Tina Turner: Remembering Private Dancer and more

She was the powerful presence on stage. Her powerful voice matched by these powerful yet sensual legs that just made her a force to be reckoned with.




During the 1980s, Tina Turner re-emerged on the music scene as a solo artist who could bring it every time she appeared on a stage or screen.




Yesterday, the news broke that Tina Turner died at the age of 83.




It brought back all these memories of a period in the 1980s when she was simply the best.




The years before

Tina Turner had gained success and stardom performing with her husband Ike Turner in the Ike and Tina Turner Revue in the 1960s, 1970s and into the 1980s.




By 1983, Wikipedia reveals Tina Turner had become a nostalgia act.




That all changed in 1984 in what has been called one of the greatest comebacks in music history.




“Private Dancer”

Tina Turner’s 1984 album “Private Dancer” coincided with the time I started listening to music. The first single I heard was “What’s Love Got to do With it”, I recall the video of Tina Turner walking and those powerful legs being highlighted. It was actually, as I recently discovered, the third single released off that album.




That song went all the way to number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and was her only number one single. It was the second biggest single of 1984 and made Turner the oldest solo female artist, at age 44, to top the Hot 100 to that point.




She followed that up with “Better be Good to Me” in 1984, which went all the way to number five on the Billboard Hot 100. The song also appeared on the “Miami Vice Soundtrack”.




My favourite single from that period was the next release off that album. It was the title track “Private Dancer” and went all the way to number seven in 1984. What I just loved was that it was written by Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits fame.




She capped off her comeback winning three times at the 1985 Grammy awards. She took home Grammys for record of the year for “What’s Love Got to do With it”; best vocal performance female for “What’s Love Gotto do With it”; and best rock vocal performance female for “Better Be Good to Me”.




“What’s Love Got to do With it” also won song of the year, for song writers Terry Britten and Graham Lyle.




The cause of others

Tina Turner seemed to be everywhere as the 1980s continued. When famine and starvation killed millions in Africa, artists banded together in common cause to raise funds for famine relief.




One such effort was USA for Africa, where American artists banded together to sing “We Are the World” in 1985. Tina Turner was right there, singing her part, the words, “We are all a part of God’s great big family”




The song sold more than 20 million copies, raising more than $63 million for aid in Africa and the U.S. That would translate to about $168 million today.




Following on the heels of Band Aid, Northern Lights, and USA for Africa, was a fundraising concert called Live Aid. It was two concerts in mid-July of 1985, one at Wembley Stadium in London, the other at JFK Stadium in Philadelphia. It was in the City of Brotherly Love that Tina Turner brought down the house, singing a high energy duet of “State of Shock” and “It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll” with Mick Jagger, lead singer of the Rolling Stones.




I remember watching that in the living room of my friend Chris Vining, on July 13, 1985. We both just kept saying, “Boy can they rock.” Then she ripped her skirt. It was awesome.




“It’s Only Love”

Turner had another high energy, all-out duet in 1985. This time she teamed up with Canadian rocker Bryan Adams for “It’s Only Love”, which was the sixth and final release from his 1984 breakout album “Reckless”.




It peaked at number 15 on the Billboard Hot 100 in January of 1986; and peaked at number 14 in Canada. The song was nominated for a Grammy for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal, and won an MTV Video Music Award for best stage performance.




Hitting the movies

The hits kept on coming for Tina Turner, as she ventured to Australia in 1985 to play alongside Mel Gibson in the third installment of the Mad Max trilogy, called “Mad Max III: Beyond Thunderdome”. The story continues the journey of Max, played by Gibson, in a post-apocalyptic world that began with “Mad Max” and continued in “The Road Warrior”.




Turner contributed two songs to the soundtrack, that both had a haunting quality to them. “We Don’t Need Another Hero” utilizes the voices of a children’s choir to give it an extra haunting quality. Wikipedia reveals that group was a choral group from King’s House School in Richmond, London. “We Don’t Need Another Hero” was released on July 8, 1985, and went all the way to number two on the Billboard Hot 100, one of her biggest hit singles.




“One of the Living” was released in Sepember of 1985 and peaked at number 15 on the Billboard Hot 100. The song, and Turner, also won the Grammy for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance in 1986.




Rule breaker

“Break Every Rule”, Turner’s much anticipated follow up album to “Private Dancer” was released in September of 1986, and it did not disappoint.




The first single was “Typical Male”, which went all the way to number two for three consecutive weeks on the Billboard Hot 100, in October of 1986.




“Two People” was the second single off “Break Every Rule”, released in October of 1986, and peaking at number 30 on the Billboard Hot 100. “What You Get is What You See” was released in February of 1987 and went all the way to number 13 on the Billboard Hot 100.




“Back Where You Started” was written by Bryan Adams and his song-writing partner Jim Vallance, and it won Turner her third straight Grammy for Best Rock Vocal Performance, Female. It did not chart, because it was never officially released as a single.




Best for last

Tina Turner closed out the decade by releasing “Foreign Affair” in 1989. It was her seventh studio album and featured the song “The Best”, which was released in August of 1989. “The Best” went all the way to number 15 on the Billboard Hot 100 and became one of her signature songs.




The years after

Turner continued to keep on performing and recording. Her life story was brought to life in the 1993 movie “What’s Love Got to do With it” where she contributed the single “I Don’t Want to Fight” to the soundtrack. It peaked at number nine on the Billboad Hot 100. She also recorded the title track for the James Bond thriller “Goldeneye” in 1995. It was written by The Edge and Bono of U2.




Parting thoughts

What can you say about Tina Turner. At an age when a lot of people were beginning to slow down, she was just getting started.




She was inspiring, not only for her amazing comeback in the 1980s and all the adversity she overcame, but for the way she performed on stage. She just went out there and gave everything she had. She will be sorely missed for her music, her courage, dedication and energy.




There was no one like Tina Turner.