Remembering Tina Turner
By Steven Luker
Tina Turner was born in Brownsville Tennessee, her birth name was Anna Mae Bullock. Tina Turner is known as the queen of pop and she was married twice in her lifetime. She is also a singer, songwriter, dancer, actress, and author if you did not know about that.
Tina Turner started her music career in 1957 with Izaer aka Ike Luster Turner Jr. She was part of the Kings of Rhythm and she went by the name Little Ann. Her first hit was made in the year 1960 with the song called A Fool in Love. That song hit number 2 on the Hot R&B sides and the number 27 hit song on the billboard top 100. This song was done with her first husband.
The next song that got up in the ranking was in the year 1961 “It’s Gonna Work Out Fine” this song was ranked number 14 on the hot 100 and number 2 on the R&B chart of that same year of 1961. She was also nominated for a Grammy award in 1961 for Best Rock and Roll Performance.
Singles released between 1960 and 1962 included the R&B hits “I Idolize You”, “Poor Fool” and “Tra La La La La. These were some of the top hits. In 1976 she decided to break up with her first husband Ike Turner because in the 70’s Ike was heavily addicted to cocaine. Not cocaine bear the movie if anyone gets confused.
Then on July 1, the Turners flew from Los Angeles to Dallas, where the revue had a gig at the Downtown Dallas Statler Hilton. They got into a physical altercation en route to the hotel. Shortly after arriving at the hotel, Turner fled from Ike with only 36 cents and a mobil card and hid at the Ramada Inn across the freeway.
She then decided to do divorce him. She filed for divorce on July 27, and it was finalized on March 29, 1978. So it took roughly two years for it to happen. As for her children Tina Turner had two biological sons: one with Kings of Rhythm saxophonist Raymond Hill, named Raymond Craig, born on August 20, 1958, and the other with Ike Turner, Ronald “Ronnie” Renelle Turner, born on October 27, 1960.
Tina Turner also is someone who has dual citizenship she has it in the United States and Switzerland. In 2013, Turner applied for Swiss citizenship, stating she would relinquish her U.S. citizenship. In April, she undertook a mandatory citizenship test which included advanced knowledge of German (the official language of the canton of Zürich) and of Swiss history.
On April 22, 2013, she became a citizen of Switzerland and was issued a Swiss passport. Turner signed the paperwork to relinquish her American citizenship at the U.S. embassy in Bern on October 24, 2013.
Now onto the health problems for Turner revealed in her 2018 memoir My Love Story that she had suffered multiple life-threatening illnesses. In 2013, three weeks after her wedding to Erwin Bach, she suffered a stroke and had to learn to walk again.
In 2016, she was diagnosed with intestinal cancer. Turner opted for homeopathic remedies to treat her high blood pressure. Her hypertension resulted in damage to her kidneys and eventual kidney failure. Her chances of receiving a kidney were low, and she was urged to start dialysis.
She considered assisted suicide and signed up to be a member of Exit, but Bach offered to donate a kidney for her transplant. Turner had kidney transplant surgery on April 7, 2017. Sadly we lost Tina Turner on May 24th 2023 at the age of 83.