Can only five songs be singled out among the many iconic recordings of the recently deceased Tina Turner, emblem of soul and pop and soundtracks and, already on a more personal level, the strength against gender violence? You shouldn’t, but you can, always understanding this exercise as a slight introduction rather than a definitive categorization. Here are five samples (they could be others) of the ferocious vocal talent of an irreplaceable referent of our popular culture.
‘What’s love got to do with it’
Thanks are due to Cliff Richard for rejecting this composition from Graham Lyle and Terry Britten and leaving Turner free to turn her into a canonical piece of eighties pop. In the role of her lover without passion for love, the artist exudes credibility, charisma and intensity: she has lived to sing it. The song gave the original title to the 1993 biopic (here simply ‘Tina’) about her years of rise to fame and her determination, in the late 1970s, to break ties with Ike Turner, who subjected her to a hell of domestic violence. during their married years.
‘River Deep-Mountain High’
The mythical producer phil spector he was devastated by the poor commercial results in the United States of this hypersexual rock & soul cathedral. And, in fact, it was what motivated his first exile from the industry. But in Europe it was received for the spectacular vocal display and production prodigy that it was and still is. Although credited to Ike & Tina Turner, she is the protagonist, the flame that burns everything.
From the affable folk rock of the Creedence little remains of the version recorded by Ike and Tina in 1969, less motivated by the original than, according to the books, by the cover recorded by the R&B band checkmates ltd, others with experience with Spector. This definitive take begins with a great use of the spoken word, continues with tense sensuality and ends up gaining in revolutions to lead to a soul party of the first order.
If there is a song capable of dismantling any skepticism towards mark knopfler, that is ‘Private dancer’, which he recorded for Dire Straits before understanding that Turner would know how to make it his own, better and superior. Along with the song that crowns this humble Top 5, the double knockout of the album titled, precisely, ‘Private dancer’ (1984), a great ‘comeback’ for the artist after an unsuccessful first attempt to establish herself alone.
His best contribution to the almost lost art of the movie song, closely followed by ‘We don’t need another hero’, from ‘Mad Max, beyond the thunderdome’. Bond and The Edge they knew how to pay tribute to the ‘bondian’ essences as composers. Nellee Hooper, the producer of Björk or Massive Attack, updated that sacrosanct model with a trip hop pulse. Tina emulated, without imitating, the no less mythical Shirley Bassey with an interpretation worthy of study and the iconic aura that surrounds her almost three decades later.
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