What Happened When Tina Turner Teamed up with Madonna, and Courtney Love.
Disagrements over background music & mother energy.
I was supossed to write about “murder ballads” today and explore that dark side of music writing. However, life happened, or more precisely, the end of. Tina Turner died on May 24th, 2023.
At this point, Tina had retired from music and seemed to enjoy a well-deserved retirement in Switzerland. Yet I don’t think any of us had stopped listening to her work. We also hoped to see her again. There are so many well-written tributes out there, that I figured you may enjoy a short story on what happened when three music divas were placed in the same room for a truly unique magazine shoot.
For its 30th anniversary edition (November 1997), Rolling Stone magazine decided to celebrate women in music and booked three icons to feature on their cover: Courtney Love, Tina Turner and Madonna. It was a mammoth task to carry out since the three women had incredibly busy diaries that did nothing but clash.
Finally, the photoshoot took place on October 21, photographed by Peggy Sirota.
To say that Madonna and Courtney had had an “interesting” relationship up until then would be an understatement. Back in 1995, Courtney Love had gatecrashed Madonna’s interview on MTV by throwing a make-up compact at her. You can watch how it all went down here.
"Courtney Love's in dire need of attention right now" - Madonna
During the Rolling Stone shoot, and according to Madonna, there was a small issue with Courtney Love regarding what music to listen to while being photographed. A deal was struck between both women and it was agreed that every other CD was Madonna’s and every other CD was Courtney’s, and that’s how they took turns choosing the music. They all ended up dancing to Tricky. At one point Madonna and Courtney even pretended to be Tina’s Ikettes.
In later interviews Madonna celebrated the “incongruous” nature of the trio, and how it captured the multifaceted nature of women in music. She also mentioned how hard it was to agree on what each of them should wear. She thought Tina was really chilled and that maybe she, Madonna, should take up Buddhism.
What did Tina say about this epic episode?
“They had all kinds of pretence going on, but it was always built around me being the mother of the two in some kind of way (…) I was laughing the whole time, honestly. If the photograph comes out with me really laughing seriously, it was because of their reaction to each other. It was wonderful.”
If you want to see more Rolling Stone covers featuring Tina, you can find them here.
Today’s playlist has to be about Tina Turner. My favourite part of Tina’s amazing catalogue is everything she did after she got, in her own words, her “freedom,” embarking on her solo career.
At the start of the 80s she told her manager she wanted to be like Mick Jagger, how she longed to fill stadiums. Back then she was in a sort of limbo, performing cabaret shows in Vegas and making the odd TV apperance. She went on to become a true Queen of Rock, selling out stadiums worlwide, including Wembley. She did all of that as a woman in her forties, fifties, sixties and seventies. What a reinassance.
Rest In Power, Anna Mae Bullock.
Loved that piece! And looking forward to the murder ballads one!
Loved it! I think I still have that Rolling stone somewhere…