Signature Songs, Vol. 4 - Tina Turner

This week's episode is Volume 4 of the Signature Songs series, and this week's subject is the Queen of Rock-N-Roll, Tina Turner.

Looking at both the Ike & Tina Turner years and Tina’s massive solo career, I break down the leading contenders before making the case for the one song I believe is Tina's signature song.

It’s a discussion about hit records, comeback stories, cultural impact, and one of the most dynamic performers rock music has ever produced. And it's all this week, on the Rock-N-Roll Show Podcast!

Remember - if you’ve got an opinion, I want to hear it. And as always, be sure to check out this week’s companion playlist on Spotify and Apple Music.

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Transcript

Alex Gadd 0:00

Welcome to the Rock and Roll Show podcast. I'm your host, Alex Gadd, and this week I've got another episode of Signature Songs for You. I'm defining an act signature song as the one song that's most commonly identified with that artist or band, their calling card, the one that even non-music fans associate with them. Sometimes it's obvious, sometimes it's impossible to pick just one. Most of the time though, it's open for debate, and this week I'm looking at one of the great performers in rock history. Tina Turner, I'll run through all of her biggest tracks, both as a solo artist and with her ex-husband Ike Turner, and make the case for the one song that I believe is her signature song. And then I want to hear what you think. I hope you'll join me coming up right now. I started this signature song series because I wanted to get into a conversation with you, the audience, since this is one of those topics I've had a blast discussing with friends over the years in bars, around fire pits and at dinner tables. So let's start by first trying to define what makes a song an act signature song. I haven't found an official definition, but I think it's more than just their biggest hit. It's really, as I said, their musical calling card, the song most tied to an artist's public image, especially for the casual fan. Sometimes it's the first breakthrough hit. Sometimes it's the biggest hit they ever had. Sometimes it's a song that opened the door to a whole different audience and stayed attached to that act forever after. Usually it's some combination of those things, which is why figuring out an artist's signature song really is more art than science. So far, I've tackled Queen, the Stones, Eagles, Journey, Zeppelin, and Kiss. Today I'm taking on Tina Turner, one of rock's, all time great performers. And when I look at Tina's career, there are two distinct phases. She started out singing with Ike Turner in the Ike and Tina Turner review from 1960 through the mid seventies, and then reemerged as a solo artist, a decade later, rising to even greater heights. She's so great that she's been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice, one of only three women to achieve that honor, and I'm gonna consider all of her music at once to determine her signature song, which creates a bit of an interesting challenge, as you'll see. In the end, though, the point of this exercise is the same to figure out what's the first song that comes to mind when I say the name Tina Turner. Alright, let's get into it. As always, let's start with a little background. Tina Turner was born Anna Mae Bullock in Tennessee in the forties. She first broke through around 1960, after she met Ike Turner in an East St. Louis nightclub watching his band The Kings of Rhythm. She convinced him to let her sing with the band, and together they became one of the most explosive acts in music. They could do rock, soul, r and b and pop. But what really set Tina apart even then, was her stage presence. Plenty of people could sing and sing well. Very few could command a stage the way Tina Turner could. As part of Ike and Tina, she helped turn songs like River Deep, Mountain High, Nutbush City Limits, and Proud Mary, into classics. And by the early seventies, she was considered one of the most dynamic performers in rock music. But of course, Tina's story is bigger than just her initial success. After enduring years of alleged abuse in her marriage to Ike, she walked away and had to rebuild her career basically from scratch. And that makes for one of the most remarkable comeback stories in rock and roll history. A lot of artists have second acts. Almost nobody had a second act on the scale that Tina Turner did, and that started when she released her fifth solo album, 1984's Private Dancer that turned her into a global superstar. All over again. What's Love Got To Do With It? gave her a number one hit, single, and from that point on, she was no longer just a survivor or a comeback story. She became an icon, the voice, the hair, the dancing her ass off in really high heels. She had a swagger that amplified her legend. Tina Turner didn't just return to the top. She came back and was much bigger than the first time around and on her own terms. Now she passed away just three years ago and left a legacy as one of Rock and Roll's greatest performers, male or female. So which song is Tina Turner's signature song? The answer ends up being a little more difficult to figure out than I thought it would be when I started researching this episode. There are a number of songs to choose from to be sure. The Ike and Tina years produced three tracks that stood above the rest. Those were River Deep, Mountain High, Nutbush City Limits, and their cover of Credence, Clearwater Revival's Proud Mary, which really introduced Tina to that broader musical audience in 1971. And if you were lucky enough to see Ike and Tina live, you really got it. From her solo career. There are a few choices, including What's Love Got To Do With It. Her first and only solo, number one single, from the album Private Dancer, as I mentioned, Better Be Good to Me from the same record, which went to number five in the Us. We Don't Need Another Hero, which was the soundtrack single from the third Mad Max movie Beyond Thunderdome, which Tina also co-starred in. And that was her second highest charting single of all time getting to number two. And then finally there was the song The Best from her 1989, album Foreign Affair. And that doesn't even include two of my all time favorite songs that she sings on, both of which were collaborations. Now, once she got hot again with Private Dancer, it seemed like other stars from the mid eighties were lining up to get her to sing a duet with them. And she had a hit with Its Only Love from Bryan Adams' 1985 Reckless album. And then she paired up with Eric Clapton for Tearing Us Apart from his 1987 album, August. And those are both all time great performances for Ms. Turner. But as they were both collaborations, neither are her signature song. Let's be clear about that. After revisiting all these songs and spending a week listening to them and thinking about it, I really am struggling with making one clear choice. I think there are three songs that stand out as the most obvious contenders, and those are Proud Mary from the Ike Tina period. What's Love Got to Do With It and The Best, even though the Mad Max song did extremely well on the charts. Uh, it hit number two, as I said in the us also number three in the uk. I feel like it was too closely tied to the movie and never really stayed on as a relevant song the way the other songs did. Proud Mary is a stunning vocal performance and even more impressive live, but it's a cover song and it's still competes with the original version from Creedence Clearwater Revival, which was released just two years before Ike and Tina released their version. Now I realize the importance of it being a cover is kind of diminished when you have a singer like Tina, because Tina mostly sang other people's songs. She was an interpreter more than a singer songwriter. So whether it had been released by someone else beforehand may not have been as relevant as it might be otherwise. But Proud Mary still does share that existence with the Creedence original. As for What's Love Got to Do With It, she was the first to release a version of this song, which was written by Graham Lyle and producer Terry Britton, and the fact that it went on to be her only number one single ever has to mean something since there was no audience recognition factor prebuilt into its success. I'd say the video for the song also helped introduce her to a whole new generation of music fans. That was my generation Gen X. When she sings, I've been taking on a new direction in the bridge of the song that spoke volumes about her journey to that point, regardless of whether or not she wrote the song. Now, the Best is a late career entry in her catalog and deserves consideration because the title of the song ended up being so closely associated with Tina Turner from the moment of its release as the lead single from her 1989 Foreign Affairs album until she retired from touring 20 years later. This was also a cover song having been recorded only one year earlier by Welsh singer Bonnie Tyler. You might know her better from Total eclipse Of the Heart fame, but once Tina released her version, that became the definitive version and remains so to this day. While I don't know any music fan who really knows all the lyrics to this one, except maybe hardcore Tina fans, the title line used in the chorus is so identifiable in general and with her. Plus, if you're a global sports fan, you definitely know this song In Scotland, the song became the slogan for the Glasgow Rangers football club and in Australia, the song was used to promote the New South Wales Rugby League in 1990. And there Tina even recorded ads with various players from the league to that song. Interestingly, the only song among these top entries that I considered that Tina did write was the song Nut Bush City Limits, which is a semi autobiographical retelling of her childhood. But of all the songs I considered, this is the least well known of the contenders, and I'm saying it's not the one. In the end, it comes down in my head to either What's Love Got to Do With It or The Best. And that's still a tough call. When it's this close, I like to look at the data that sales data, streaming data and the like. The Best only made it to number 15 on the singles chart in the US and number five in the uk, whereas What's Love Got to Do With It went to number one in the US and number three in the UK sold much better. What's Love Got to Do With It is also her most streamed song by far with almost 1 billion streams, which is more than 500 million more streams than The Best, which is in second place among her Spotify streaming figures. And as with Queen among the other artists that I've already covered. What's Love Got to Do With It was the title of the 1993 biopic about her life, which starred Angela Bassett and Lawrence Fishburne as Tina and Ike. It's my assertion that when a successful biopic uses the title of one of the subject's songs, that elevates that song's association to the artist. The reality here is, at least for me, all of her top songs had about the same level of impact in the greater musical landscape. And these two finalists that I'm considering seem about the same in terms of being qualified to be Tina's signature song. So in a tossup. I'm going with What's Love Got to Do With It?

