After ditching Ike Tuner, Tina Turner found that she had to start from scratch. Two immediate obstacles hindered the start of her solo career. First, promoters dealt with Ike Turner in the past, viewing him as the leader. They weren’t familiar with Tina Turner. The fact that Tina refused to perform with Ike for Ike and Tina Turner Revue bookings that occurred after her escape made Tina appear as the unstable one. Ike notified everyone that he would comply with the contracts. Tina notified one venue that she couldn’t comply with the contract due to marital issues. Venue operators and the public didn’t know in 1976 about Ike Turner being a monster. As a result of them losing revenue from an Ike and Tina Turner Revue performance, venues sued and promoters initially didn’t want to work with Tina Turner.
Being on her own, Tina Turner now controlled her act. She learned how to hire musicians and background singers/dancers to match her high octane performances. One reporter noted her command backstage, calmly but firmly giving instructions. She created her show, using a mixture of hit songs from The Ike and Tina Turner Revue and cover songs. She started out touring the super club circuit and did shows in Las Vegas. She toured the United States, Canada, Australia, and Europe.
Towards the end of her Ike and Tina Turner Revue tenure and the beginning of her solo career, some critics harped on Tina’s voice. Tina said in an interview that Ike made her over-deliver during their performances together. She told the reporter that she now could sing more naturally than she could in The Ike and Tina Turner Revue. Ike always wanted her to sing I’ve Been Lovin’ You Too Long,
which was part of her image as raunch and roll.
Tina Turner never got rid of her sex image, but did shift away from being raunchy. To give her performances some elegance, Tina also started to sing ballads during her comeback era to showcase her range.
Newspaper reviews of Tina Turner’s performances were mostly positive from 1977 through 1983. A majority of them praised Turner for putting on a very energetic act. One critic, reporting on a 1978 performance, suggested that the energy crisis at that time could be resolved by harnessing Tina Turner’s dynamic power. Another critic reported that Tina Turner, the opening act for a Lou Rawls’s show, should have been the headliner. Another critic, possibly unaware of her dance advice to Mick Jagger, named Turner a female Mick Jagger. Another critic stated that Tina Turner was the hardest-working woman in show business.
Despite the positive reviews, Tina Turner’s aspirations after Ike hadn’t turned out the way she planned when the 1980’s arrived. After her Acid Queen
performance in Tommy, she had hopes that Hollywood would offer her a variety of acting roles. The only roles she was offered in the mid to late 1970s were hooker roles. Throughout her career, Tina Turner used her sexy image to her benefit, but wanted to show the world that she could do more than play two-bit hooker roles on the big screen. She told one reporter she dreamed of playing Cleopatra in an all black cast. Turner felt Hollywood looked down on black women during the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Ageism proved to be an obstacle. When she left Ike Turner, Tina was approaching her 37th birthday. People admired her hard-work and her slim appearance, but they viewed her as being past her prime. One 1983 headline about Turner reads Tina Turner: She was the ‘Queen of Rock’.
Critics and the public saw Tina as a nostalgic act. There wasn’t anything fresh in her first few solo albums that created a buzz. However Tina Turner didn’t give up. Turner told one audience that people often ask her when is she going to slow things down. She replied that she’s just getting her career started.
In order to further her career, Tina Turner made a change in management. She sought out Lee Kramer and Roger Davies. The duo got Turner out of the super club circuit and into rock venues. Her performances at Manhattan’s The Ritz in the early 1980s attracted celebrities. A Saturday Night Live performance with Rod Stewart singing his hit Hot Legs
showed youth-loving America that a forty year old woman could still wow audiences. Turner appeared with the Stones at several concerts, singing Honky Tonk Woman,
and with Elton John in Australia. David Bowie championed her cause by bringing EMI/Capital executives to a 1983 Tina Turner concert at the Ritz, resulting in a new record deal. Turner, a master of turning other people’s songs into her own, then focused on finding original material for her next album.
©2023 Tim Sheehan