Tina Turner known as the “Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll”, and rose to prominence as the lead singer of the Ike & Tina Turner Revue before launching a successful career as a solo performer died at the age of 83 on Wednesday, May 24.
Turner died at her home in Küsnacht, Switzerland, following a long illness, including cancer, strokes, and kidney failure in her final years.
Turner revealed in her 2018 memoir My Love Story that she had suffered multiple life-threatening illnesses. In 2013, three weeks after her wedding to Erwin Bach, she suffered a stroke and had to learn to walk again. In 2016, she was diagnosed with intestinal cancer. Turner considered assisted suicide following her kidney failure and signed up to be a member of Exit, but Bach offered to donate a kidney for her transplant. Turner had kidney transplant surgery on April 7, 2017.
Turner, born Anna Mae Bullock on November 26, 1939 was an American-born and naturalized Swiss singer. She began her career with Ike Turner’s Kings of Rhythm in 1957. Under the name Little Ann, she appeared on her first record, “Boxtop”, in 1958. In 1960, she debuted as Tina Turner with the hit duet single “A Fool in Love”. The duo Ike & Tina Turner became “one of the most formidable live acts in history”. They released hits such as “It’s Gonna Work Out Fine”, “River Deep – Mountain High”, “Proud Mary”, and “Nutbush City Limits”, before disbanding in 1976.
In the 1980s, Turner launched “one of the greatest comebacks in music history”. Her 1984 multi-platinum album Private Dancer contained the hit song “What’s Love Got to Do with It”, which won the Grammy Award for Record of the Year and became her first and only number-one song on the Billboard Hot 100.
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