Tina Turner: The trauma and triumph of a music legend

Published

2 years ago

May 25, 2023

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“Look what I have done in this lifetime, with this body,” said Tina Turner, in a documentary released about her life in 2021. “I’m a girl from a cotton field, that pulled myself above what was not taught to me.”

Tina Turner‘s life was a story of trauma and triumph – she was the star known for her energetic stage performances and her incomparable soulful, husky voice, who overcame several personal and professional struggles to become the Queen of Rock ‘n Roll.

Following her death at the age of 83, tributes have been paid to a “legend”, an “icon” and a “remarkable force of nature,” from fellow music stars to the White House, with clips of her biggest hits – including Proud Mary, Nutbush City Limits, The Best, We Don’t Need Another Hero, and What’s Love Got To Do With It – flooding social media.

‘The world loses a legend’ – tributes to Tina Turner

Throughout her career, Turner won a total of 12 Grammys and was a two-time inductee into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall Of Fame, as a solo artist and as part of the duo she formed with ex-husband, Ike Turner, in the 1960s.

She was the first woman to appear on the cover of Rolling Stone and a record breaker – previously holding the Guinness World Record for the largest paying audience for a solo performer, attracting an audience of 180,000 for her show at the Maracana Stadium in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1988.

And she also inspired an award-winning musical based on her incredible life – the story of the star who achieved stratospheric success, including sales of more than 100 million records worldwide, after overcoming years of abuse from both her father and ex-husband, and pushback from those who told her she could not make it as a solo star.

Tina Turner was born Anna Mae Bullock in Nutbush, Tennessee, on 26 November 1939, to parents Zelma Priscilla and Floyd Richard Bullock. At the age of 11, she moved to live with her grandmother after her mother left her abusive relationship with her father.

Aged 16, she joined her mother and sister Alline in the city of St Louis in Missouri, which is where she encountered her future husband for the first time.

She soon joined his band The Kings Of Rhythm as its first female member – and when she reimagined herself as Tina Turner in 1960, the group reformed to become the Ike And Tina Turner Revue.

That same year, Turner gave birth to their first child Ronnie and the couple wed in Tijuana, Mexico, in 1962. Ronnie was her second child; her first, Craig Raymond Turner, was with the saxophonist for the Kings Of Rhythm, Raymond Hill.

The group produced a string of RnB hits, including A Fool In Love and It’s Gonna Work Out Fine, but it was the release of River Deep – Mountain High in 1966 that saw their popularity soar around the world. The release was followed by a UK tour with The Rolling Stones as the band’s support act.

Songs such as Come Together, Honky Tonk Woman and Proud Mary helped cement their status, with the latter winning them a Grammy in 1972.

But behind the scenes, Turner was enduring abuse at the hands of her husband.

She stayed with him until 1976, but later revealed she had attempted suicide during their relationship. “I simply couldn’t take any more,” she wrote in her 2018 memoir, of the moment she hit rock bottom.

During their divorce, she reportedly asked for nothing more than the right to keep the use of her stage name, and she went on to reinvent herself as a solo star.

It wasn’t easy, with a slow start for debut album Tina Turns The Country On! in 1974, followed by Acid Queen in 1975, but Turner pushed back against those who told her that, as a black woman approaching 40, she would never make the transition to rock.

Throughout the 1980s, she rebuilt her career, with a string of hits starting in 1983 with a cover of Al Green’s Let’s Stay Together, and the 1984 release of her album Private Dancer. Her most recognisable song, a cover of The Best, was released in 1989. By then, her image of big hair and mini-skirts had become iconic, her famous legs becoming almost as famous as her distinctive voice.

In 1986, Turner was honoured with a star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame. Her first induction into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall Of Fame, for her work with Ike, came in 1991, though neither attended the ceremony. Her induction as a solo artist came some 30 years later, in 2021.

“If they’re still giving me awards at 81, I must have done something right,” she said in a recorded acceptance speech.

She was inducted by Angela Bassett, the actress who portrayed Turner in the 1993 film What’s Love Got To Do With It. Both Bassett and Laurence Fishburne, who played Ike, were nominated for Oscars for their performances.

“Imagine, a black girl from Nutbush, Tennessee, who embodied more talent than her small town could have ever dreamed,” Bassett said at the Hall Of Fame ceremony. “Imagine that same girl breaking through every barrier to one day make history.

“People still tell me how much Tina has meant to them. I know exactly what they mean, because she has meant that much and more to me. I too am one of those people blessed by Tina’s remarkable gift to inspire.”

In the 1990s, Turner joined the list of Bond musicians, voicing the title song for Pierce Brosnan’s Goldeneye.

After a brief break from showbusiness, she returned to the limelight in 2008 at the Grammy Awards, where she performed Proud Mary alongside Beyonce. Other notable duets through her career included performing with David Bowie, and with The Rolling Stones during Live Aid in 1985.

