‘Queen of rock ‘n’ roll’ Tina Turner dies at 83

Zurich: Tina Turner, the American-born singer who left a hardscrabble farming community and abusive relationship to become one of the top recording artists of all time, died on Wednesday at the age of 83.

She died peacefully after a long illness in her home in Küsnacht near Zurich, Switzerland, her representative said.

Turner began her career in the 1950s during the early years of rock 'n' roll and evolved into an MTV phenomenon.

In the video for her chart-topping song “What's Love Got to Do with It,” in which she called love a “second-hand emotion,” Turner epitomized 1980s style as she strutted through New York City streets with her spiky blond hair, wearing a cropped jean jacket, mini skirt and stiletto heels.

With her taste for musical experimentation and bluntly worded ballads, Turner gelled perfectly with a 1980s pop landscape in which music fans valued electronically produced sounds and scorned hippie-era idealism.

Sometimes nicknamed the “Queen of Rock 'n' Roll,” Turner won six of her eight Grammy Awards in the 1980s. In that decade she landed a dozen songs in the Top 40, including “Typical Male,” “The Best,” “Private Dancer” and “Better Be Good to Me”. Her 1988 show in Rio de Janeiro drew 180,000 people, which remains one of the largest concert audiences for any single performer.

By then, Turner had been free from her marriage to guitarist Ike Turner for a decade.

The superstar was forthcoming about the abuse she suffered from her former husband during their marital and musical partnership in the 1960s and 1970s. She described bruised eyes, busted lips, a broken jaw and other injuries that repeatedly sent her to the emergency room.

U.S. President Joe Biden described Turner as a “once-in-a-generation talent” and said her “personal strength was remarkable”.

“Overcoming adversity, and even abuse, she built a career for the ages and a life and legacy that were entirely hers,” Biden said in a statement.

Turner was born Anna Mae Bullock on Nov. 26, 1939, in the rural Tennessee community of Nutbush, which she described in her 1973 song “Nutbush City Limits” as a “quiet little old community, a one-horse town.”

SOURCE: REUTERS