Tina Turner, the American-born singer who left a hardscrabble farming community and abusive relationship to become one of the top recording artists of all time, died on Wednesday at the age of 83.
She died peacefully after a long illness in her home in Küsnacht near Zurich, Switzerland.
Turner began her career in the 1950s during the early years of rock ‘n’ roll and evolved into an MTV phenomenon.
With her taste for musical experimentation and bluntly worded ballads, Turner gelled perfectly with a 1980s pop landscape in which music fans valued electronically produced sounds and scorned hippie-era.
Sometimes nicknamed the “Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll,” Turner won six of her eight Grammy Awards in the 1980s. In that decade she landed a dozen songs in the Top 40, including “Typical Male,” “The Best,” “Private Dancer” and “Better Be Good to Me.” Her 1988 show in Rio de Janeiro drew 180,000 people, which remains one of the largest concert audiences for any single performer.
