Tina Turner
Martyn Ware
The producer and Heaven 17 musician recalls the humble star who gave him tea and biscuits, and who could record a hit track in one take
A few weeks before I met Tina A Turner in 1982, I saw her playing in London. I was a big fan. Even though I was known for making electronic music, River Deep, Mountain High was my favourite song. But back then, she didn't have a recording contract. The only way she could earn money independently was by doing what they called the chicken-in-abasket circuit in America, touring her old hits.
How I got involved was like an alignment of the stars. I'd been putting together an album of old songs reframed in new contexts and James Brown had just backed out at the last minute or, rather, his lawyers had. So there I was in the Virgin Records office, wondering who on earth was going to sing the Temptations' Ball of Confusion, and the head of A&R, who knew Tina's new manager, Roger Davies, overheard me. The next minute, [Heaven 17's] Glenn Gregory and I were flying out to LA to meet her, literally in her front room.
Tina was as sweet as she could possibly be, making us tea and bringing out biscuits. She seemed quite easy with herself, which is amazing given what she'd been through in the very recent past [she divorced her abusive husband, Ike, in 1978]. She didn't volunteer lots, but she didn't avoid it either. She told me a couple of difficult things about Ike beating her, and the level of his cocaine addiction - how he'd pour a pile of it in the studio and say everyone couldn't leave until it was finished; how the only person who took it was him.
Being in the studio with her was incredible from the start. The first time she walked in, she just walked to where the band was and got on with the job. We recorded Ball of Confusion and later, [her 1983 comeback single] Let's Stay Together, which I produced, both in one take.
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der December 22, 2023-Ausgabe von The Guardian Weekly.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
Bereits Abonnent ? Anmelden
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der December 22, 2023-Ausgabe von The Guardian Weekly.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
Bereits Abonnent? Anmelden
Power in the darkness
Wolf Hall is back. As the extraordinary epic about King Henry VIII and his vengeful entourage edges to a climax, Timothy Spall reveals what it was like to play Cromwell's nemesis
It's time for Trump's instincts to be called what they are: fascist
There is a good chance that on 5 November, Americans will elect the first fascist president of the United States.
CASTLES IN THE AIR
It was meant to be a dream development of mansions in the Turkish hills. But 13 years on, Burj AI Babas is a half-built ghost town, and a microcosm of the scandal-hit construction sector under Erdoğan. Will the buyers ever get to move in?
Using cutting-edge methods, Alexandra Morton-Hayward is unravelling the mysteries of grey matter – even as hers betrays her The brain collector
ALEXANDRA MORTON-HAYWARD, a 35-year-old mortician turned molecular palaeontologist, had been behind the wheel of her rented Vauxhall for five hours, motoring across three countries, when a torrential storm broke loose on the plains of Belgium.
Dark times Blackouts spark fears of wider collapse
Maria Elena Cárdenas is 76 and lives in a municipal shelter on Amargura Street in Havana's colonial old town.
Washington Post sparks fury over decision not to endorse
Fury and shock ripped through liberal America last weekend after news that the Washington Post, home of the Watergate scandal exposé, will not endorse Kamala Harris for president.
The great space waste
From chaotic collisions to depletion of the ozone layer, the thousands of satellites in orbit around Earth have the potential to wreak havoc
New heights Teen Sherpa's fight for climbing equality
Growing up as a sherpa in Nepal, Nima Rinji Sherpa was used to his relatives performing superhuman feats on the mountains.
Plastic cave made in Spain keeps Amazonian culture alive
It is not yet dawn in Ulupuwene, an Indigenous village in the Brazilian Amazon, but the Wauja people have already risen to prepare for the festive day ahead.
Putin's call to de-dollarise alarms some at Brics talks
Vladimir Putin opened the expanded Brics summit last month by issuing a call for an alternative international payments system that could prevent the US using the dollar as a political weapon.
