Tina Turner, the earthshaking singer whose rasping vocals, sexual magnetism and explosive energy made her an unforgettable live performer and one of the most successful recording artists of all time, died on Wednesday at her home in Küsnacht, Switzerland, near Zurich. Her publicist Bernard Doherty announced the death in a statement but did not provide the cause. Ms Turner began her half-century career in the late 1950s when she began singing with Ike Turner and his band, the Kings of Rhythm. Their ensemble, soon renamed the Ike and Tina Turner Revue, became a premier touring soul acts in Black venues on the so-called chitlin' circuit. After the Rolling Stones invited the group to open for them, Ms Turner reached an enormous new audience, giving the Ike and Tina Turner Revue its first Top 10 hit with her version of the Creedence Clearwater Revival song "Proud Mary" in 1971 and the Grammy Award for best R&B vocal performance by a group.
Her solo album "Priv Tina Turner was born Anna Mae Bullock on Nov. 26, 1939, in Brownsville, Tenn., northeast of Memphis, and spent her earliest years on the Poindexter farm in Nutbush, an unincorporated area nearby, where she sang in the choir of the Spring Hill Baptist Church. Her father, Floyd, worked as the farm's overseer and had a complicated relationship with his wife, Zelma (Currie) Bullock. Her parents left Anna and her older sister, Alline, with relatives when they went to work at a military installation in Knoxville during World War II. After rejoining her mother in St. Louis, she attended Sumner High School there. She and Alline began frequenting the Manhattan Club in East St. Louis, Ill., to hear Ike Turner and the Kings of Rhythm. Ms Turner recalled wanting to get up there and sing so severely that it took a year.
One night, during one of the band's breaks, Eugene Washington handed her the microphone, and she began singing the B.B. King song "You Know I Love You". Mr Turner wrote in his book "Takin' Back My Name: The Confessions of Ike Turner" (1999) that Tina was his Little Richard. He used her as a backup singer on his 1958 record "Boxtop", and when Art Lassiter failed to show up for the recording of "A Fool in Love," she stepped in. The record hit No. 2 on the Billboard R&B chart and No. 27 on the pop chart. Mr Turner gave her a new name, Tina, inspired by the television character Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, and renamed the Ike and Tina Turner Revue group.
The Ike and Tina Turner Revue was a dynamic, disciplined ensemble second only to the James Brown Revue, but until "Proud Mary," it never achieved significant crossover success. Up to that point, it had only one single in the pop Top 20 in the United States, "It's Gonna Work Out Fine" in 1961. The group did generate several hits on the R&B charts, notably "I Idolize You," "It's Gonna Work Out Fine", and "Tra La La La La," but most of its income came from a relentless touring schedule. Ms Turner's relationship with Mr Turner, whom she married in 1962 on a quick trip to Tijuana, Mexico, was turbulent. She left him in 1976 and divorced him two years later.
Her marriage provided much of the material for the 1993 film "What's Love Got to Do With It," with Angela Basset and Laurence Fishburne in the lead roles. In 1966, record producer Phil Spector offered $20,000 to produce their next song, "River Deep, Mountain High," so Mr Turner would stay. Ms Turner struggled to build a solo career before signing with Roger Davies, the manager of Olivia Newton-John, in 1979. She returned to the gritty, hard-rocking style that had made her a crossover star and would propel her through the coming decades as one of the most durable performers on the concert stage. In 1982, Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh recruited her to record the Temptations' 1970 hit "Ball of Confusion" for an album of soul and rock covers backed by synthesizers. She followed the runaway success of "Private Dancer" with two more hit albums, "Break Every Rule" (1986) and "Foreign Affair" (1989).
She made an impact onscreen as well. In 1991 she and Mr Turner, in prison at the time for cocaine possession, were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. She received a Kennedy Center Honor in 2005 and a Grammy lifetime achievement award in 2018. In 1985 she began a relationship with the German music executive Erwin Bach, whom she married in 2013 after moving with him to Küsnacht and becoming Ms Turner's sister, Alline Bullock, who died in 2010. She raised two children of Mr Turner's, Ike Jr. and Michael.
She announced her retirement after releasing the album "Twenty Four Seven" in 1999. In 2008, she embarked on an international tour marking her 50th year in the music business. In 2018, she published her second memoir, "My Love Story." She and Mr Bach were executive producers of "Tina: The Tina Turner Musical," a stage show based on her life and incorporating many hits. Adrienne Warren, who starred as Ms Turner, won the award for best actress in a leading role. The show closed after four months due to the pandemic lockdown, reopening in October 2021 before closing again a year later and going on the road.
Through it all, Ms Turner's music endured. "My music doesn't sound dated; it's still standing strong," she told The Daily Mail in 2008.
