I saw Tina Turner perform both with the sinister and controlling Ike, and without. Of course she was electrifying and life-enhancing in both incarnations, but it was a snatched glimpse of her in rehearsal for BBC TV’s Top of the Pops in the late 1990s that made the greatest impression.
She was performing in one of the studios in the doughnut-shaped BBC Television Centre, and wherever you looked in the labyrinthine corridors there was a palpable sense of excitement, as though Tina had switched on a surge of electricity throughout the building. People tried to sneak past the heavy security, to no avail, but they seemed thrilled just to know that “their” Tina was there, roaring away on our behalf in one of our studios. In more than 30 years of working at the BBC I never saw staff respond in this way to anyone else. Tina was truly unique.
