‘Tina Turns The Country On!’ Behind Tina Turner’s Debut Solo Album

R&B and country: “The South was full of country and western sounds”

The relationship between R&B and country music is less a gulf, more a crevice; and Ray Charles was one of the first to bridge it. Reflecting on his 1962 album Modern Sounds In Country And Western Music, he wrote in his autobiography, Brother Ray, “You have to understand that the South was full of country and western sounds. I can’t recall a single Saturday night in those days when I didn’t listen to the Grand Ole Opry on the radio. I loved Grandpa Jones and those characters. I could hear what they were doing and appreciate the feeling behind it.”

Tina Turner, from Brownsville, Tennessee, would also have been around country music when she was young Anna Mae Bullock. Her feel for the genre is apparent throughout Tina Turns The Country On! Choosing to sing Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here With You, a Bob Dylan song from his Nashville Skyline album, Turner delivers an impassioned Southern interpretation. Her vocals are raw, drawing on the legacy of rock’n’rollers turned country stars such as Wanda Jackson and Elvis Presley.

Turner also recorded other country songs, likely dating from the Tina Turns The Country On! sessions, including Tammy Wynette’s Stand By Your Man and Waylon Jennings’ Good Hearted Woman. These tracks have been released in later years on a variety of compilations.

Choosing the songs: “It’s cool to reach into someone else’s bag”

Although Turner was a skilled songwriter (she’d famously mined her own past for Ike and Tina’s Nutbush City Limits), all the songs on Tina Turns The Country On! are cover versions, drawing from some of country music’s most famous names, alongside the distinctive work of Bob Dylan and James Taylor. “It’s cool to reach into someone else’s bag and make their songs your own,” Turner said, way back in 1973, reflecting on how covers were an important part of her repertoire.

There’ll Always Be Music was written by Dolly Parton and was very new at the time – Parton and her then duet partner, Porter Wagoner, had recorded it for their 1973 album Love And Music. Turner’s take is incredibly emotional. Singing of finding music in everything, her wistful vocal tips over into raw power in the choruses. Both Parton and Turner were from Tennessee, and Parton paid a heartfelt tribute at the news of Turner’s passing, in 2023. “Roll on Tina!” she wrote. “We will always love you.”

Kris Kristofferson’s Help Me Make It Through The Night is another highlight of Tina Turns The Country On! One of the late singer-songwriter’s most famous compositions, and first released in 1970, Turner’s version absolutely aches, reflecting the original inspiration of the song (said to be drawn from a melancholy Frank Sinatra interview, in which he said, “Booze, broads, or a Bible… whatever helps me make it through the night”).

Bayou Song, which opens the album, hadn’t been recorded before. It was written by Peter Morse, a folk singer who had also sung as part of the group The New Christy Minstrels. Years later, Morse met Turner backstage at a TV show. “She walked into rehearsals and someone introduced us,” he remembered in 2016. “Upon hearing my name, she asked if I was Peter-John Morse, the fellow on the writing credits behind The Bayou Song. I informed her I was, and we had a good laugh.” Peter, who was by then one of the world’s top lighting designers, subsequently worked for several years illuminating Turner’s live shows.

Moving on: “I don’t grow tired”

Reviews were very positive for Tina Turns The Country On! Billboard magazine praised Turner’s voice, noting that she “moulds it perfectly around each cut”. Furthermore, the album gained Turner a Grammy nomination, building on her previous Grammy win (alongside Ike) for Proud Mary, in 1972.

Next up for Turner would be 1975’s Acid Queen, inspired by her role in Ken Russell’s film version of Tommy. With its first side filled with rock exuberance and heavy cover versions of songs by The Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin, Acid Queen is more recognisable as the work of Tina Turner, the “Queen Of Rock’n’Roll” – the label she would own in the 80s. But Tina Turns The Country On! perhaps had a more subtle impact on her work, proving her versatility and building her confidence.

“I enjoy my music. I like to dance. I like energy and flying. By flying, I mean… the sun,” Turner reflected in 1984, at the cusp of her comeback success with the Private Dancer album. “You take away the bondage, the problems, the hang-ups, the egos, and I can fly. I can laugh, I can dance, I can sing, and I don’t grow tired. Freedom. That’s my motivation.”

Buy Tina Turner’s early albums on vinyl.