Webster

The Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions." --American Statesman Daniel Webster (1782-1852)


Monday, March 2, 2015

Monday Music "What's love got to do with it?" by Tina Turner

I decided to roll with Tina Turner after last weeks Monday Music.  I remembered when Tina exploded on the MTV scene.  I really didn't know at the time that she had a long career before her resurgence in the early 80's.  I saw the first video from her "Better be good to me", and she was smoking especially for an older lady. 
   Her voice and athleticism on her many video's and concerts that were a staple of the MTV video circuit and playlist.  Then she rolled out other hits and people were saying "Wow".  That girl can rock.   I was very impressed by the talent, then she was in "Mad Max", one of my favorite movies franchises.   Tina has endured to be come a legend. 
    
"What's Love Got to Do with It" is a song recorded by the American singer Tina Turner, released in 1984. It was taken from her fifth solo album, Private Dancer and became Turner's most successful single.
Although Turner had already scored a UK Top 10 and U.S. Top 30 hit some months earlier with her rendition of "Let's Stay Together", "What's Love Got To Do With It" gave Turner her first and only U.S. number one. The song ranked #309 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time". It also ranked #38 on Songs of the Century. It was the 17th best-selling single of 1984 in the United Kingdom. In 1993, the song's title was used as the title for film about Turner's life.
In 2012, "What's Love Got to Do with It" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame giving Turner her 3rd Grammy Hall of Fame Award and her 11th Grammy Award.    
     
This song was written by Terry Britten and Graham Lyle, who originally offered it to Cliff Richard, but it was rejected. It was then given to Phyllis Hyman, who wanted to do the song, but Arista Records head Clive Davis wouldn't allow her. The song then was offered to Donna Summer, who has stated that she sat with it for a couple of years but never recorded it.   Some months before Turner recorded the song, the British pop group Bucks Fizz were offered it. Member Jay Aston requested to sing lead on the track after hearing the demo, but was told by the producer that it was unsuitable for a female lead vocal. The group went on to record it in February 1984, but sung by male groupmember Bobby G Aston recalls that the demo was very similar to the eventual Tina Turner version, but their finished version was in a very different style It was intended for possible inclusion on their next album I Hear Talk but was shelved when Turner released her version first. The Bucks Fizz version went unreleased until it was included on a re-issue of their Are You Ready album in 2000. The Original Bucks Fizz went on to include the song in their reunion concert tour in October 2009.
 
   Up until the release of "What's Love Got to Do with It", Tina Turner had not had a U.S. top ten single since the early 1970s. The single went to #1on the US Billboard Hot 100 and remained there for three weeks, becoming Turner's first and only solo number-one hit in America. It peaked at #3 on the UK singles chart, which is also her highest singles chart peak there. Turner was 44 when the song hit number one, at the time making her the oldest solo female artist to place a number-one single on the US Hot 100 (Grace Slick, who is older than Turner by about one month, hit #1 in 1985 and 1987 with "We Built This City" and "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now", respectively, although she was not a solo act on those recordings but a member of Starship). In 1999, Cher at age 53 became the oldest solo female to have a US number-one hit when "Believe" hit the top position in America.


The music video features Turner walking down the street engaging with the public, intercut with scenes where she is singing directly to camera. The video was shot in New York City during the spring of 1984. The music video also features Sleepaway Camp 2's Pamela Springsteen, Bruce Springsteen's sister, as a street dancer. The video was directed by Mark Robinson.


The song received three awards at the 1985 Grammy Awards: Record of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. Turner's live performance of the song at the Grammy show was released on the 1994 album Grammy's Greatest Moments Volume I.
The music video for the song claimed a prize at the MTV Video Music Awards in 1985 for "Best Female Video".
In 2012, "What's Love Got to Do with It" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame

2 comments:

  1. That's a good one! And I remember that one too!

    ReplyDelete
  2. That's a good one! And I remember that one too!

    ReplyDelete

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