Tina Turner Page 23
Tina had the underlying suspicion that her mother never loved her. She suspected that she was an unwanted pregnancy. Then there were the lingering emotional issues that she felt from Zelma having abandoned her when she was a child. According to Tina, “I confronted her years later, when a European psychic explained to me that I had been an unwanted child while still inside her. I said, ‘Ma, I want to talk to you because we never got along.’ And she cried and told me the story. My mother never looked at me. When I was with Ike, she thought he did everything, because he was a star when I met him. It was as if Ike was the connection I made for them. It was very hard for my mother and sister to respect me for my talent. We were two people, but [Ike] took the credit. They weren’t even smart enough to see that I mattered. Eventually, I brought Ma to Paris, London, Switzerland, and New York to show her what the world was like, and she still didn’t believe that I had done everything for myself. When we got to my house in the south of France, she believed that my boyfriend had decorated it, even though he told her, ‘Tina is the interior decorator.’ Ma said, ‘I don’t think she did it.’ Finally, I proved it to her. At my house in Switzerland, everything was lying around—we were building—and in thirty minutes I put the house all together. She walked upstairs and she said, ‘You did all this?’ I said, ‘Ma, I told you! This is what I can do.’ And she was quiet. She realized, finally, in her own way, at her age, who I was” (3).
Tina claims that Zelma was not an easy woman to get along with. “She gave everybody a hard time. During her illness we went through twenty nurses. No matter how much pleasure I tried to give her, she couldn’t find her peace. She really suffered those eight months. Whatever her karma was, it reached in and squeezed the life out of her” (3).
At the age of eighty-one, Zelma died in the United States. Where was Tina at the time? “In Europe on a promotional tour for the new album [Twenty Four Seven], But I called daily. One afternoon I was preparing for a bath when Rhonda came in and said, ‘Tina, Ma died.’ And I just went, ‘Ahhhhhhhhhhh!’ ” (3).
Tina chose not to attend her mother’s funeral. She sensed that it was going to end up a media three-ring circus, so she stayed away. However, Ike Turner went to Zelma’s funeral. According to Tina, “He and Ma had kept in touch, and he showed up and was very upset that I wasn’t there. So he went to the newspapers, and all over Europe the press said, ‘Tina shuns her mother’s funeral!’ I wanted to give my mother her moment. Everyone called asking, ‘Is Tina going to be there?’ We said, ‘Don’t come just because of Tina.’ I wasn’t in the frame of mind to be stared at. I didn’t need it, nor did Ma need it from me. So I felt ‘let her have that day’ ” (3).
She let her mother be the star of her funeral. Then Tina went to the cremation. Her premonitions about the press getting involved proved correct. Tina recalls, “Somebody took pictures of me that appeared in the European papers, which said, ‘Tina is here after all.’ People saw Ike using my dead mother to get press. That’s when I really cried, when they put the casket into the crematorium, I could see the flames leaping, saw the fire catch her hair and clothes and suddenly thought, ‘I’m burning my mother,’ even though she wanted it. I thought, ‘She’s really gone now’ ” (3).
Throughout 1999, Tina had been at work on her next studio album, ultimately to be entitled Twenty Four Seven. The musical recipe for this album involved going to some tried and true song sources and delving into some fresh territory as well.
The songs that Tina chose for this recording have more of an overall upbeat pop feeling to them than her latest recordings. A well-crafted and exciting album, Twenty Four Seven showed Tina off as a fresh pop diva with rock & roll flourishes. There are no hard-core rockers with wailing guitars on this album, but eleven catchy songs about finding love, losing love, and being devoted to someone around the clock.
The album opens with “When the Heartache Is Over,” which was co-written by John Reid of The Nightcrawlers. It was produced by Metro, the London production team behind Cher’s multimillion-selling hit song “Believe,” and it features the same danceable beat and some of the same vocal sound effects.
From her long-time writer and producer, Terry Britten, came the crackling productions of “Absolutely Nothing’s Changed,” “Falling,” and the more traditionally rock & rolling cut, “Twenty Four Seven.” Graham Lyle, the cowriter of “What’s Love Got to Do With It” contributed the song “Talk to My Heart,” which he wrote with Johnny Douglas.
