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Farewell To The Queen of Rock

A fiery, undeniable talent, Tina Turner escaped an
abusive marriage and soared to superstardom.

By Tom Gliatto in People

ina Turner was a woman of many appetites. "She loved to shop, and she loved clothes," says her friend Bob Mackie, the designer who for decades created dresses that shaped the singer's image as a sizzling priestess of pleasure. "She loved to eat. She loved to cook. She loved to have a nice cocktail or a glass of champagne." At one point, he recalls, "she was rehearsing and nervous -- she had just put on a few pounds. She said, 'Well, I've go to stop eating those Butterfingers.' I told her, 'Oh, Tina, you look like you've lost weight.' And she looked over to her assistant. 'Rhonda,' she said, 'bring me another Butterfinger.'"

But Turner's extraordinary life was driven by far greater hunger -- for music, adulation, survival, love, reinvention, respect -- and audiences in turn craved the excitement, joy and sense of authenticity she generated as the Queen of Rock and Roll. "I didn't act my life, I've lived it," she told Rolling Stone in 1986. "I am Tina Turner."

The world was stunned to learn that this force of nature -- celebrated for her long, rollicking career and her bravery in revealing the abuse she endured as the wife of R&B giant Ike Turner -- could have quietly ebbed away: On May 24 Turner died peacefully at age 83 after what her publicist described as a long illness. "I truly thought she would live forever," says the Who's Pete Townshend, recalling Turner's hypnotic role in the band's 1975 film Tommy. She spent her final days with her second husband, music producer Erwin Bach, 67, at her $76 million estate in Küsnacht, Switzerland, near Lake Zurich. Although Turner had been in decline for years as a result of many health issues, including kidney disease, and hadn't been seen in public since 2019.

Cher, who had Turner on her '70s variety show as a guest and remained friends with her through the years, told MSNBC that she visited the star not long ago. A weakened Turner warned her, "I can't spend too much time" -- then flared back to life. The women laughed together for hours as Turner "would run to get up and show everything she'd bought in her house," Cher said. "And, boy, there were no surfaces in that house."

Turner was one of the most singular women to ever roar through American music, with classics ranging from 1966's "River Deep, Mountain High" to 1984's "Private Dancer" and 1989's "The Best." WIth a voice of unmatchable thunder, fury and fire, "she seemed like a giant," Townshend says, "shaking, sexual, physical and stunningly beautiful."

Her years partnered with Ike have a permanent place in pop history -- they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991 -- but she truly came into her own as a independent artist in the 1980s. Turner sold more than 100 million records; was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame a second time, solo, in 2021; and sold her catalog for a reported $50 million. That deal included rights to her image -- most notably her sensational long legs, which she proudly emphasized. "I became almost as famous for my legs as for my talent," she said. Turner served as an inspiration and a beacon to the generations of female singers who came after her. Debbie Harry, Madonna, Mariah Carey and Beyoncé all paid tribute to her, and Lizzo said, "I wold not exist if it wasn't for the Queen of Rock and Roll."

Did Turner's dance moves also influence her friend and frequent tourmate Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones? It seems unlikely -- Jagger has said no -- but Turner once joked: "When I first toured with him in 1966, he was just doing the tambourine. The next time I saw him, he was doing the pony."

Turner's biography was always about more than phenomenal singing: It was full of dramatic, violent reversals that became part of her legend. "She may not have won every war," said Cher, "but she fought every battle," from racism (a music executive once called her "an old n----r douchebag") to what would today be called #MeToo. In 1981 she gave People a shocking interview: For the first time, she detailed the abuse she'd suffered in her marriage to Ike and how she'd risked sacrificing her career when she left him in 1976. That story became her bestselling 1986 memoir (I, Tina), which in turn led to the 1993 movie What's Love Got to Do With It, starring the Oscar-nominated Angela Bassett, and then to a hit Broadway show, "Tina: The Tina Turner Musical," that didn't sugarcoat her past. As Turner put it: "I been through some things."

  

t the age of 43, Turner finally became the star she'd envisioned the moment she recorded "River Deep" more than 15 years prior. In 1984 she released her platinum album Private Dancer, which yielded a handful of classic hits, among them her only No. 1 single, "What's Love Got to Do With It." Turner hadn't wanted to record the song because she didn't like the lyrics, but it became her signature, and she won three Grammys. (She'd go on to earn a total of eight.)

Turner was modest about her vocal gift -- "I'm not a star like Barbra Streisand or Maria Callas" -- but she was a staple of the MTV era, her long legs punctuated by high heels and her head crowned by spiky wigs. (She sewed them herself, stylist Wayne Lukas reveals: "She said nobody did it well. She's like the rock and roll Betsy Ross.") Turner even played the villain in 1985's Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. But she didn't pursue film stardom much further and turned down 1986's The Color Purple because its story of abuse reminded her of Ike. "I'm trying to forget the past," she said. "It's over."

