News this week of the passing of Tina Turner was an unexpected shock to many of us, particularly those who had performed with her through the decades.
Social media was flooded with quotes, heartfelt remembrances and tributes from those she inspired.
    Many of us were.
    The words that particularly grabbed me were those of The Who’s Pete Townshend, who openly expressed grief and regret. Tina was the voice of the Acid Queen when his classic rock opera Tommy was transformed onto the silver screen in 1975.
    I, as a big fan of The Who, was infatuated by the original Tommy album and, admittedly, any of the music issued by the English rockers. Of course, I couldn’t wait to see the movie.
   The Ken Russell project was, in many ways, precursor to the music videos that flooded our screens at the end of that decade and well into the ‘80s. The movie was true to the storyline and, with a whose-who cast from the music industry, adequately told the tale of the deaf, dumb and blind boy.
    But one performance in the film affected me like no other and it was Tina’s seductive portrayal of the character. Sure, I had seen pictures of her in early issues of Rolling Stone magazine but the Ike and Tina Turner Review, like many of the stalwarts of early rock and roll, predated my intense interest in popular music.
    Tina came alive for me on the screen with her pure sex appeal: those lips, those legs, her entire presence was more than arousing for a young teenaged boy.
    And that voice; there was nothing like it. Ever.
    I didn’t hear anything new from Tina for years, but gained respect for the classic songs that would find there way onto the radio. Apparently there were a series of solo albums, but nothing charted.
    In 1982, while working at my first stint at a daily newspaper, I received a review copy of the soundtrack to the film Summer Lovers. This was at the beginning of the era where there was almost as much attention focused on the soundtrack as there was on the film itself.
    The Summer Lovers LP was, essentially, hit and miss (much like the movie) but among the artists of the day were two tracks by Tina, including a stunning cover of Robert Palmer’s Johnny and Mary.
    Aside those two tracks, I heard nothing else from Tina in those years, until I was driving to work in 1984 and What’s Love Got To Do With It? came on the radio. Her voice was unmistakable and I, like millions of others, rushed out to buy the vinyl.
    The rest of the story, as they say, is history.
    Tina became a major, empowering force in the industry and took her talents to stratospheric heights.
    Thankfully, her music will long live on.
    We all have Tina Turner moments now. As I read the tributes, the words of Townsend struck a chord. “I truly thought she would live forever,” he wrote on Facebook.
    His words about “meaning to track her down” hit me hard and should serve as a reminder.
    We all have people in our lives that were meaningful at one time or another, but we have lost track over the years. We think of them, sometimes at the strangest moments, and wonder where they are, what they are now doing, or if they even remember our presence.
    Perhaps now is a good time to find them and find out? Wouldn’t we be better off if we took the time, now, to make contact or at least try before we no longer have that chance?

R.I.P. Tina Turner