The album also includes a previously unrecorded song that was written by The Bee Gees’ Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb. It is the ballad about devotion titled “I Will Be There.” In addition, three tracks were produced by The Spice Girls/Geri Halli-well collaborators who call themselves Absolute.
To bring in some more familiar collaborators, the song “Without You” includes a “cameo” vocal by Bryan Adams. To give a couple of the songs a truly “grand” sound, “Go Ahead” and “Whatever You Need” feature The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by David Arnold.
According to Jane Stevenson of the Toronto Sun, “ Twenty Four Seven finds Turner in an upbeat, adult contemporary kind of mood on such songs as the strings-accompanied ‘Whatever You Need,’ ‘All the Woman,’ ‘Talk to My Heart’ (complete with a gospel choir), ‘Don’t Leave Me This Way’ and the Bee Gees-penned ‘I Will Be There.’ . . . Interestingly, too, this collection came together after Turner and Cher’s knockout performances at last year’s VH-1 Divas show, in which they both wiped the floor with Elton John, Brandy, and Whitney Houston” (43).
Reviewing Twenty Four Seven, Paul Elliot in Q Magazine wrote, “Gone is the grit of the music she made with former husband Ike. . . . Tina Turner remains a genuine superstar fifteen years after effecting the most unlikely comeback of the ’80s. . . . The first single, ‘When the Heartache Is Over,’ is a dance tune from the producers of Cher’s ‘Believe.’ These eleven tracks of grown-up pop should keep business ticking over smoothly” (44).
The next major event of the year occurred on November 26, 1999, when Tina Turner turned sixty years old. To celebrate her birthday, the hardest-working woman in rock & roll marked the occasion by doing one of the things that she did best—she performed a gala concert in London. It was a truly exciting event. In addition, Britain’s ITV broadcast a special to commemorate her birthday and celebrate her life. Tina’s birthday concert was captured on film, and it became the exciting DVD release The Best of Tina Turner—Celebrate! The triumphant concert found Tina performing several of her classics—from “River Deep-Mountain High” to “What’s Love Got to Do With It” to “The Best.” She also sang several of the tracks from her brand-new Twenty Four Seven album, like “When the Heartache Is Over” and an incredibly moving version of “Whatever You Need,” which found her backed up by The London Community Gospel Choir and The Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra. When she came to the song “Talk to My Heart,” she dedicated it to her late mother.
She looked truly stunning that night, and expelled an indefatigable amount of energy. It was hard to believe that she was actually sixty years old! Her dancers, girls in their twenties and thirties, looked like they were really struggling to keep up with the incomparable Tina Turner.
How did she feel about this milestone birthday? “Well . . . it’s just mental,” she claimed. “I think I look all right. I think I’ve done pretty good, because I take care of myself. So I look OK. And I’m just about ready to sit down and sing, and not perform. In the really big arenas, you can’t always absorb the music. It’s almost like . . . eating without seasoning” (45).
She was in remarkable shape, appearing as sexy and energetic as ever. Did she feel any older? According to her, “Oh, it’s very real for me. Spiritually, I’m very much more aware. I’m not wise, but the beginning of wisdom is there; it’s like relaxing into—and an acceptance of—things. First of all, I’m happy that I’m healthy. I know a lot of people who reach this age and the body starts to break down. So I’m very pleased that
I’m just able to enjoy it. It’s like you look out at youth, and you say, ‘I’m happy where I am. I don’t need to move further up or further down.’ That’s where I am” (45).
When New Year’s Eve 1999 rolled around, instead of going to a party or celebrating quietly, Tina presented a huge millennium concert show. “I was in Las Vegas when the century changed,” she explained, “and it was a little bit quiet, let’s say. I would have preferred to have been celebrating with everyone else. But then I decided to work, and it’s been a hard year, a very strenuous year of working one-nighters on the road. It’s tough. Coming to an end, I feel that it was a long trip, of course, and very successful. . . . It seemed like it was inspirational, and a lot of people got a charge just out of the vitality that’s in the show. There’s five women up there, working hard but having a good time, and it seems like it really gave a lot of people something. It lifted them. Somehow I feel like I did a little bit more than entertain this year” (45).