By then Turner was embracing a happier future. In 1985 she met Bach, a German record executive, at an airport in Germany. Sixteen years her junior, "he was another kind of handsome," she told her pal Oprah Winfrey. "My heart was bu-bum, already. My hands were wet, and I thought, 'Oh my God, this is love at first sight.'" They finally wed in 2013, after nearly 30 years together. "There comes a time in life where you must put things in place," Turner later told Winfrey.

Turner wasn't spared further suffering, though. She endured a number of grave medical conditions: high blood pressure, a stroke (three months after her wedding to Bach), intestinal cancer and kidney failure. (Bach himself donated a kidney to Turner in 2017. "I would do it again," he said.) And two of her children she raised with Ike predeceased her: Craig died by suicide at 59 in 2018; Ronnie died of colon cancer at 62 last December.

She found peace with Bach and through Buddhism. Despite her ailments, "in her final years, she was happy and secure in her relationship," says a music-industry source. "She had found true love and was able to live without fear. She had a group of friends in Switzerland and loved the people she was around. When she was able, she liked to be outside and enjoy the air and beauty of the surroundings."

Indeed, "with that voice, she did a chant that just filled the whole neighborhood," says Mackie. He remembers watching her at her home, down by the water, giving instructions to the gardener. "Just to see her with the hair flying and the sarong on, barefooted out there on the grass, I thought, 'How perfect.'"  

Willie Turns 90!

The outlaw country legend on love, music -- and what
keeps him going after six decades on the road.

By Brianne Tracy in People

t's not every day a music legend turns 90. So when it came time for Willie Nelson to celebrate on April 29, his famous friends -- including fellow Highwayman Kris Kristofferson, Sheryl Crow, George Strait and Miranda Lambert -- went big, gathering for a two-day concert extravaganza. Long Story Short: Willie Nelson, 90, at the Hollywood Bowl. "I never thought I'd get here," Nelson told People ahead of the festivities, which drew an estimated 18,000 fans each night. Still, in signature Nelson fashion, he waved off the fuss over his milestone birthday: "This ain't nothing. It's another day."

The best gift Nelson could receive after more than 60 years in the business was just a simple good time onstage. "I get a lot of fun out of playing for an audience," he says. "There's a great energy exchange there. It's what keeps me going." Despite Nelson's reticence, those who have drawn inspiration from his genre-pushing music and social activism were eager to celebrate his impact. "You can't talk about American music as a whole without Willie Nelson," singer Charley Crockett said backstage. "That's why this is a cultural event."

  

orn during the Great Depression and raised by his grandparents in Abbott, Texas, Nelson wrote his first song by age 7 and joined his first band at 10. By 1960 he took his music dreams to Nashville, where he broke through with his debut LP, ...And Then I Wrote, two years later. Though he had written hit songs through the '60s, including such classics as "Crazy" for Patsy Cline, Nelson grew tired of the Music City scene in the early '70s and moved to Austin, where he helped pioneer outlaw country with albums such as Shotgun Willie and Phases and Stages. In 1979 he kick-started his acting career in The Electric Horseman, his first of more than 30 feature films. And the next year he released his quintessential hit, "On the Road Again," an ode to his nomadic lifestyle that still rings true. "I quit after every tour, then two days later I'm ready to go back," he says. "Billy Joe Shaver wrote in a a song, 'Moving is the closest thing to being free,' and that's the way I look at it. I enjoy riding up and down the highway."

While Nelson still loves to hit the road, he's taken a break from songwriting. "Roger Miller told me, 'Sometimes the well dries up, and you have to wait and let it fill up again,'" he says. "I believe that." Luckily Nelson has 73 solo studio albums -- plus three with his Highwaymen bandmates Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings and Kristofferson -- to fall back on. These days the longtime cannabis connoisseur also no longer smokes or drinks. "That's added a few days to my life, I'm sure," Nelson says. He's feeling the effects of aging -- his hearing's "not the best," and he can only do most of his martial arts routines in his "mind" now -- but Nelson still feels young at heart. "As they say, laughter's the best medicine," he says. "I've always enjoyed a good joke."

That might be the key then to his 31-year-marriage with fourth wife Annie D'Angelo, with whom he shares sons Lukas, 34, and Micah, 33. (His also dad to Lana, 69, Susie, 66, Paula, 53, and Amy, 49, from previous relationships, as well as his late children Renee and Billy.) "She's my lover, my wife, nurse, doctor, bodyguard."

As he enters a new decade, retirement is far from his mind -- but he's finally slowing his pace. "There's probably other things I will do and can do, but I'm not going to push myself too hard," says Nelson, who's being inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in November after touring through the fall. "I know one day it all ends, but I'm not rushing it."  

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