Tina Turner

Many say she’s simply the best, better than all the rest, better than anyone. One thing's for sure, her path to fame wasn’t easy, it was plagued with problems from the get-go. Nevertheless, she stood her ground and kept doing what she loved to do best: singing her heart out and shaking her moneymaker like it’s nobody’s business. Today we are rolling, rolling on the river. We’ll tackle the tumultuous life and career of the tremendously talented Tina Turner on this week’s episode of FYI!

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[Applause] many say[Applause] she's one thing's for sure her path to fame wasn't easy it was plagued with problems from the get-go nevertheless she stood her ground and kept doing what she loved to do best singing her heart out and shaking her money maker like it's nobody's business today we are rolling rolling rolling yeah rolling rolling on a river we rolling rolling rolling we'll tackle the tumultuous life in career of the tremendously talented Tina Turner on this week's episode episode of[Applause] FYI welcome to for your info English you got it you got[Applause][Music][Applause][Music] it hello hello hello and welcome to another exciting episode of of FYI and today we're going to take a look at Tina somebody who doesn't even need a last name normally if you just say the word tina everybody knows that you're referring to the one and only Tina Turner after all she's Simply the Best better than all the rest better than anyone anyone I've ever met and I hope you think FYI is the best and also a quick reminder if you haven't heard a topic you'd like to hear about just let me know and a special shout out to Christina for suggesting today's topic and even though this story has a somewhat happy ending this was a tumultuous life and career so we're going to take a look at The Life and Times of Tina Turner today are you guys ready let's let's start off with our intro if you noticed I spliced some of her songs in there so I started off by saying many say she's Simply the Best better than all the rest better than anyone obviously it's a song lyric one thing's for sure her path to fame wasn't easy and her path is her way in Spanish you say kamino it was plagued with problems from the get-go and I think you can figure out what the word plagued means and from the get-go means from the first moment then I said nevertheless you can say nevertheless or nonetheless she stood her ground and this is to not budge to say this is what I want to do and nobody is going to convince me otherwise we say to stand your ground and she kept doing what she loved to do best which was entertaining people singing her heart out and shaking her money maker like it's nobody's business and you'll hear that in a lot of R&B music Money Maker Shake Your Money Maker it means shake shake shake shake that booty shake that booty I'm sure we looked at that way of saying it in our dance episode if you haven't checked that out give it a listen so she was shaking her money maker like it's nobody's business another way to say this is like there's no tomorrow and then I finished it off saying today we're rolling rolling rolling on a river which by the way is not one of her songs it's a cover of a Credence Clearwater Revival song Sorry CCR her version trumped yours if you ask anybody today who sings that song they will unanimously say Tina even though it was originally written and performed by Credence Clearwater Revival and then I said we'll tackle the tumultuous life and career of the tremendously talented Tina Turner and you can say talented or gifted and I want to look at the pronunciation of her last name because it's got the word turn in it I've heard this word mispronounced so many times it's not t it's turn I want you to imagine the U as an e turn it's another great song as well to everything turn turn turn so if you notice it sounds like an e and in the bonus part we'll take a look at a few expressions with the word turn in them we'll also take a look at Tina's health problems that she was plagued with all throughout her life we'll look at some of her relationships and the tragedies we'll also take a look at her death fun facts and her career as an actress she was a triple threat a triple threat is somebody who can sing dance and act and she even taught MC Jagger how to dance which if you haven't listen to our Rolling Stones episode give it a listen but we'll find out about all those fun facts in the bonus part remember the bonus part is available exclusively for patrons but you can be a patron for as little as three years a month it's peanuts just think of all the content you get every week you get a bonus episode you get PDF documents and if you're in our higher levels our super duper or Interstellar levels well then you'll have class with me every week where we review all different concepts in English including Concepts from each podcast and most importantly we have tons of fun and our Interstellar students our highest level students even get a private class with me if you haven't taken a look at it yet you can take a look it's patreon.com Alberto Alonso and there you'll find a multitude of options a wealth of options and the most important thing is we're all learning and laughing together so I want to send a shout out to all my patrons especially my super duper students Mara Javier bako Roberto and Mila and the inter Interstellar students the ones who get a private class with me every month along with a weekly group class that's five classes a month with me those people are Garmin lenina Issa Paco David Jose Maria Patricio and Edgar props to each and every one of you and props means recognition it's kind of a slang way of saying recognition but that's one of my claims to fame I like to teach you guys real English you can learn the word table fork and all of that jazz in an English book but what about Fork it over swasta see that one you won't learn in every book or any show that's totally native English and that's exactly the stuff I want to know in Spanish so that's why I teach it to you because I'm always putting myself in your shoes Amigos and also remember another way you can help this podcast is