The Last Bass Outpost

Aged 83.

(https://cdn11.bigcommerce.com/s-yzgoj/images/stencil/1280x1280/products/1943294/2843055/apiyvz6fu__66406.1626373704.jpg?c=2)

Sad news indeed.
Thank you for all the amazing music Tina Turner.
What a legend.

I saw her here in the mid 80's after her second career took off.
She was great.

That hits home. A true Diva.

https://youtu.be/bpuf6AmQH4M

Thank you Tina RIP

She was awesome. Part of my life since childhood, then the amazing 80s comeback. RIP

Like a lot of black women (unnecessarily so), Anna Mae never felt good about her hair and always wore wigs on stage (an ill-fitting one at the Midnight Special in 1973 if I may say so). There was nothing wrong with her hair.

(https://i.pinimg.com/736x/89/c4/c8/89c4c82fb1843b6472c38873b183a139.jpg)

(https://i.pinimg.com/originals/ea/1b/38/ea1b386f4e9bab3832c72bb196cd979d.jpg)

(https://i.pinimg.com/736x/5a/fb/12/5afb126cfd09d154aa1cffabf6b6c28e--yearbook-photos-tina-turner.jpg)


I find that "Black anchor woman" look dated, no matter whether chemically straigtened (cancer!) or with a wig.

(https://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/200507154622-abby-phillip-background-full-169.jpg)

(https://i.insider.com/5be07491d1e844225e3c6d77?width=900&format=jpeg)

Notice how politically balanced I was in my choice of pictures?  :popcorn: That's why I can now innocently post a pic of  a black woman whose hairdo I find refreshing:

(https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2022/05/05/gettyimages-1240471749_wide-4a73b1d0239f4922912ce831409161f752066815-s1600-c85.webp)

Blame my elder brother. He had a poster of Angela Davis in his room, I always thought her hot.




Not that an Afro like that doesn't require as much or even more maintenance than straightened black hair!  :mrgreen: But at least it's not carcinogen.

Great post, Uwe.

Quote from: uwe on May 25, 2023, 09:38:03 AM
Like a lot of black women (unnecessarily so), Anna Mae never felt good about her hair and always wore wigs on stage (an ill-fitting one at the Midnight Special in 1973 if I may say so). There was nothing wrong with her hair.

I read that Ike made her straighten and bleach her hear (because he had an obsession with a white Hollywood actress)
The hair became severy damaged and Tina was forced to wear a wig.

RIP Tina. I am truly saddened by her loss. One of a kind, she earned her legendary status.
So much drama in her voice. She was like an actor-singer.

I always liked this song from the 80s (here the tempo is rather amped up but it seems to work in a stadium)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQIQ8f7S0Q4

It's a stadium rock show alright (reminds me of the Stones ever since they became a stadium band with a plethora of extra musicians and singers), no two ways about it. A predominantly white audience, rock alumnis in the backing band (the right guitarist is John Miles, he of "Music" fame, on other tours ex-Wishbone Ash guitarist Laurie Wisefield was her musical director), the music is inoffensive mainstream AOR, not entirely different from what you would hear at a Bryan Adams or Bob Seger show, there is not really much funk, blues or soul in it (the frantic energy is a bit reminiscent of James Brown or Sam & Dave soul revues though). And Tina had a distinctive voice, but she was no Bessy, Billie, Ella, Aretha or Whitney.

But no matter, she delivered. And the way she rebuilt her career after ditching her abusive husband (who had his qualities as a musician) is commendable. While she had retired from live work for a while, it feels a bit like the end of an era to me.

Quote from: Basvarken on May 25, 2023, 11:29:22 AM
I read that Ike made her straighten and bleach her hear (because he had an obsession with a white Hollywood actress)
The hair became severely damaged and Tina was forced to wear a wig.

I don't doubt that for a minute. The processes to uncurl (I think the euphemistic term for battering black hair into submission is "relaxing") must have surely been refined and become less hazardous from when Anna Mae was a young woman, but it still requires a lot of chemical and physical strain to be applied on the hair follicles. And there is of course the sad issue that it was only developed to comply with a perceived beauty standard set by the white world, i.e. to look "less African" and "savage".