In 2008, she embarked on her 50th-anniversary tour, and in 2016 she announced Tina – The Tina Turner Musical.

In 2021, she sold the rights to her back catalogue after reaching an agreement with BMG for an undisclosed sum, and the last of her 34 UK Top 40 hits was released in 2020, when she re-recorded What’s Love Got To Do With It with Norwegian DJ Kygo.

Turner’s solo works include 10 studio albums, two live albums, two soundtracks and five compilations, which together have sold more than 100 million records. As well as her music, Turner also starred in films including Tommy in 1975, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome in 1985, and Last Action Hero in 1993.

In her personal life, she met music producer Erwin Bach in the 1980s and the pair married years later on the banks of Lake Zurich in Switzerland, where they lived. In 2013, Bach saved her life by donating her one of his kidneys, she revealed in her memoir in 2018.

She faced heartache that year, when her eldest son Craig died by suicide, and again in 2022 when her second son Ronnie died of cancer.

Known for her strength and resilience throughout her life, in an interview with the New York Times in 2019, she said: “I don’t necessarily want to be a ‘strong’ person. I had a terrible life. I just kept going.”

Turner always kept going.

And in what must have been one of her last interviews before she died, she told The Guardian exactly how she wanted to be remembered – as the Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll. “A woman who showed other women that it is okay to strive for success on their own terms.”

Entertainment

Meet TY From The Wyld – a former drill rapper turned conservation star

Published

1 day ago

March 8, 2025

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Meet TY From The Wyld - a former drill rapper turned conservation star

A drill rapper turned TikTok wildlife presenter hopes to “bridge the gap” between young people and climate change.

Growing up in Ladbroke Grove, west London, former music star TY was stabbed four times. He had fallen “into nonsense”, he says, but he always wanted something different for his life.

Wildlife and the environment are his real passions. Nowadays, you are more likely to see TY with a boa constrictor clamping on to his arm in the Amazon, or letting a tarantula crawl across his hands.

He tells Sky News he wants to help people “understand the severity of the planet right now”, but the route to his new calling hasn’t exactly been a straightforward path.

“I never had purpose,” the rapper explains. “Three or four years ago, I would not have seen myself in this light… As I fell into wildlife, I found myself again.”

Collaborations with US wildlife enthusiast Garrett Galvin – aka fishingarrett, one of the biggest wildlife content creators in the world – have certainly helped when it comes to amassing a growing following on social media as TYfromtheWyld.

But TY already had a substantial number of fans from his days as a platinum-selling drill rapper, having found fame as a member of the pioneering rap collective CGM (formerly known as 1011).

Alongside rapper Digga D, he made headlines when police caught the pair and three others in possession of machetes and baseball bats in 2017.

They ended up being given one of the UK’s very first music criminal behaviour orders, with the police arguing their songs incited violence – a move which triggered a debate about art censorship.

‘I never saw anyone that looked and thought like me’

“It’s a rough area, Ladbroke Grove, where I’m from,” says TY. “Crime started happening, I started getting into nonsense on the roads and as a young kid growing up you can get easily influenced by some stuff, so I kind of was lost for a while.

“Music was never my passion, I just fell into it. I grew up watching [TV naturalists and conservationists] Steve Backshall, Steve Irwin, but that world was so distant for me. I never saw anyone that looked and thought like me.

“Now I want to represent and be an inspiration for young people.”

Rapper AJ Tracey, who grew up in the same area of London as TY, says people need to understand that it’s all too easy to drift down the wrong path.

“What a lot of people don’t realise is that people aren’t choosing to be in the situation that they are… anyone who wants to change their life and do something positive 100% deserves a second chance, honestly, probably even a third or fourth chance, because we’re all humans and we make mistakes.”

Just don’t expect Tracey to be making an appearance in any of TY’s videos anytime soon.

“He’s with some dangerous animals,” he laughs. “I don’t know about that, I’m scared!”

On a more serious note, Tracey says successive British governments could learn from TY’s skills at engaging with young people.

“I feel like when the country’s making budget cuts, it’s the youth that miss out all the time… the people in power have got to really pull some things together.”

While there might not seem an obvious crossover between drill music and learning about the ecosystem, TY’s success clearly demonstrates that an audience is there.

“We’re not doing enough to help,” he says. “This is my mission, to save animals, save the world, and get as many people on board as I can.

“Maybe a guy like me, from a certain background, will just kick a lot of people up to just say, ‘Yo. He’s doing something’.”

Entertainment

Gene Hackman’s wife died from rare infectious disease around a week before actor’s death, medical investigator says

Published

1 day ago

March 8, 2025

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Police giving update on death of Gene Hackman and wife Betsy Arakawa

Gene Hackman’s wife died from a rare infectious disease around a week before the actor died, medical investigators have said.

The couple were found dead in their New Mexico home on 26 February, along with one of their pet dogs. Police have previously said there were no apparent signs of foul play.

At a press conference on Friday, chief medical investigator for New Mexico, doctor Heather Jarrell, gave an update on the results of post-mortem investigations carried out following their deaths.

Doctor Jarrell said Hackman’s wife, Betsy Arakawa, died from hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, a rare infectious disease. There were no signs of trauma and the death was a result of natural causes, she said.

The doctor said Arakawa likely died on 11 February, the date she was last known to have communicated with people via email.

She said Hackman had advanced Alzheimer’s and died from heart disease, with data from his pacemaker last registering on 18 February.

Due to his Alzheimer’s, “it’s quite possible he was not aware that [his wife] was deceased,” Dr Jarrell added.

The actor tested negative for hantavirus, a rare disease spread by infected rodent droppings.

Humans can contract hantavirus by breathing in contaminated air, and symptoms can start as soon as one week, or as long as eight weeks, later. It is not transmissible from person to person.

There were just seven confirmed cases of hantavirus in New Mexico last year, and Arakawa is the only person confirmed to have contracted it in the state in 2025. Between 1975 and 2023, New Mexico recorded a total of 129 hantavirus cases, with 52 deaths.

Santa Fe County sheriff Adan Mendoza said authorities are still waiting for data from mobile phones found at the property, but it is “very unlikely they are going to show anything else”.

“There’s no indication” that Hackman used a mobile phone or any other technology to communicate and the couple lived a very private life before their deaths, he added.

The cause of the couple’s dog’s death has not been confirmed but it is now known that Arakawa had picked the animal up from the vet, where it had undergone a procedure, on 9 February.

The procedure “may explain why [the dog] was in a crate at the residence” while two surviving dogs were found roaming the property, Mr Mendoza said.

Hackman, who was widely respected as one of the greatest actors of his generation, was a five-time Oscar nominee who won the best actor in a leading role for The French Connection in 1972 and best actor in a supporting role for Unforgiven two decades later.

At last Sunday’s Academy Awards, Morgan Freeman paid tribute to Hackman. “A community lost a giant and I lost a dear friend,” he said.

He met Arakawa, a concert pianist, in the mid-1980s and the pair married in 1991.

Entertainment

The Damned founding guitarist Brian James dies

Published

2 days ago

March 7, 2025

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The Damned founding guitarist Brian James dies

Brian James, founding member of The Damned, has died aged 70.

The guitarist, who was part of the group’s original line-up, wrote the first UK punk single New Rose and helped the band create their debut album, 1977’s Damned Damned Damned.

A spokesperson for record label Easy Action said: “I can confirm that Brian passed away peacefully yesterday with his family present.”

James’ fellow band member, bassist Raymond “Captain Sensible” Burns, said in an Instagram post: “The riffmeister, Brian has gone – that final act that happens to us all, for most is a sad and miserable affair but while it’s truly awful our mate has been taken I prefer to celebrate the life… and what a life Brian James had.”

He added: “And looking back I have to say what an absolute gent Brian was… despite having to occasionally endure some pretty appalling behaviour by yours truly he never once lost it with me – and whenever we met over the following decades we would have a drink and a bloody good laugh.”

A statement on James’ Facebook page said he was “one of the true pioneers of music, guitarist, songwriter, and true gentleman” and a musician who was “incessantly creative and a musical tour de force” over his long career.

It said: “With his wife Minna, son Charlie, and daughter-in-law Alicia by his side, Brian passed peacefully on Thursday 6 March 2025.”

The Damned supported the Sex Pistols on their Anarchy Tour of the UK and went on to play with T Rex on Marc Bolan’s final tour before he died.

James left the band after it released its second album, Music For Pleasure, and was part of the short-lived Tanz Der Youth before he formed The Lords Of The New Church with American singer Stiv Bators and drummer Nick Turner.

The band released the songs Open Your Eyes, Dance With Me and Method To My Madness.

James went on to work with The Dripping Lips, create his own band the Brian James Gang, and release solo albums.

In 2020 he and The Damned lead singer Dave Vanian, drummer Christopher “Rat Scabies” Millar and Burns announced the band would reform more than four decades after it began in 1976.

James performed with the group in 2022.

Burns said: “When BJ, Rat, DV and myself got back together for The Damned originals shows it was magical in all sorts of ways… that we were chums again of course but also the way we managed to recreate our ’76 garage punk sound right from the first chord in rehearsals.

“We were all up for doing it again too… but that’ll never happen now, sadly.”

The band’s set in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on Friday would be dedicated to James, he added, “without whom The Damned would never ever have happened”.