Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll Tina Turner dies aged 83

Tina Turner moved to Switzerland and gained Swiss citizenship following a tumultuous first marriage. Keystone / Str

Tina Turner, the American-born singer who left a hardscrabble farming community and abusive relationship to become one of the top recording artists of all time, died on Wednesday at the age of 83.

Turner died peacefully after a long illness in her home in Küsnacht near Zurich, Switzerland, her representative said.

Turner began her career in the 1950s during the early years of rock and roll and evolved into an MTV phenomenon.

In the video for her chart-topping song “What’s Love Got to Do with It”, in which she called love a “second-hand emotion”, Turner epitomised 1980s style as she strutted through New York City streets with her spiky blond hair, wearing a cropped jean jacket, mini skirt, and stiletto heels.

With her taste for musical experimentation and bluntly-worded ballads, Turner gelled perfectly with a 1980s pop landscape in which music fans valued electronically-produced sounds and scorned hippie-era idealism.

Tennessee roots

Sometimes nicknamed the “Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll”, Turner won six of her eight Grammy Awards in the 1980s. The decade saw her land a dozen songs on the Top 40, including “Typical Male”, “The Best”, “Private Dancer” and “Better Be Good to Me.” Her 1988 show in Rio de Janeiro drew 180,000 people, which remains one of the largest concert audiences for any single performer.

Turner was born Anna Mae Bullock on November 26, 1939, in the rural Tennessee community of Nutbush, which she described in her 1973 song “Nutbush City Limits” as a “quiet little old community, a one-horse town”.

She teamed up with musician Ike Turner and took on her new stage name to record a number of hits as the “Ike and Tina Turner Revue” in the 1960s and 1970s. Turner’s marriage to the abusive Ike came to an end in 1978.

Swiss citizenship

In 1985 Turner met German music executive Erwin Bach who became her long-term partner and in 1988 she moved to London, beginning a decades-long residency in Europe. She released two studio albums in the 1990s that sold well, especially in Europe, recorded the theme song for 1995 Bond movie “GoldenEye”, and staged a successful world tour in 2008 and 2009.

She then retired from show business, married Bach and relinquished her US nationality to become a citizen of Switzerland.

Turner battled a number of health problems after retiring and in 2018 she faced a family tragedy, when her oldest son, Craig, took his life aged 59 in Los Angeles. Her younger son Ronnie died in December 2022.

Turner is survived by Bach and two sons of Ike’s who she adopted.

Here are some highlights of her career: