Never Ever

RIP music legend Tina Turner, 83. Born Anna Mae Bullock in Tennessee, she hooked up with Ike Turner and her career began to rise. A Fool in Love hit #27 on Billboard’s Hot 100 in 1960. It’s Gonna Work Out Fine reached #14 in ‘61, earning a Grammy nomination for Best Rock and Roll Performance. Soon the Ike & Tina Turner Revue was born. It had more success touring than selling records. In 1966 the band signed with Phil Spector. Somehow the rousing River Deep, Mountain High stalled at #88. It wasn’t until 1971 and the release of the cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s Proud Mary that gold was struck. It peaked at #4, sold more than a million copies and won a Grammy for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group. Other nominations followed, but record sales were so-so. The couple divorced in ’78. Tina had modest success in her early days as a solo artist. She broke big in 1984 with the release of the album Private Dancer, which hit #3, was five-times platinum, selling ten million copies worldwide. The single What’s Love Got to Do with It was her only #1. The follow-ups Better Be Good to Me and Private Dancer both cracked the top ten. In ’86 her bio, I, Tina, was a best seller. She published three other books. In 1986 Turner released her sixth solo album, Break Every Rule, which reached #1 in four countries and sold over five million copies worldwide within its first year of release. In 1988 she performed in front of approximately 180,000 in Rio, setting a Guinness World Record at the time for the largest paying concert attendance for a solo artist. In 1989 she released the Foreign Affair album, which sold six million copies worldwide. The ensuing tour drew nearly four million spectators, breaking the record for a European tour previously set by the Rolling Stones. She was nominated for a ton of Grammys and won eight. She received three American Music Awards, seven from Billboard and a slew of others, 160 in all. She appeared in several movies. I always smile or chuckle whenever I recall this line she gave as Aunty Entity in the imaginative Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985): “Welcome, to another edition of Thunderdome.” And many of us on the WMU campus did pale imitations of a phrase from the opening of Proud Mary: “… we never ever do nothin’ nice, easy — we do it nice and rough…” Like so many big stars, her personal life was messy, including estrangement from her four kids, but she seemed to have found happiness with German record exec Erwin Bach, 16 years her junior, who she married in 2013 after a 27-year relationship. They lived in Switzerland, Turner’s adopted country. Few people who have inhabited planet Earth have been as successful as Turner. Kudos, Madam. Photo from Google Images:

Headline from foxnews.com: “Dems rip ‘MAGA’ Supreme Court after 9–0 vote delivers major blow to Biden environmental rule.” The judges are all conservative — who knew?

Also from FN: “Drive-by shooting interrupts Democrat candidate’s interview about violent crime.” It has to be said: You can’t make this stuff up.

From FN: “GINGRICH: Biden admin will soon find themselves facing scandal bigger than Watergate.” I’ll believe it when I see it, Newt.

There have been many warnings about the potential dangers of AI. This FN headline out of Europe bucks the trend: “Paralyzed man regains ability to walk thanks to AI.”

The floating books shop did well on this gorgeous, breezy day. My thanks to the kind folks who bought, donated and swapped wares. The session was graced with the return of Wolf, who I hadn’t seen in more than a month. He purchased a bunch of CDs and The 13h Juror by John Lescroart and Diplomacy by Henry Kissinger. The Frenchman selected The Lost Horizon by James Hilton and a John Coltrane CD, a woman took home two novels in Hebrew; two ladies each chose a hardcover in Russian; and a gentleman pounced on the DVD of Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003). I am blessed.

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