TINA IDOL

Even though I'm pretty old, I can't remember a time when Tina Turner wasn't part of the landscape.

I remember watching her flail through "Proud Mary" with Ike on The Midnight Special, or listening, wide-eyed, to her wail out "Acid Queen" on my brother's Tommy LP. I remember her post-Ike comeback in the '80s--arguably the most triumphant comeback in American showbiz history--and the string of hits it produced.

Slick as this Top 40 Private Dancer-era stuff was, even '80s-pop production couldn't squelch the soul in that voice, that one-of-a-kind instrument; somehow simultaneously feverish yet melodic, taunting yet beseeching, untamed as the shriek of a wildcat, yet nuanced. A woman I know who had gone to see Turner in concert during that period came back with a welt on the palm of her hand.

"That's from applauding," she said.

I have an odd specific first-hand memory of Tina Turner, too. In December of 2000, when I was working at Phoenix New Times, I was given tickets to her show at what was then America West Arena. My friend James and I went, and while we were walking the few blocks from the New Times building to the Arena, I got a call informing me that one of my nieces had given birth to my first grand-niece in Virginia, which put me in a good mood.

My other vivid memory of that night involves the Mighty Turner herself: The show was spectacular, with dancers and hydraulic stage machinery and clouds of mist and pillars of fire billowing up during "We Don't Need Another Hero" and so on, and I remember thinking how strange it might feel for a kid from Nutbush, Tennessee to reflect that all this extravagant theatricality was built around her. Or, maybe not; maybe by that time in her career it felt routine and appropriate.

But the seats that James and I had were nosebleeders, far forward, that gave us a peculiar view backstage. At one point during an instrumental break in one of the numbers, Turner left the stage, and from our vantage we could see, plain as day, as she sat down on a bench against the back wall for a rest. And for that minute or two, she became human; she just looked like a nice lady around sixty, waiting for a bus or sitting on her patio. Then she got up and headed for the stage, transforming again into the primal goddess. Back to work.

Rest in Peace and Joy, Queen of Rock n' Roll. We truly will not see your like again.