Tina Turner inspired poetry and devotion at her first press conference back in SA. HAZEL FRIEDMAN was there
IT began as an ordinary press conference — one of those affairs where journalists drink too much, get indigestion from bland answers to banal questions as well as stodgy snacks, and swear never to sacrifice another Saturday afternoon to media hype. But by the time Tina Turner made a predictably, but not insultingly, belated appearance, the pokerfaced press corps had become a cheerleading squad and chorus line, rocking and singing to the sounds of Turner’s promotional video.
There are many epithets to describe the lady with the legs that have launched a thousand fantasies, the sonorous yet gritty voice, the smile that could double as a lighthouse and, of course, the sexual energy that is measurable on the Richter scale. But the two words that come to mind most often in relation to a woman whose career has spanned over three decades are reinvention and return.
Since 1953, when an adolescent and rather blousy Tina Turner from Nutbush City first sang, literally, for her supper, through the 1980s when she claimed her rightful place in the vanguard of popular music, Turner has been resurrected and redefined over and over again. Her post-Ike struggles are already the stuff of contemporary pop-lore, as are her stage and screen performances alongside the royalty of the rock kingdom. Her songs — like Simply the Best and Private Dancer — have become international trans-generational anthems.
Sure, her career hasn’t been entirely contradiction-free, as demonstrated by her 1979 performance at Sun City in contravention of the cultural boycott, and her Farewell tour in 1988, which turned out to be anything but a goodbye. But in response to a pointed question about why she had returned after such a grand finale, Turner replied: ”I still want to fill stadiums, I still have so much to say, to sing and to discover.”
Which accounts in part for her return to South Africa. Having arrived a month before she is due to perform the South African leg of her Wildest Dreams tour, Turner will spend the next few weeks rehearsing at Sun City with her team of internationally acclaimed supporting musos, and simultaneously rediscovering the country.
”I remember how wild my first visit to South Africa was,” she says. ”It just seems like a great place to be.”
Her answer to the question of whether she regrets her first ill-timed visit is an unambiguous ”No!”
Simply put, Turner doesn’t seem to have a politically canny bone in her well-honed body. Free of camera enhancements, she seems also refreshingly at odds with her vampish media image: more demure, much smaller, yet paradoxically bigger — and unmistakably better. She also seems remarkably free of guile or expediency.
Not for her the dabbing of tears from over- rouged cheeks, or the obligatory sermonising on spiritual homecoming. And she doesn’t come across as a talking press-release. Asked how she plans to contribute to the upliftment of black South Africans, she runs a hand through her short, streaked hair (one of many wigs, she frankly admits): ”I don’t know, I’ve just arrived.”
When informed that she is an inspiration to all victims of abusive relationships — an accolade she probably receives at every press conference — she appears almost coy. Her answers are predictable but spoken, believe it or not, with convincing sincerity.
And when a glazed-eyed journalist dedicates an erotic sonnet to her beauty and sexual allure, she seems genuinely delighted. In response to a question about what turns her on in a man, she points to the impromptu bard — who looks on the verge of climax or collapse.
And her perceptions of South Africa? ”Too soon,” she says, ”but on the way back from the airport I passed cars filled with black South Africans and they smiled at me. It wasn’t like I had a sign saying Tina Turner on the roof or anything. But I got the impression that this is a really happy place.”
A nave observation, perhaps, but who can blame her when a crowd of hype-hardened drain- sniffers are sitting at her feet softly crooning: ”Simply the best.”
Tina Turner performs at Newlands in Cape Town on April 20, at King’s Park in Durban on April 23, and at the Johannesburg Stadium on April 26