by raing it you can rate it on many different podcast platforms such as Apple podcasts Spotify and it helps so leave it a five-star rating and leave a comment and I'll tell you guys something it's working the fact that you're spreading the word or as we call it word of mouth I'd also like to send a shout out right now to all our Amigos in Argentina FYI is number 27 in Argentina in language learning thank you so much Argentinos also in Ireland we're in the top 100 FYI is number 89 in language learning in Ireland and I guess what you should know here is it's important to be in the top 200 in order to gain visibility so keep downloading keep reviewing and keep spreading the word I really appreciate it Amigos and a shout out to all of you who listen to us in Ireland Argentina or wherever it's mindblowing to think that my voice is being heard in these amazing places that I haven't even been to yet well at least not physically I'm going to come down there one day for an asadito you can bet your bottom dollar anybody have an extra bed a big bed so my wife my daughter and I can fit together in Ireland or Argentina or any other amazing place but seriously thank you so much FYI I am humbled all right so let's talk about Tina somebody who was humble but her stage Persona wasn't on stage she was fierce but she needed to be especially when you hear about all the trouble she had growing up and in all her relationships so let's rewind let's go back to where it all[Music] started Anna May Bullock was born under November 26th 1939 she was born in Brownsville Tennessee but she grew up in Nutbush Tennessee which would later be immortalized in a song called Nutbush City Limits if you haven't heard it it's amazing and it literally put her town on the map her father worked as an overseer of the sharecroppers and a sharecropper was what they had with the slaves it was like a colle Diva and to oversee means to supervise and she has some early memories of picking cotton with her family at an early age so her roots are very humble even though she ended up playing in front of millions of people and being a global Superstar and even though she was born in the United States she renounced her American citizenship and she became Swiss and she never went back to the United States she stayed in Switzerland until her death and she got the Swiss citizenship in 2013 after she relinquished her American citizenship but she began living in Switzerland in 1994 that's when she fell in love with the country so she's lived in a lot of places not just Hollywood as I said before she's a triple threat so a singer actress and Dancer also a songwriter we could add into the mix she's also known as aka the queen of rock and roll and honestly who has a raspier voice than her maybe Janice Joplin but that's different Janice Joplin was more folk and Tina Turner was more pop rock even though she experimented with all kinds of genres as we'll see she Rose to prominence as the better half of the husband and wife Duo Ike and Tina Turner then after that tragically ended and we'll talk about about how it ended it needed to end it was an abusive relationship both in the business sense and in the sentimental sense but as we'll see Tina bounced back and she launched a successful career as a solo performer she proved to the world that she was going to get even more famous by herself that she didn't need the abusive Ike Turner which we'll talk about later when we talk more about relationships she was recognized for her voice as I said grally raspy voice powerful voice she also had a certain Swagger and a Swagger is the way you move the way you carry yourself and obviously her Unstoppable energy even into her 70s and 80s she was still performing with the same Vigor the same energy that she did when she was a Youngster speaking of being a youngster she sang in the church choir hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah this was at Nutbush Spring Hill Baptist Church the year was 1950 and she was 11 years old and her mother Zelma left the house without warning she was in an abusive relationship with Floyd her husband and she relocated to St Louis there's just one problem she left her daughter behind that must have felt horrible that the people who are supposed to love you nurture you and take care of you leave you behind with an abusive person so talk about bad luck from the get-go two years after her mother left the family her father married another woman and moved to Detroit at that point the father sent them to live with their maternal grandmother in Brownsville Tennessee so she was obviously not wanted by her parents her mother left the home and her father was abusive and was not interested in having kids and she said referring to her mother and I quote she was a very young woman who didn't want another kid so as I said she was unwanted and I guess the domestic abuse didn't help so Tina was abused and neglected since she was a little kid think about that adversity and even after Tina Turner became a superstar a household name her mother was still cold and unloving some people don't deserve to have kids also as a child she was a self-professed tomboy and a tomboy is a girl who likes to do boy things it's like if you have a boy who's more feminine well in this case it's a girl who's more masculine usually it happens if you have a lot of brothers and you grow up around boys you turn into a tomboy well you got to protect yourself survival of the fittest so she was a tomboy who joined the cheerleading squad and the female basketball team in her high school and she was very outgoing she was a social butterfly when she was 16 her grandmother died so she went to live with her mother in St Louis again she was just being pushed from home to home she finally graduated from suner high school in 1958 she had a number of odd jobs she was a domestic worker a nurse's aid and whatever jobs she needed to get by or to make ends meet as we say so that's her childhood what about her career well her career officially began with Ike Turner who would become her future husband his band was called the Kings of Rhythm and around 1956 she saw them and she was a struck she was blown away by