Music For A Sunday Afternoon #6

Tina Turner died this week.

Many of the people who know her only know her from the second part of her life, the one she created after she left Ike Turner in 1976.

Man, what a second act in her life.

There’s no way I could even try to summarize her career here, and that’s never really been my intention with Music For a Sunday Afternoon anyway.

I was reading some of the coverage of her life and career the other day and headed over to SecondHand Songs to see what I could find out. I knew “Proud Mary,” a hit for Tina and Ike, was a cover of the original by Creedence Clearwater Revival. But I didn’t know that her song, “(Simply) The Best” was originally done by Bonnie Tyler who released it in 1988. Turner went back to the songwriter, asked for a few changes, got Edgar Winter (of “Frankenstein” fame) to do a sax solo, and the rest really is history. Welsh of the West End covered the version from the musical Tina.

Fittingly, Tyler covered Tina’s “Don’t Turn Around.”

I also knew she covered “The Bitch is Back,” originally by Elton John, as part of 1991’s Two Rooms tribute to Elton John and Bernie Taupin (which is overall just a great album, by the way).

I did not know though that she covered Bob Seger’s “Fire Down Below.” It was a nice trade though since Ike and Tina’s “Nutbush City Limits” was such a mainstay for him. I like her voice on this one and the quicker tempo. The former just fits the latter, and I don’t think Seger could do it at that tempo.

She covered Fire on her 1978 album Rough, where she also covered Bitch for the first time. She also covered Dan Hill’s “Sometimes When We Touch,” which has always been a favorite of mine. Tina’s voice, that raspy, smoky sound, is a great fit for this song.

One thing I discovered as I looked through her music was how many songs other people wrote for her. I suppose at some level I already knew performers wrote songs for each other but I didn’t really think about it. Susanna Hoffs popped into my Instagram feed recently, leading me to look up the Bangles, and I discovered that Prince wrote “Manic Monday.” So down that rabbit hole I went with Tina.

On Turner’s Private Dancer album, Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits wrote “Private Dancer.” David Bowie wrote “1984.” Holly Knight, who wrote “The Best” for Bonnie Tyler (and lots of other songs for lots of other performers), wrote “Better Be Good to Me.” On Break Every Rule, David Bowie wrote “Girls” for her, and Knopfler added “Overnight Sensation.” Bryan Adams penned “Back Where You Started.” That might be an interesting topic for another post.

What a career, and what a life. Thanks for the music, Anna Mae.

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