There is a reason why only The Supremes of the 70ies could sport hair like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2ce7FWOAM8

but to woo white radio and TV started out like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZkGaAqK-Nk

Tina Turner was in a league of her own. 

https://youtu.be/GC5E8ie2pdM

The cutest obituary I've read started with "The Swiss singer passed away on ..." and if you think about it, yeah, Switzerland had become her (not only) spiritual home. It's almost 5.000 miles from Nutbush to Küsnacht (near Zürich)

(https://www.google.com/maps/vt/data=rgNOkO3LRW1mwzASEebhyeHYkMxHZUdp43UW_v3Wqv7FHNPZHWRiMJTArTNIytm2sptQOMesCyb0cWiKdDQyooVqJOOUYMdAHjKv9foTQ4eJ8k0B-iRf5ysEN6W9Vp9Ca9t323FrbhAxZNbpm9CknUR8PWCG8S9ttqdYeYUyLLgbGCRmbsvYYjwwxR0CAfm9KDR5Fy3KoSsSY-10K4KhWlA8o1RuauIFTCV1PaXydmVQDpmdcSIob488C-iJ2-_tQ3HiervfE5h3pltZDyu16fn7iA0DdBYRMan4x-hgx-AKn-FjX6n49w)

and Highway #19

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/38/US19-US19W-Cane_River.jpg/220px-US19-US19W-Cane_River.jpg)


doesn't even go there, but in the end Anna Mae had arrived. Together with her German husband Erwin.

(https://opoyi.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Screenshot-2023-05-25-002639.png)

I guess she was a Josephine Baker of sorts.

It's good that she had a good life, apparently in the end.

Certainly compared to Ike who died a bitter man.

Floor and I saw the movie Tina in the cinema a while ago. And yesterday it was broadcast on tv.
And it's really sad to see and hear her say she does not want to keep talking about the abusive past and all the torture she had to suffer. And then the movie is almost nothing else than doing exactly that.
It's good to know she eventually found true love and peace with that nice German gentleman.

I liked what the Mad Max director said about her
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/may/25/tina-turner-remembered-by-mad-max-director-george-miller-she-was-the-opposite-of-a-diva

Yeah, she had a work ethic.

"She wasn't afraid to be sexy and he wasn't afraid to sweat." Well put.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/may/28/tina-turner-raw-talent-and-refusal-to-accept-barriers

I love her version of Dust My Broom

https://youtu.be/dvfWYaOrZ5o

That's nicely rootsy. And Ike's terse rhythm guitar is a plus too.

Wonder how much of that version went into ZZ Top's one ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oqx8jeVFsjI

I always liked Dusty's vocals better than Billy's. But over the years he seemed to sing less and less.

Quote from: uwe on May 28, 2023, 07:44:36 PM
That's nicely rootsy. And Ike's terse rhythm guitar is a plus too.

Wonder how much of that version went into ZZ Top's one ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oqx8jeVFsjI

I always liked Dusty's vocals better than Billy's. But over the years he seemed to sing less and less.

Earliest known recorded version, a few years before Robert Johnson.

https://youtu.be/fGOmFhkzCWs

I didn't know it was initially a piano driven song. So Johnson added the trademark lead riff in triplets.

That ZZ Top version (from their IMHO best album Deguello) still sounds awfully close sonically to the Ike & Tina one. Ike, for all his character flaws, had a knack for arranging things.

Ike was a great musician, abuse issues aside. He was hardly the only musician of less than stellar character.

Some say the Rocket 88 was the first rock and roll song.

Quote from: Dave W on May 29, 2023, 11:46:17 AM
Ike was a great musician, abuse issues aside. He was hardly the only musician of less than stellar character.

Did I hear someone say "Phil Spector"?! Anna Mae in her younger years had a poor choice of company. (Or: Had to make a career in an age when types like Ike and Phil were prevalent and could largely do as they wish.) But, yeah, she wasn't attracted by Ike's looks (she didn't think he was handsome and also figured him too old), but by the quality of his guitar playing and his authority as a band leader. Both of course say nothing about whether you are violent with your wife or not.