Today’s Throwback Weekend selection comes from the week of June 5, 1993, but this song wasn’t #1 that week. Janet Jackson was still in the midst of her eight-week run with ‘That’s the Way Love Goes‘ in the top spot, forcing me to skip down to #2.
Silk’s ‘Freak Me’ spent two weeks at #1 before it was bumped to #2 by Jackson. It ended up spending ten weeks in the second spot. That’s a lot of success for a song I have literally never heard until five minutes ago.
Throwing back to the week of June 4, 1983, we find Irene Cara on top of the Billboard Hot 100 with her soundtrack smash ‘Flashdance… What a Feeling.’
Watching clips from Adrian Lyne’s Flashdance, I’m reminded of the crush I had on lead actress Jennifer Beals at the time. I assume I caught up with the film on video, because I don’t think I saw the R-rated film in theaters as an 11-year-old.
It took six years and two more solo albums, but Tina Turner finally had her post-Ike breakthrough success with 1984’s Private Dancer. The album went 5X platinum in the U.S. and was a top five hit in countries all over the world. It rocketed her to international stardom and led to a string of successful albums through her last studio release in 1999.
Private Dancer features the first — and only — #1 hit of Turner’s career in ‘What’s Love Got to Do with It,’ as well as a #5 hit in ‘Better Be Good to Me.’ The title track, written by Mark Knopfler, made it to #7.
Tina Turner released her first two solo albums — Tina Turns the Country On! and Acid Queen — while still recording with Ike Turner. But in 1976, the two split for good after he beat her up in a Dallas hotel. Turner fled to a Ramada Inn across the street, carrying only “36 cents and a Mobil card,” and was given a room by the understanding manager. This event is dramatized in the great 1993 film What’s Love Got to Do with It.
Tina was granted a divorce in 1978, after which she released her third solo album and first without the influence of Ike. If life were a movie, that album — Rough — would have been a massive success. Alas, none of its singles charted, though the album was well-received by critics.
The title track of 1973’s Nutbush City Limits was the first hit song Tina Turner wrote, and signaled a shift in her career from creative reliance on her abusive husband Ike. A year later she would record her first solo album.
‘Nutbush City Limits’ is a tribute to Tina’s Tennessee hometown. I can’t imagine tourism to the rural town increasing after these lyrics hit the airwaves, but it must be cool for any community to have a signature song.
Meet Me In Montauk 