Tina Turner, whose gravelly voice and fiery performances made her a rock music legend, died Wednesday at the age of 83.
Britain’s Sky News reported the sad news about Turner, whose version of “Proud Mary” with then-husband Ike Turner, as well as her solo hits such as “Private Dancer” and “What’s Love Got to Do With It,” defined her as a voice of drive and passion.
“Tina Turner, the ‘Queen of Rock’n Roll’ has died peacefully today at the age of 83 after a long illness in her home in Kusnacht near Zurich, Switzerland,” a Turner representative said, according to Sky News.
“With her, the world loses a music legend and a role model,” the representative said.
Tina Turner was one of a kind. ?#TinaTurner #RIPTina
pic.twitter.com/GKdNMPueKx— Ryan Shead (@RyanShead) May 24, 2023
Turner is survived by her husband, Erwin Bach, and three children. She married Bach in 2013, six years after the death of Ike Turner in 2007, according to the U.K.’s Daily Mail.
In writing about her career, The New York Times cited a 1969 review of a concert in which Turner opened for the Rolling Stones.
one of one. a trailblazer. a queen.
RIP Tina Turner ??️ pic.twitter.com/43lhuF448F
— Ashley Nicole Moss (@AshNicoleMoss) May 24, 2023
“In the context of today’s show business, Tina Turner must be the most sensational professional onstage. She comes on like a hurricane. She dances and twists and shakes and sings and the impact is instant and total,” critic Ralph J. Gleason of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote then.
Turner’s career began in the 1950s and appeared to wither in the 1970s after she and Ike split amid revelations that she was a victim of abuse.
RIP the pioneering, massively talented, and legendary TINA TURNER.
PROUD MARY (1970) pic.twitter.com/HHbxaL7DlL
— Michael Warburton (@MichaelWarbur17) May 24, 2023
“My relationship with Ike was doomed the day he figured out I was going to be his moneymaker. He needed to control me, economically and psychologically, so I could never leave him,” Turner wrote in her biography, “My Love Story,” according to the U.K.’s Guardian.
Turner bounced back in 1984 with the album “Private Dancer.”
At the 1985 Grammys, “What’s Love Got to Do With It” won three awards and “Better Be Good To Me” won one.
Tina Turner had her first major solo hit with “What’s Love Got To Do With It” and how many of us rushed out to buy her album “Private Dancer?”
RIP, Queen.
Gone but not forgotten. pic.twitter.com/x6mE3F5fDj— Lisa Ericsson Murphy ??GQP In Disarray (@lisakrstin) May 24, 2023
“I don’t necessarily want to be a ‘strong’ person,” she told the Times in 2019. “I had a terrible life. I just kept going. You just keep going, and you hope that something will come.”
In 2021, amid multiple health issues, Turner bid farewell in an HBO documentary cited by the New York Post’s Page Six.
“Some people say the life that I lived and the performances that I gave, the appreciation… I should be proud of that. I am. But when do you stop being proud? I mean, when do you, how do you bow out slowly? Just go away?” she said then.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.