“As I’m about to turn 80, I’d like to think I’ve become wise in some ways,” Tina Turner just told Rolling Stone. But there’s never been a revival like Tina’s Eighties comeback. She became a solo superstar when she was 44. Things like that just don’t happen. (For context: That’s how old Lauryn Hill, Andre 3000, Mark Ronson, and Jack White are now.)
None of it happened the easy way. Tina’s always been a fighter, because she had to be. I remember hearing the WBCN DJ introduce this brand new hit by “the world’s hottest grandmother,” in the summer of 1984, and I could not believe my ears. This voice rasping, “What’s love got to do, got to do with it” — a grandma? This woman had lived. She’d gone through some grown-up shit. Every feeling you’d ever had, in your petty little teenage life? To her, it was just another second-hand emotion.
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