TINA TURNER 1939-2023 SIMPLY THE BEST

BRAVERY, PERSISTENCE AND TALENT HELPED THE SINGER TURN HER LIFE AROUND AND BECOME A LEGEND

- LOUISE A. BARILE

On stage, Tina Turner was a hurricane. She’d sing and shout in her unmistakable raspy voice, shimmying and twisting with hair flying, arms outstretched and legs that seemed to go on forever. Her electric live performances made her a superstar and gave her the financial security to live a peaceful, quiet life in her last years. “I love to sit in my garden and listen to nature, take loving care of my plants,” she said in a 2021 email interview from her longtime home near Zürich, Switzerland.

Tina, who was born Anna Mae Bullock in Brownsville, Tenn., passed away on May 24 at age 83. She’d struggled with many health issues, although a transplant of a kidney donated by her beloved husband Erwin Bach in 2017 bought her a few more years. “With her,” Tina’s publicist Bernard Doherty said in a statement announcing her passing, “the world loses a music legend and a role model.”

The performer grew up singing in church and used to go see Ike Turner’s Revue in St. Louis, where she moved with her mother after her parents split. “I wanted to get up there and sing sooooo bad,” Tina recalled in her first memoir,