A special treat for the French speaking readers (and they are many) of the TINA blog with this 1993 story featured in French Rock & Folk magazine. From her humble beginning to having a biopic made of her life at the age of 54, the article cover Tina’s career and also features an interview with Ike Turner. A very interesting read, sorry for not doing an English translation of it but as you can see the article is very long and unfortunately I don’t have much time to spend on translations these days… However if anyone feels like doing the dirty job and share it with all the fans, please feel free! Enjoy!
I had been waiting for years for BDMUSIC, a French publishing company, to release the story of Ike & Tina on comics for years. With previous releases about Nat King Cole, Nina Simone, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez it was predictable that Tina’s story would see the light of the day on such format at some point. The book is divided in 2 parts, the comics part in itself (28 pages) and a biography (both in French and English) together with a 2CDs set of Ike & Tina music from 1960 to 1962 and 1968 to 1969.
If the drawings are pretty well made and the book in itself looks nice, the content isn’t as good as fans could expect from such a release. The story told is more inspired from the movie ‘What’s Love Got To Do With It’ than from Ike or Tina personal biographies. So there’s a few inaccuracy in the story but I guess that’s wasn’t the aim of the author. Benoit Bonte tells the story of the notorious couple through big events of their life together, such as their meeting in St Louis, Tina’s first step on stage, life at home, the recording of River Deep Mountain High and the final split.
Having previously written comics on Jerry Lee Lewis & Howlin’ Wolf, Benoit Bonte has clearly a soft spot for Ike and for once, the rock’n’roll genius that he is, is not portrayed in a too devilish way. Concerning Tina, she seems quite transparent in the story, some lack of depth from her character, some inaccuracy and the slang language makes it hardly believable.
All in all, a huge expectation from the moment I heard this would come out and a small disappointment. The two CDS accompanying the book are also a letdown. The audio is correct but nothing exceptional and the tracklist is kind of surprising with songs such a River Deep or Proud Mary missing. But of course it is still a nice object for all the fans to add to your collection so if you feel like ordering it follow the link!
Queen has “We Will Rock You”, Abba has “Mama Mia”, Gloria Estefan just launched her “Get on Your Feet” show…. Musical blockbusters! Tina Turner’s life has already been portrayed a few times on stage but never a big dimension project. However it seems like things are going to change… After years of mentioning it in several interviews, a real project with an official involvement from Tina herself will probably see the light of the day in the near future thanks to Dutch theatrical producer Joop Van Den Ende.
If it does happen that means that Tina will also get involved in promoting the musical in some sort of way so that’s something to look forward to!
Thanks to DJ for the info!
As we know from today´s point of view, Tina Turner was in the middle of her career when the biographical movie “What´s Love Got To Do With It” – named after her signature song and USA #1 hit – was released in 1993. The movie was based upon the book from 1986 “I, Tina” which she co-wrote with the music journalist Kurt Loder and which featured many interviews with contemporary witnesses like band/family members, music colleagues, and Tina Turner herself. Maybe it was even not clear to herself that there would be new albums and tours until the year 2009 which makes the release of a bio pic only reasonable if you consider her age in 1993 when she was 53. But there were still at least 15 years to come – full of appearances and releases. Because of the heavy ammunition she fired at the world – an album incl. re-recordings and completely new material, the release of several songs from that album incl. the usual marketing appearances, the movie itself and then even a US tour plus some festival appearances in Europe and Australia – the year 1993 will always be a year to remember.
Somewhere around 1991, UK magazine Music Stars published an article on Tina Turner. The article includes a short biography, and photos of Tina throughout her career. While the article doesn’t include much new information – it is short and clear for those of you who need to catch up on Tina’s bio, and it includes many nice full color pictures. Continue reading for browsing through the magazine!
