The Explosive Song That Liberated Tina Turner

Before a concert one night in 1968, shortly prior to recording the song that would launch her into superstardom, Tina Turner swallowed sleeping pills and lay down to die. “People backstage noticed something was very wrong with me and rushed me to the hospital, which saved my life,” she writes in her book Happiness Becomes You, published in the fall. “At first I was disappointed when I woke up and realized I was still alive. I thought death was my only chance at escape. But it was not in my nature to stay down for long.”

The song that helped revive Turner was “Proud Mary.” A cover of the Creedence Clearwater Revival hit from 1969, Turner’s sizzling version was released when she was half of the married duo Ike and Tina Turner—and it was “the single that brought this dynamic group to national attention,” magazine subsequently said. Before that, Turner and her infamously abusive husband were an established act multiple times to hitting Turner.) The couple had yet to make a big impression on America at large—until “Proud Mary” busted down that door. After the single’s release in January 1971, it rose to No. 4 on ’s pop chart, sold more than 1 million copies, and earned Turner the first of her 12 Grammy Awards. But the song’s success didn’t just help bring her back to life after her suicide attempt; it also planted the seeds of her liberation as both an artist and a woman.