained for life and brought enormous popularity. The ambitious Turner left the group, Tina was to become a soloist and star in the new team.

Tina Turner in The Kings of Rhythm

The Ike & Tina Turner Revue quickly gained popularity and went on tour. The creative duo was gaining momentum, vocal parts and backing vocals were distinguished by complex performances, a dance rhythm that seemed to be slightly lame, and original electronic effects that were borrowed by many famous musicians.

Ike was a tough manager, musicians often changed, but Tina always remained a faithful partner in life and work. To earn good money, she was forced to work around the clock. Revue toured on a busy schedule, but dreams of a “star hit” did not come true until Phil Spector appeared on the horizon with a project for Tina, “River Deep Mountain Hight.” The single took an honorable third place in the British charts, and the fashionable British Rolling Stones invited the Turner couple to take part in their world tour.

During the tour, there was a famous meeting with a fortune teller, who predicted Tina great fame and brilliant prospects. It was then that the singer finally believed in herself and decided to leave the group. Ike’s harsh style of working with the group grew into tyranny, musicians increasingly left the band, and the group’s popularity began to decline. Constant drugs and uncontrolled expenses, scandals and beatings from her husband became unbearable, and Tina Turner on a July day in 1976 goes nowhere with a few cents in her pocket and the words:

“You take everything, ... I take my future.”

Having paid all the fines for failed contracts and failed shows, she relies only on her own strength and talent.

Infodays

What did I know about Tina Turner before this moment? The fact that she is a magnificent singer, famous throughout the world, her songs are included in the collection of golden hits of all times. Tina Turner is very often paraded on various projects by Russian artists. I usually don’t watch these shows, but I remember very well how Vitaly Gogunsky, the same Kuzya from Univer, portrayed Tina Turner on stage, sang beautifully and showed everyone his clean-shaven legs. I can imagine what a success this is and a great opportunity for an actor to show his best side: to get used to the image of Tina Turner herself!

This singer has a very interesting, strong, unique voice and an extraordinary style of performance, just remember how she moves, how much expression there is in her body curves! Short dresses reveal slender, graceful legs, a shock of hair on her head (the singer herself does not hide the fact that it is a wig), her face, despite her mature years, and this woman is already 78 years old at the time of writing, is not covered with wrinkles, it is smooth, young and not disfigured by plastic surgery. That's all I knew about Tina Turner until recently. But just a week ago I read an excerpt from her memoirs, and this woman’s revelations amazed me.

From the age of 19, Tina Turner was under pressure from her abusive husband, who beat her, humiliated her and constantly raped her, both mentally and physically. Ike and Tina, at that time still called Anna Mae Bullock, met when she was 17 and he was 25 years old. Ike was a musician, he had his own band, but he was just a local celebrity, singing in a club. Tina just came to this night spot to have fun. One day, Ike, in a fit of supreme pleasure from his chant, threw the microphone into the crowd of fans. Tina picked him up and began to sing; she surprised the aggressive musician with her unusual strong voice. From then on, Ike began to show interest in this young girl. He even took her into his group as a backing vocalist.

At the very beginning of their relationship there was no rudeness; the man taught Tina everything that he could do. There was no intimacy between these two; soon Tina fell in love with one of the band’s musicians and became pregnant with him, giving birth to a son, Craig, at the age of 18. He would later commit suicide at the age of 59. The causes of the depression that led to death were not established; an outwardly successful, balanced man took his own life by shooting himself in the head. But we'll get back to young Tina Turner. So, at the age of 18, she became a single mother, since the child’s father, having learned that he would have an offspring, fled at the first opportunity to distant lands.

Performing on stage with Ike Turner, Tina didn’t even think that one day she would become a world-famous singer, that some aunt named Natasha from distant Belarus, that is, I, would collect all her best photos on the Internet in 2020, will read her memoirs, be impressed and write this practically mediocre article. At that time, and it was the 60s of the last century, Tina Turner simply liked to sing. Gradually, the relationship between Ike and Tina grew from friendship into love. Ike has always been aggressive, but in moderation; at the beginning of his relationship with Tina, he still knew how to restrain himself; paranoia developed later, and the musician began to let loose.

The young girl had nowhere to go, a child in her arms, she wanted to sing, so she endured her husband’s violence, biting her lips. Ike began to beat and morally humiliate Tina Turner, most often he hit her on the head and face, and also broke her ribs; the mistresses of this aggressor constantly lived in their common house. A child was born together, the group's popularity grew, Tina Turner brought good income to Ike. One day he proposed marriage to her. This was not a romantic declaration of love, this guy simply wanted to protect himself from other women vying for him with the status of “happily married.” Tina Turner and Ike spent their wedding night in a brothel, he tried to please himself with a young prostitute, and forced his newly-made wife to watch it all. By that time, Ike was already practically impotent, so the pseudo-erotic scene with the priestess of love dragged on for a long time.

As the years passed, Tina Patience was always bruised, she had several concussions, and her husband’s caring, strong hands broke her jaw and ribs. It’s amazing, this woman looks as if she knows what she wants from life, is confident in her abilities, loves herself and values herself. It’s hard to imagine that she endured such abuse until she was 39 years old, and her husband even poured hot coffee on her face, after which the poor thing took a long time to recover, having received a 3rd degree burn.

Once Tina Turner even tried to commit suicide, she drank 50 sleeping pills, mentally said goodbye to this world and all its injustices, but they pumped her out. And then one fine day she decided to give up everything and leave Ike. It was an unplanned escape, she had only 35 cents in her pocket, her face was bloody, her clothes were stained, but she ran without looking back through a noisy highway, risking being run over like a dog. And this strong woman, at 39 years old, started all over again. After the divorce, she had only a singing pseudonym and two jaguars, donated by fans, at her disposal; the children remained with her ex-husband. Things went slowly, the public perceived her only in tandem with Ike, and in the end she managed to earn money solely to pay off debts and rent a small house. Tina Turner even had to clean her friends' mansions in order to somehow make ends meet. But in the end, luck smiled on the talented singer: money, fame, and recognition rained down on her like from a cornucopia.

Tina Turner and her current husband Erwin Bach.

She was 46 and he was 30 years old. They first met when Tina Turner was returning from tour; the EMI recording studio gave her a car as a bonus; the manager who chose it was Erwin Bach. Tina sat down in his Mercedes G-Wagon, and well... she was the one - love at first sight overtook her, fate brought these two together. She understood that she was no longer young, but she did not resist the call of her soul and body. The next time they met a few days later, it was at a certain banquet. They danced together, and Tina Turner whispered goodbye to Erwin Bach that when he was in her area, she would not mind making love to him. The man froze, he almost collapsed at her feet, not expecting such pressure from a world celebrity. Tina Turner was not a promiscuous woman; there were few men in her life, but what did a 47-year-old lonely beauty have to lose? She decided to take the bull by the horns!

Many believed that young Erwin was with her only for money, but they have been together for 32 years at the time of writing this article! And the main proof of Erwin Bach’s love was that he gave his kidney to his sick wife. But her husband could have simply waited for her death and received a huge part of the fortune, found himself a new, young woman and lived happily, but Erwin decided to keep the one he loves so much on this Earth! Tina Turner's life is not easy, it is full of events, ups and downs. This story struck me to the core, but it is not finished yet, despite the fact that it is already nearing the end...