On the 24th of April, we lost another queen. Admittedly where I was amazed and perhaps baffled by the dramatic display of emotion and attention following the death of the British monarch last September, when Tina Turner, also known as the “Queen of Rock’n Roll” died last week, the outpouring of grief around the world, made perfect sense to me. The old rolling Stones’ song, “I Know It’s Only Rock’n Roll But I Like It…” well I guess that is me in a nutshell. Turner was an icon in so many ways. She was, among her many “firsts,” perhaps the first public figure to speak openly about domestic violence, which of course had a tremendous impact on women everywhere. She was the first African American to break into the white world of rock, without following a rhythm and blues, jazz or MoTown route, and like a phoenix, she rose out of destructive flames repeatedly in her life. She was a powerhouse and an inspiration.
Tina’s trauma began long before her well known battering by first husband and musical partner, Ike Turner. She knew from the start that she was not wanted and never felt loved by her parents. They already had two children and had no intention of having another when her mother was unexpectedly pregnant again.
Born Anna Mae Bullock in a small Tennessee town where her father was a sharecropper, she picked cotton as a small child, before her parents left to relocate to another town. She and her two sisters were separated, and all sent to live with different relatives, Anna Mae staying with her cold, strictly religious paternal grandparents. When the family reunited two years later, Anna Mae witnessed her father, now clearly alcoholic, violently abusing her mother, until her mother ultimately left, abandoning the three girls. Two years later, her father remarried, and Anna Mae and her sisters were sent to live with their other, the maternal grandmother.
When she was a young teenager, one of Anna Mae’s sisters died suddenly in a car crash. Attachment shock, as psychiatrist and trauma expert Frank Corrigan so elegantly renamed the developmental trauma of attachment and loss, like hers, were her earliest experience, and the “hits” just kept on coming.
Anna Mae sang in the church choir, and from early life loved music and dance. Later as a teen she frequented music clubs, which is where she first saw and heard the musical performance of Ike Turner. She was mesmerized and immediately wanted to sing with him. Ike however, had no interest, at least at first. Somehow when Turner’s drummer’s back was turned and he had stepped away from his mic, Anna Mae grabbed it and belted along. The listening crowd was transfixed by her voice and energy. So originally unwanted by Ike, she suddenly appeared to offer some kind of “ticket” or entrée for his aspirations. Although highly talented as a musician, he lacked the magnetism and verve that this young woman displayed. So Ike took her on.
Ike right away changed Anna Mae’s first name to Tina, and her last name to Turner after marrying her. He patented the new name so she could not leave him, or if she did, she would not be able to take it. Thus, Tina Turner was “born.”
Unwanted from the start, then unwanted again, nameless and used even before being beaten, the young woman, now Tina, never intended to become intimately involved with Ike. Their first intimacy was non-consensual, but she went along. They became the Ike and Tina Turner Revue, and in spite of his ongoing infidelities and violence, she lived and worked with him for 16 years. This is perhaps where the emblematic ferocious self-reliance and survivorship that accompany early neglect, can be a mixed blessing.
Energy
It took two years more (after their initial 14 years) of Ike’s drug use and violence, and her one thankfully failed suicide attempt for Tina to finally leave Ike. She even lost a son to suicide along the way. But like the “Grey Goose” of the old spiritual, who simply would not die, in spite of unending parade of assaults, somehow, Tina’s volcanic energy and undying persistence prevailed. After some years of recovering herself which included becoming a Buddhist, with a sustaining (and I would guess regulating,) serious practice of chanting, she did the unthinkable. She made her spectacular re-entry to the music scene, becoming a solo rockstar in her 40’s. Tina performed with the likes of the Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, Rod Stuart, Bryan Adams and more, which, if you are anywhere near my age, you would recognize as the top of the top. And she was a fireball in her own right, loved all over the globe. She said, although she was not a “superstar” like Madonna in the US, in Europe she actually was, and she later made her home there.
Resilience
Tina met and married her husband Erwin Bach when she was 47. He was 30 at the time. They were close and intimate for 26 years before they finally married. She continued her progression of “firsts” becoming the first woman and the first person of color featured on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine. Mick Jagger credits her with teaching him some of his most cherished dance steps. She scored 10 Grammy Awards; and was twice, (the first time being with Ike,) inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Tina’s final decade, however, was a tragic series of serious illnesses. A massive stroke made it impossible for her to speak or walk for a time, all of which through dogged determination and hard work, she regained, although singing by then became a challenge. Thankfully she could still chant.
Next came a serious run of colon cancer, which resulted in a surgery that cost her much of her large intestine. And finally, a bout of kidney failure that nearly took her down. Although she was unafraid of death, and was prepared to go whenever her time might come, she graciously assented when her husband underwent surgery to give her one of his kidneys, which kept her going for her final years. She died at 83.
Turner was proud and grateful for her life and her accomplishments. She continued to feel a debt of gratitude toward Ike, in spite of everything. I can understand that feeling as I like her feel profound and immense admiration and gratitude for the man who most hurt me in my life. Tina similarly experienced great joy and fulfillment in her also pain racked life. Like many of us who have histories of trauma and neglect, she felt that all that adversity gave her the depth and intensity, the energy and indomitable drive, the creativity and understanding, that marked her life and her work, and contributed perhaps more than anything to her gifts to the world. I can relate to that too, if on my much smaller scale.
Tina also garnered a prestigious star in the Hollywood Walk of Fame, which this past week has been blanketed with a deep drift of flowers, gifts and missives of appreciation, love and grief. Tina was, as a part of her great legacy, a tribute and a testament to the indomitable power, strength and healing possible, even for the most traumatized. She was indeed “Simply the Best.”
I am sure Tina would have wished to be remembered having this much fun! And like me, she always had a crush on Mick.
Rest well Tina, you so earned it, and you will be deeply missed!
Today’s Song:
