Tina - The Tina Turner Musical - Original London Cast

The latest artist to receive the bio-musical treatment is the rhythm & blues/pop superstar Tina Turner. Now a spry 80 years old, Turner oversaw the development of a new show, "Tina – The Tina Turner Musical," which is enjoying its second year in London.

Turner's life story has been told in other forms before: From the award-winning film, "What's Love Got To Do With It," to her autobiography, "I, Tina," audiences have had the opportunity to understand her challenging Tennessee upbringing, and how she persevered. But with "Tina – The Tina Turner Musical," we have the chance to see her story interpolated with the myriad of hits that Turner has recorded over her six-decade career, both solo, and early on with her abusive ex, Ike Turner.

Now Ghostlight Records makes the London Cast Recording available for download and streaming, with the physical CD to be released later in the year. Adrienne Warren ("Shuffle Along," "Bring It On: The Musical") won the chance to bring Turner's presence to the stage, and she delivers. This is no small feat, as practically every song on the recording is Warren taking us down memory lane from Tina's early career through her superhits from the 1980s.

We get to relive the young Anne Mae Bullock in performance, as she is freshly renamed by Ike (portrayed by Kobna Holdbrook-Smith) after he discovers her and brings her into his band. Classics such as "It's Gonna Work Out Fine" and "The Hunter" show the couple's humble beginnings until they strike paydirt with the 1966 hit "River Deep – Mountain High," followed by 1970's "Proud Mary." But Ike's terrible physical abuse finally convinces Tina to leave him, and after almost a decade of working to re-identify herself as an independent act she finally achieves stardom on her own with the release of "Private Dancer." All the hits from this seminal album are included here, from "What's Love Got To Do With It," "Better Be Good To Me," and the title track, to successful covers of Al Green's "Let's Stay Together" and Ann Peebles' "I Can't Stand the Rain." The album shows Tina's star-power, and by following up with the theme song "We Don't Need Another Hero" (from "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome"), she establishes herself as a pop diva.

The arrangements are stylistically accurate to the various time periods, thanks to the efforts of music director Nicholas Skilback and orchestrator Ethan Popp, and the production is an enticing invitation to see the musical, either in the West End, or when Warren helms the Broadway production later in 2019.

"Tina – The Tina Turner Musical" (Original London Cast Recording)
$13.49
CD and digital formats
www.ghostlightrecords.com