Today I want to take a moment and just share my amazement at a person I have never met but it’s her story that takes my breath away. Annie Mae Bullock came from a tiny town in Tennessee where her father worked as an overseer of the sharecroppers. She had a rough childhood as she was shuffled off between parents, aunts, uncles and grandparents. Annie had a sister that she occasionally got to live with. As a youngster, Anna sang in the church choir at Nutbushs Spring Hill Baptist Church a self-professed tomboy, she joined both the cheerleading squad and the girls basketball team at Carver High School in Brownsville, and socialized every chance she got! Do you know who she is yet? “Nutbush” is huge hint. When she was 16, her grandmother died suddenly. After the funeral, Anna went to live with her mother in St. Louis, Missouri, where she was reunited with her sister. There, she graduated from Sumner High School in 1958. After her graduation, she worked as a nurses aide at Barnes-Jewish Hospital, and dreamed of becoming a nurse. Anna and her sister began to frequent nightclubs in the St. Louis area around this time. At Club Manhattan, a nightclub in the East St. Louis area, she first saw Ike Turner and his band, the Kings of Rhythm perform. Annie was drawn to Ike and his music which she claimed put her into a trance. She began to dance onstage with them and during one show the drummer slipped her a mic and she began to sing. Soon it was apparent Annie was destined for a new calling that would not include nursing. From these humble beginnings Tina Turner’s incredible journey started. At first record companies did not trust her voice deeming it too high pitched or screechy but no one ever didn’t trust her onstage presence and performance. A recording of Anna made was heard by a president of a local label and he thought he heard a dirty, soulful sound. Soon he convinced Ike to make Annie the star of his show and the lead singer. A zenith was launched. To me only she and James Brown were capable of putting on the most explosive, most rocking, most durable musical spectacles ever produced. Tina Turner was a force of nature if you saw her you could not forget what you witnessed. Her legs-well her legs…moved as if animated and the raw fervent energy and passionate intense emotion she generated were and are unsurpassed. There was and is only one performer like Tina Turner! Her abusive relation with Ike, her running away and starting over with nothing but tons of debt and having to make decisions all by herself in a male dominated profession. Annie started a career comeback and personal journey unsurpassed. Her voice is gritty and soulful and she also showed her could act. Annie leaned on her faith and her trust in her talent and boy did she make a comeback in a business where you usually only get one shot and then everyone moves on to the next thing. As a man who admires strong women I am in awe of Annie Mae Bullock. Her music is a sound track to our lives and her personal journey is inspiring. She conquered everything life threw at her. She never gave up or gave in. Millions of lives have been enriched by her. On a personal note: My favorite Tina Turner song is “All Kinds of People” not one of her mega-hits but it spoke to me as much as “I Don’t Want to Cry anymore,” “Typical Male” or “What’s Love Got to do with it.?” Annie Mae Bullock is my mother’s age but if I got to choose any living woman on the planet I could have lunch with besides my mom…and over Oprah, over Sandra Bullock, over Alice Hoffman (whom I really love her novels!), over any of the women from Saturday Night Live past or present or even Michelle Obama or Queen Elizabeth the second and all the other amazing women I would choose Annie Mae Bullock also known as Tina Turner to join me in a corner booth at Cracker Barrel where we could just sit and chat about what she has seen and any stories she would like to share. That would be a great lunch date-even better than lunch with a stranger!
Posted on: Thu, 07 Aug 2014 20:45:18 +0000
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