In the year-end issue of Billboard magazine, in the “Hits of the World” international charts, Twenty Four Seven was No. 5 on the Eurochart, No. 8 in Germany, No. 10 in Belgium, and No. 2 in Switzerland. It was certified Platinum in the United Kingdom.
In January 2000, Twenty Four Seven was released in the United States. The first American single released off of the album was the song “When the Heartache Is Over.” According to the ARC Weekly Top 40 radio charts, the song made it up to No. 40 in the United States.
On January 30, 2000, Tina Turner was seen singing “Proud Mary” and “When the Heartache Is Over” on the mega-American TV event, the Super Bowl pre-game show live from Atlanta, Georgia.
With her Twenty Four Seven album in stores around the globe, Tina set about to promote it with her most dramatic and exciting arena stage show yet. The American leg of the concert tour opened in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on March 23, encompassed 116 concert dates, and was set to end in Anaheim, California, on December 6, 2000. During the tour, she announced that it would be her last such tour. Her fans were stunned by the news, and tickets sold like hotcakes. According to her, “I’m still in good shape, I still have the energy, but when you work at a job for so long, you start to feel the need to make a change. I don’t know what I’m going to do. I’m not even thinking about it. I’m just enjoying the fact that I won’t have a calendar for a few years” (42).
She explained how she arrived at this decision by stating, “I decided I would work myself to a place where I can retire, and be financially secure and live nicely and enjoy knowing that I don’t have to work ever again unless it’s something I want to do. I feel really fortunate to have arrived at that. I’m rock & roll, and I’m a woman, and at a certain age you stop looking the part” (42). Well, for Tina, that age certainly hadn’t come yet!
The May 8, 2000, issue of America’s People magazine featured their annual list of “The 50 Most Beautiful People.” Fittingly, Tina was one of the fifty they chose that year. According to makeup artist to the stars, Kevin Aucoin, “She has a beautiful nose, great cheekbones, an amazing head and a gorgeous sexy body. She’s pushing the limits for everyone” (40). Indeed she was!
That same year, Tina appeared on the top-rated TV show Ally McBeal. One of her final Twenty Four Seven shows was taped and made into a CBS-TV special, which was broadcast on December 4. Between her TV exposure and the massive U.S. concert tour that she was in the middle of, Twenty Four Seven was certified Gold by the RIAA.
Wherever she appeared in 2000, she was met with cheering sold-out crowds, dying to see the last official Tina tour. How on earth was she able to perform two-and-one-half-hour shows night after night? According to her, “I’ve always been a tomboy kind of girl. I’m always doing something. So I don’t get caught gaining weight. I’ve never worked out at all. I started to run when I went into a change of life because I was told that I needed to. But when I haven’t run, it hasn’t bothered me. I’m a country girl, and I lived a full country life, and it made me strong, I think” (7).
Touring year after year, she had to admit, was beginning to wear on her. “When I travel, I am absolutely miserable,” she was to confide. “I talked to an astrologist about it, ’cause I was really suffering. And he said that, astrologically, I am a home person. I try to make the hotels homey. I immediately walk into a room and get security to change the room the way I want it. Some places it’s impossible and you can do nothing but sit there. I miss being at home very much” (7).
As much as she loved performing, she was starting to look forward to an open-ended rest. “I enjoy it once I’m right there onstage. But every night, for over 200 days, to think that you’ve got to go onstage and have a party . . . well, since I’m not a party person, I see it as a party without a drink for me. It’s having a party with the people. And, I don’t crave it—no! I’m fine when I’m there, I’m on a mission—to give the people a good time, because that’s what it’s about. It’s not about a message or anything. It’s about laughter and a little bit of dancing. And all kinds of intrigue. That’s basically it. But I don’t miss it when I’m not onstage. At all. It’s a job out there and people always think it’s fun. It’s fun to a point, yes. I remember when it was more fun to put on those dresses and do the makeup and all that stuff. But, when you’ve had nearly forty years of it, it ceases to be that kind of fun and magic. It’s a job that you’ve got to go out there and do. And be successful at it. That’s the mission,” she claimed (7).
