WHEN Tina Turner lifted her raw, high-strung voice and unleashed What’s Love Got To Do With It at the 1985 Grammy Awards, the standing ovation began before she finished.

Years later, she wrote of that moment, which crowned one of the greatest comebacks in music: “I think I spoke to all the people who dream of getting a second chance.”

9

9

The singer, who died today aged 83, not only had one of music’s most powerful voices – she also had one of its most powerful stories.

After years of abuse that cut her off from the world, robbed her of her identity and even a sense of life, she broke free.

She was then dismissed as an aging wash for years, before roaring back with an album that changed the world’s idea of ​​what a rock star could be.

Along the way, she taught Mick Jagger how to dance, which John Lennon called the greatest single ever recorded – and provided the backdrop for some of Prince William’s happiest memories of his mother.

Tina Turner was born Anna Mae Bullock on November 26, 1939 and grew up in Nutbush, Tennessee.

Her parents fought violently and when Tina was 11, her mother Zelma left.

Father Floyd took off soon after and dumped Tina and older sister Alline on family members.

Tina always believed that her mother never even loved her, and admits: “It’s a heavy burden for a little girl to carry.”

But at 16, Tina rejoined Zelma in St. Louis, Missouri.

There, in 1956, her sister took her to a club to see Ike Turner, who a few years earlier had recorded what is now often considered the first rock ‘n’ roll single, Rocket 88.

More than 50 years later, Tina still remembered the first time she heard him strum a guitar string, which unleashed an energy that sent her into “a trance.”

She and Alline became regulars, and one night when one of Ike’s bandmates tried to get her sister to sing into the microphone, Tina grabbed it instead.

At the time she thought her voice “was quite ugly because it didn’t sound like Diana Ross”.

9

9

But Ike was blown away by her rasping, powerful sound and immediately made her part of his act.

Tina later said: “He was the best then.

“When I met him, I was in awe.

“I gave myself up.”

Ike controlled her singing, dancing and looks, and when record companies began to see her potential by 1960, he changed her name to Tina Turner to make sure it was associated with his.

By then, Tina had son Craig with another band member.

He left her so she reluctantly began a relationship with Ike.

But she wouldn’t change her name – and when she said as much, Ike responded by bashing her in the face with a shoe rack and then raping her.

Tina was shocked.

She was pregnant by Ike, and believed that she depended on him for her career.

So she stayed, despite frequent beatings and rapes, and hating herself for staying.

That self-hatred robbed her of any self-belief.

She admitted in 2021: “I lived a life of death. I didn’t exist.”

Stunned, she agreed to marry Ike in 1962.

In her 2018 autobiography My Love Story, Tina wrote: “People can’t imagine what kind of man he was – a man who takes his brand new wife to a live, pornographic sex show right after their wedding ceremony.”

But in 1965, she got her first glimpse of freedom, when producer Phil Spector wrote River Deep, Mountain High for her.

Spector, Tina later said, “stripped all traces of Ike from my performance” and harnessed her power.

She wrote in 2018: “I feel it even now, how exciting it was to be given permission to use my voice in a new way.”

9

9

The track flopped in the US. But in the UK his extraordinary, surge of sound and emotion was a sensation.

It reached No3 and John Lennon declared it the greatest single ever recorded.

Meanwhile, The Rolling Stones asked Ike and Tina to open for them on their 1966 UK tour.

Tina was shocked by how Mick Jagger stood still on stage and occasionally shook a tambourine, so took him aside and showed him how to dance and strut.

But at home, Ike stepped up his game and made sure her rising fame never translated into confidence.

He also took every penny they made and didn’t even give her an allowance.

Tina later admitted, “I was insanely scared of him.”

Her first step toward freedom came in 1973, when an acquaintance mentioned Buddhism as a way to make a change.

In her book, she wrote: “When I embraced Buddhism, I realized that I alone was responsible for my life.”

She also learned that she could not see her years of suffering as shameful weakness, but as a foundation for unimaginable strength.

Tina finally left Ike in July 1976 – running away in the night after another beating.

Still bleeding, she found a hotel where the manager, despite only 36 cents, not only gave her a room, but also sent up soup and biscuits.

It was a kindness she remembered for the rest of her life.

When she filed for divorce, she asked for nothing but the use of the name Tina Turner.

It symbolized Ike’s ownership of her.

Now she takes it for herself.

But record companies weren’t interested—and she scraped together a living singing covers in clubs and performing on TV variety shows.

9

9

Her breakthrough came again thanks to a Brit.

In 1983, David Bowie was in New York and mentioned to recording executives that he was on his way to see his favorite singer – Tina Turner.

That night the club was full of executives desperate to prove to Bowie that they shared the same taste.

Tina said: “It changed my life.”

The executives offered her a contract, and later that year she had a UK hit with a cover of Al Green’s Let’s Stay Together.

She moved to London, where her manager came across a track recorded by Buck’s Fizz, but never released.

It was called What’s Love Got To Do With It.

Tina’s megawatt version became the breakout hit from the 1984 album Private Dancer,

At the 1985 Grammys, it won Record of the Year, Song of the Year and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance – and her performance is still considered one of the greatest Grammy moments of all time.

The album sold 20 million copies and stayed in the US charts for over two years.

Then, in 1989, came The Best—the song Princess Diana used to play when she dropped her sons off at boarding school.

Prince William revealed in 2021: “She would ride along with the loudest voice.

“When I listen to it now, it takes me back to those car rides and brings back a lot of memories of my mother.”

In 1986 Tina met the German record manager Erwin Bach, 16 years her junior.

She later recalled that her hands trembled when they were introduced and said, “It means a soul has met.”

From 1988, the couple made their home on Lake Zurich in Switzerland, where Tina found the serenity she had always longed for.

But she continued to pack out stadiums on tour and eventually played her last show at Sheffield Arena in May 2009, aged 69.

Tina and Erwin got married in 2013, after 27 years together.

Three months later, she suffered a stroke and then developed bowel cancer, which led to kidney failure in 2016.

Erwin donated one of his kidneys to save her life.

But darker times were ahead, when eldest son Craig committed suicide in 2018 at the age of 59.

Despite all this, Tina said in 2020: “My life over the past ten years has been my ideal version of happiness.

“True joy does not mean having a problem-free life.

“True and lasting happiness comes from an unwavering, hopeful spirit that can shine no matter what.

“This is what I have achieved.”

9