10:49

You must the cha, your hand makes my. That it's only the thrill. You must try to ignore that. It means more than that. Love. Love do it love, but a do do with it. Who needs a hot and a hot can be you. Acting confused when you are close to me. If I ch Daz, I read it some place. I've got calls to read and there's a name for me, a phrase. Whatever reason to do it for me. Oh, what love I do. Do it. What? Love for a secondhand shine. Do do with it. Who needs a hot, hot? But I have. Say, I've been thinking about my own projection. It scares me to feel this way. Do a second. Do, do with it. Who needs a Fox? Do with Do it?

Alex Gadd 13:54

Let me say, I don't think this is too controversial a choice, but I'm still not a hundred percent sure I got it right and for rock royalty like Tina Turner, I want to get it right. But that's the way I think it's gonna go for many of the artists I'll be discussing in this series. And that's great because I'm looking to generate conversation. So what did you think? Did I get it right or wrong? Let me know. I've got more than a hundred other acts to get through. So if you like what you heard today, I'd appreciate it if you would like and either subscribe or follow this channel to make sure you get notified about each new episode, and please tell your friends. Also a reminder that I release a playlist for every episode. So look for the Rock and Roll Show podcast playlist on Spotify and Apple Music every week this week, featuring all of Tina Turner's top 10 hits, plus some other additional favorites of mine. I'll put the links to those playlists in the description, so please check those out. Additionally, as I said, I wanna know what you think. Please leave me a comment. I'll try to respond to every one of them. The Rock and Roll Show Podcast is a World Highway Media production. I'm your host, Alex Gadd, and until next time, remember that life is short, so get those concert tickets.