Tina Turner museum draws crowds in tribute to Queen of Rock ‘N’ Roll

Standing in a Tennessee museum, near exhibits of shimmering dresses worn by Tina Turner, Lisa Lyons wiped tears from her cheeks as she remembered the impact the singer and actor had on her life.

Lyons recalled watching Turner's performance in the film “Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome” as Auntie Entity, the tyrannical leader of a post-apocalyptic civilisation.

“She was fierce, and she was strong, and she was powerful, and that has stayed with me,” said Lyons, who, like Turner, is Black. “As a little girl of colour who didn't have that type of role model in real life, it has stuck with me all these years.”

Turner, 83, died Wednesday, after a long illness in her home in Küsnacht near Zurich, according to her manager. Her Grammy-winning singing career includes the hit songs “Nutbush City Limits,” "Proud Mary,” “What’s Love Got To Do With It" and “We Don't Need Another Hero,” from “Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome." Her film credits also include “Tommy” and “Last Action Hero.”

Lyons, 56, said she heard about Turner's death on Wednesday and drove to the museum in Brownsville, west of Jackson, where Lyons lives.

When it comes to her musical legacy in a region known for its blues, rock and roll, R&B and soul music, Turner was the “cream of the crop,” Lyons said.

“She is the standard. She is the goal to aspire for,” Lyons said. “She did it and she did it well, and she did it on her own terms.”

Tina Turner Museum

The museum opened in 2014 inside the renovated Flagg Grove School at the West Tennessee Delta Heritage Center in Brownsville, about 50 miles (80 kilometres) northeast of Memphis. Turner attended school in the one-room building as a child growing up in nearby Nutbush, one of the small, rural towns that dot the farms and fields of West Tennessee.

The building was on farmland owned by Benjamin Flagg, who saw a need for a school for the area’s black children and began building it in 1889. The school is representative of the schoolhouses for African-American children that sprang up in the rural South after the Civil War.

The school closed in the 1960s and was used as a barn before the dilapidated building was moved by tractor-trailer from Nutbush to Brownsville.

The museum contains a setup of the classroom, including the original blackboard and wooden desks used by Turner and her fellow students. It also contains photos of Turner, and the Armani, Versace and Bob Mackie dresses Turner wore on stage during the energetic performances for which she was known.

Tributes flow for Turner

On Wednesday, Turner fans went to the museum to pay their respects. Some of them had already planned to visit before news of Turner's death broke, while others made a special trip after they found out.

Sherry Raggett and her husband, Tom, had already planned to visit the centre as the final stop of a museum tour that took them from their home in the Memphis suburb of Collierville to a few places in Kentucky and Nashville, then back to West Tennessee.

Sherry Raggett called Turner “a wonderful person” and praised her for “her strong influence on women and how they can overcome so many things.”

“I grew up listening to her, and she was a fantastic entertainer," Tom Raggett said. "I loved every minute watching her.”

The heritage centre's director, Sonia Outlaw-Clark, said she met Turner in 2019 in New York during the opening of “Tina: The Tina Turner Musical.”

“It was such an honour to be in her presence, but it was also such a feeling of ease,” Outlaw-Clark said. “Even though she was an international icon, a superstar, I still felt that she was a hometown girl. It was like meeting a neighbour.”

Outlaw-Clark said the centre was hoping to honour Turner this weekend during its annual Exit 56 Blues Fest and during another event in September that takes place on the anniversary of the museum's opening.

Turner's five hit songs

Here we listed the most memorable hits by the pop icon :

'Proud Mary' (1971)

With her husband Ike Turner, Tina found fame with their version of the gospel-influenced "Proud Mary", which had been released by Creedence Clearwater Revival two years earlier.

The duo's take on the song, with its famous chorus about a Mississippi steamboat "rolling, rolling on the river", was more rock and raunchy than the original, winning them a Grammy.

Tina continued to perform the piece when she went solo, and it would become one of her signature sounds.

'What's Love Got To Do With It' (1984)

Another of Turner's defining songs, this was her sole US number one and brought her four Grammys, also providing the title for the 1993 Oscar-nominated biopic of her life.

Its release marked her establishment as a successful solo artist following her professional and marital split from Ike in 1976.

Lyrics such as "Who needs a heart when a heart can be broken" took on deeper significance following revelations in the 1990s of her abuse during her marriage.

'We Don't Need Another Hero' (1985)

The song is the title track to Mel Gibson's post-apocalyptic "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome" film in which Turner plays ruthless, blonde community leader Aunty Entity, dressed in chainmail.

'The Best' (1989)

Turner's cover of the Bonnie Tyler original released a year earlier was the major success of her album "Foreign Affair".

Renamed "Simply the Best", it was used to promote Australian rugby league in 1990, the video featuring players of the day with an unforgettably-styled Turner.

'Goldeneye' (1995)

As a mark of her pop megastar status, Turner was picked to perform the coveted title track to the James Bond film "Golden Eye", written by U2's Bono and The Edge.

In the music video for the song, which became a Top Ten hit in many countries, Turner's signature white gown highlights her image as pop's all-glamour diva.