RIP Tina Turner

Many years ago I was invited to a family friend's house in a rural part of the Hunter Valley NSW. I knew Rob had been involved in the recording industry in the 80's and early 90's but he'd never really talked about it much to me before.

At the time, he'd been gradually building his own house on a plot of a hundred or so acres since retiring from music, and the first time I stayed there the 'facilities' consisted of a long drop in a tin outhouse about 20 metres from the house. On the first morning there I needed to visit said facilities and I made my way to take a seat on the throne - no door, but a beautiful view looking down a secluded valley.

As I familiarised myself with my surroundings I looked up at the wall of the outhouse and did a double take at an old black & white photo. Smiling back at me from the photo were Rob, Mick Jagger and Tina Turner onboard a private jet. As it turns out, Rob had worked for HMV in Wellington before moving to EMI and then Capitol Records in LA. While at Capitol he became Tina's tour manager for several years, including all throughout her Private Dancer tour of 1985.

I have visited his property dozens of times over the 20-odd years since that first visit, and over time Rob has opened up to me and shown his true raconteur spirit. He's told me many a fascinating or downright hilarious story of his time in the business with Tina and many other big names before and since her. I've seen all his momentos, awards and gold records, a vast collection of personal tour photos and his legendary trucker hat collection from his early days on the road when they travelled by bus.

I spoke to Rob this afternoon and he's understandably quite upset. He had stayed in touch with Tina regularly over the past 30+ years, but he (and by extension I) knew she had been ill for a number of years - something that was never made public because she wanted to enjoy her retirement out of the limelight. He was just interviewed on Radio NZ tonight, during which he shared a few of his own memories of her.

By all accounts she was an amazing lady who cared for everyone in her life. The Private Dancer tour had a crew of over 100 people and Tina knew every single one of them by name, and made an effort to really get to know everyone as if they were family. Rob said in the interview that her troubled time with Ike is well documented but privately she never saw herself as a victim (or at least didn't want to be defined as such), and everything she had accomplished after that was a result of her strong desire to rise above that terrible time of her life and leave it behind her.

I could go on for hours but these stories are not mine to tell. Rob has shared so many personal anecdotes about Tina and aspects of their lives together on tour that have never been in the public domain and probably never will be. I told Rob years ago he needs to write a book about all his wonderful memories of music industry life before they are lost forever (he's no spring chicken himself these days!)

RIP Tina. I didn't know you but it sure feels like I did....

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