their performance and she wanted in she wanted to be a part of it and this was in St Louis her and her sister began to perform frequently at nightclubs in St Louis and she first saw Ike Turner or she first laid eyes on him when he was performing with his band at the club Manhattan in East St Louis she was blown away by his Talent she said in her own words I almost went into a trance and we talked about Ike Turner in our rock and roll episode he wrote one of the first commercial rock and roll songs so she was very social she asked Ike Turner to let her sing in his band as we said and we'll get into deeper he was a sexist an abuser just a rotten person so he said he would call her but he stood her up he never called her and one night in 1956 as I said before she grabbed the microphone she grabbed it from the drummer Eugene Washington and this was during an intermission and she sang the BB King Blues ballad you know I love you as soon as he heard her sing he asked her if she knew more songs and she sang her heart out the rest of the night soon after she became a featured vocalist with his band her first appearance was was not as Tina Turner she appeared under the name little Anne on her first record box top this was in 1958 but Ike Turner decided she needed a rebranding of course what more convenient then take his last name and he got the name Tina from a show called Sheena Queen of the Jungle he liked the sound of it so her debut was in 1958 but her debut as Tina Turner was in 1960 with the hit single a Fool in Love and they shot to stardom the I and Tina Turner review became one of the biggest live acts in history they released hit singles such as it's going to work out fine and by the way we'll learn some English with Tina's songs in the bonus episode it'll work out fine it's going to work out fine ain't no River too deep ain't no mountain too high ain't no river deep enough ain't no mountain high enough there's that ain't where in this case there isn't a mountain high enough then Proud Mary Proud Mary keep on turning rolling rolling on the river and again the one that put her hometown on the map nut Bush City Limits and then in 1976 they disbanded they split but we'll get to that because I wanted to take a look at ain't no river deep enough ain't no mountain high enough this was produced by Phil Spectre Phil Spectre mastered a recording technique called the wall of sound and if I'm not mistaken it's where you layer several vocals on top of each other to make it sound Fuller and it worked they had a huge hit with River Deep Mountain High but it was not going to be her biggest hit she would go on to have bigger hits as a solo artist but we're getting there let's go to their split in 1976 it had come to a head their relationship both in the working sense and also in the emotional sense by the mid 1970s Ike was heavy heavily addicted to cocaine obviously this affected their relationship and July 1st was the breaking point they flew from LA to Dallas and they had a gig at The Statler Hilton in Downtown Dallas the couple got into a physical altercation on route to the hotel and shortly after Tina knew it was time to leave this abuser and she fled she ran away from Ike and according to the legend she had 36 Cents in her pocket and a mobile gas card she ran across a busy freeway and she knew she couldn't look back so imagine that she was ready to get hit by a speeding car just to get away from this control freak and she was able to get across the highway Highway and she hid out at the Ramada Inn which was right across the highway on July 27th of that year she filed for divorce the divorce was finalized on March 29th 1978 and some said some Speculator some experts and I say that in air quotes they said that this was the end of Tina Turner that she would be nothing without Ike and oh boy did she prove them wrong in the 19 19 80s Tina Turner launched one of the greatest comebacks in music history first she healed herself she got away from her abuser and she started taking care of herself and she knew that she had more in her that she hadn't sung her swan song hey that's a tongue twister and in the early 80s she was still touring but she was more of a Nostalgia act she was performing at hotel ballrooms little clubs but then in 1984 the multiplatinum album Private Dancer hit the charts it didn't only have the single I'm your private dancer a dancer for Mone any music do and what does Mark noler have to do with that song from Dire Straits I'll tell you in the bonus part and also on that album it gave her her first and only number one song on the Billboard Hot 100 does anyone know what song that is her most commercially successful song is What's Love Got to Do Got to Do With It what's love but a secondhand emotion What's Love Got to Do got to do it which won the Grammy award for record of the year and her chart success continued with better be good to me we don't need another hero what a great song that is from Mad Max 3 We Don't Need Another Hero we don't need to know the way home we don't want to know the other Thunder it also had the song typical ale the best I don't want to fight and golden eye from 007 James Bond then she embarked on the break every rule World Tour this was 1987 and 1988 this became the top grossing female tour of the 1980s it also broke a Guinness world record for the largest paying audience she was also contributing vocals to us for Africa and the song We are the world we are the children and I don't have to tell you about her success Against All Odds she sold more than a 100 million records she is one of the bestselling recording artists of all time she received 12 Grammy Awards She's been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice with Ike Turner in 1991 and as a solo artist in 2021 one and I think nobody will argue with the fact that she is a legend sadly on May 24th 2023 she died at her home in cusn Switzerland she was 83 years old she had been sick for a long time but we'll talk about her illnesses in the bonus part that day the world lost a legend folks we've got to get going but I sure hope you'll join us in the bonus episode of this week's[Music][Applause][Applause][Music][Music] FYI