Today marks legendary soul singer Tina Turner’s birthday. Born Anna Mae Bullock on November 26, 1939 in Tennessee, Turner began singing at church in her hometown of Nutbush at an early age and would go on to have success with the Ike & Tina Turner Revue in the 1960s along with then-husband Ike Turner. Ike and Tina notoriously split ways in the mid-1970s, after Tina accused Ike of domestic violence, freeing Tina up to launch “one of the greatest comebacks in music history” in the 1980s.
While Tina had hits in the ‘60s with songs like “A Fool in Love,” “River Deep – Mountain High” and her iconic cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Proud Mary,” the soul singer’s solo career kicked off in earnest when she had a hit with Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together” in 1983. The success of “Let’s Stay Together” urged Capitol Records to greenlight a studio album, Private Dancer, which became Tina’s most commercially successful LP (certified five-times platinum) and containing one of her most iconic songs, “What’s Love Got To Do With It.”
After releasing a string of successful albums throughout the ‘80s and ‘90s, Turner put out Twenty Four Seven in 1999 and announced a world tour around the LP. The massive globetrotting tour included Turner’s final performances at London’s famed Wembley Stadium (although she conducted a 50th Anniversary Tour in 2008-2009, Turner had announced in 2000 that the Twenty Four Seven Tour would be her last). The shows on July 15 and 16 saw Turner deliver career-spanning sets which contained most of the aforementioned songs and kicked off with a cover of Sly & The Family Stone’s “I Want To Take You Higher” and also contained Otis Redding’s “Sittin’ On The Dock Of The Bay” and the Marvin Gaye popularized soul staple “I Heard It Through The Grapevine.” Tina Turner would close out the set with “Nutbush City Limits” and the tour’s titular number, “Twenty Four Seven.”
The Wembley performances were captured for posterity in the 2001 concert film One Last Time Live in Concert. To celebrate Tina Turner’s birthday, watch the film below via Music With Arthur:
Setlist
Set: I Want To Take You Higher, Absolutely Nothing’s Changed, A Fool In Love, Acid Queen, River Deep Mountain High, We Don’t Need Another Hero, Better Be Good To Me, Private Dancer, Let’s Stay Together, When The Heartache Is Over, Baby I’m A Star, Help, Whatever You Need, Sittin’ On The Dock Of The Bay, Try A Little Tenderness, I Heard It Through The Grapevine, Addicted To Love, Simply The Best, Proud Mary, Nutbush City Limits, Twenty Four Seven
[Originally Published: November 26, 2020]
