I Bet You Forgot About the Song That Started Tina Turner’s Comeback (and It Was Also Her First-Ever US Hit)

Tina Turner’s comeback from the lowest point in her career to the highest echelons of the pop music world represents one of the finest stories of the 80s. She ruled at an age in life when most other artists are on the downslide.

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Many people remember the songs that gained her the most popularity in that era. But the track that kicked the comeback into gear, which also turned out to be her first US Top 40 hit, is sometimes forgotten.

From Vegas to Vindication

Keep in mind that when we’re talking about Turner’s first American hit here, we mean as a solo artist, separated from the work she did with her ex-husband, Ike Turner. Turner released two mid-70s albums while she was still with Ike. She added another two in the late 70s after their divorce. None of those records produced anything near a Top 40 hit in America.

At the start of the 80s, Turner was without a record contract. She took gigs in Las Vegas to keep her career afloat. Playing gigs in support of major artists like Rod Stewart and The Rolling Stones helped convince her that there was an audience out there who would accept her performing genres other than strictly R&B.

In 1982, Martyn Ware, who was then in the process of forming the British synth-pop band Heaven 17, asked Turner to sing on a cover of the song “Ball Of Confusion” for a side project of his. The song did surprisingly well in Europe. Suddenly, Turner’s solo career had gained some traction.

Critical Covers

The success of “Ball Of Confusion” spurred Capitol Records to sign Turner. Martyn Ware again helped out with production as the label planned more of a wide-reaching single release. Looking to do another cover song after the first one’s success, all involved settled on the Al Green soul classic “Let’s Stay Together”.

Written by Green, Willie Mitchell, and Al Jackson Jr., “Let’s Stay Together”, first released by Green in 1971, provided the artist with his first and only No. 1 single. In other words, it’s not like Turner was tackling some obscure song that she could reinvent.

Instead, she played it relatively close to the original, letting her beaming vocal caress that limber melody. Lo and behold, the song took off in the UK, where it was actually a bigger hit in Turner’s version than it was in Green’s. Perhaps even more surprising, it did well in the US, where Turner hadn’t charted since “Nutbush City Limits” with Ike ten years earlier.

“Together”-Ness

Turner’s version of “Let’s Stay Together”, released in late 1983, made it to No. 26 in 1983. We tend to forget about its success, however, because of what happened next. After the single did so well, Capitol prioritized Turner’s comeback album, teaming her with an A-list of songwriters and producers.

In May 1984, Turner released the single “What’s Love Got To Do With It”, the same month her album Private Dancer was released. We know the rest of the story. “What’s Love Got To Do With It” topped the charts, and Turner once again became an international superstar. Meanwhile, “Let’s Stay Together”, the song that provided the impetus, mostly took a back seat in her amazing story.

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