For the last leg of the last tour, the sponsor of the concerts—and the CBS-TV special—was the popular American department store chain, Target. As part of the deal, Tina filmed a series of TV commercials for Target. She was seen singing and dancing to a new and exclusive song on the ads, her version of the Prince composition “Baby, I’m a Star.” It was a fitting song for her to cover, and she did an exciting version of it. In 2000, Target marketed a special limited-edition CD that was available in their stores only, featuring live and studio versions of six of her hits, plus “Baby, I’m a Star.” That special disc that Target released, entitled All That Glitters, was the only place her version of “Baby, I’m a Star” could be purchased.
On December 6, 2000, Tina Turner played the final show of her farewell tour in front of a sold-out audience of 18,000 fans who were packed into the massive Arrowhead Pond auditorium in Anaheim, California, thirty miles south of downtown Los Angeles. It was an incredibly exciting evening, and the last night of the final stadium rock concert of her career. Looking and sounding amazing that evening, Tina had finished off at the top!
The show business industry publication The Hollywood Reporter stated, “Turner, 61, took in $80.2 million in ticket sales for 95 concerts. Her success surprised experts because it has been several years since she has had a hit record. ‘She had announced it was going to be her farewell tour, and people took her at her word,’ Pollster [magazine] editor Gary Bongiovanni said” (46). Her tour was ranked as the highest-grossing concert attraction of the entire year 2000.
According to Tina, “I have looked forward to retiring for a long time, because this is something that doesn’t run in my culture—most people work all their lives. Like Ella Fitzgerald, I think she might have been seventy-five when she left. I don’t want to get that far. And fortunately I’ve gotten to the point where I can do it, and I’m going to celebrate it. I like the idea of waking up and not having a single thing in terms of meetings or anything to do. I love the freedom to choose to do whatever I decide to do with my day. That’s my ideal” (45).
After her final concert in Anaheim, Tina left the public eye for her much-deserved break from the business. However, in her absence there have been several new packages reprising her greatest and most recent material. In 2000, one of Tina’s final tour dates, at Wembley Stadium in London, was captured on film and turned into a wonderful concert video and DVD entitled One Last Time in Concert. Her sixtieth birthday celebration concert made another great DVD package that year, called The Best of Tina Turner—Celebrate! In 2002
all of her greatest videos—from “Let’s Stay Together” up to “It Takes Two” with Rod Stewart and “Love Thing”—were gathered together on Simply the Best—The Video Collection. The collection also includes a never-before-seen, black-and-white version of “What’s Love Got to Do With It” with scenes of several couples arguing with each other, while Tina sang the song as relationship advice. To date, she has sold over sixty million copies of her albums, singles, and CDs around the world.
Meanwhile, in her personal life, Tina is very happy with her relationship with Erwin. “It’s wonderful, yes. It was the first, actually, man I have lived with after my separation. It was—yes, it’s been—it’s a very good relationship. Not like any that I have ever had.” But does she feel that she wants or needs to get married? The answer is a definite negative. “It’s good like it is,” she smiles (16).
One of the things that she is slightly at odds with in her past was her overtly sexual image in the late 1960s and early 1970s. As she explains it, “The raunchy, the wild, sexy—it was uncomplimentary. But I understood it. I still see photographs, and my stance and my body form is very much like that. I have to stand like that to hit high notes, and high-heeled shoes will give you a certain body form. So I never liked [being viewed that way], but I thought, ‘Well, that’s what you’ve done, Tina. I mean, you have stood there with crotch open, ripped at the seams’ ” (7).
According to her, “It was only after I started chanting that I realized, ‘Well, that’s what you’ve put out there. That’s what people see. They have no way of knowing anything else.’ So that’s what I accepted. As soon as I got around to accepting it, that’s when it all started to change—where the knowledge of who and how I am became public and people accepted me differently” (7).