One of the most famous songs of the queen of rock and roll Tina Turner never saw the light of day, because the American singer did not like it, believing that it was not her style. The song eventually won him 3 Grammy Awards nearly 3 decades ago.

Tina Turner and Lionel Richie at the 1985 Grammy AwardsPhoto: Rob Borner / AFP / Profimedia Images

The singer and her manager at the time, Roger Davis, spoke about the incident claya documentary about the artist’s life, shot by HBO in 2021.

“I thought, ‘What is love? [Got to do With It]’ could become a hit. Tina never liked it,” Davis said during the documentary.

“It was awful. It was terrible,” added Tina Turner with a laugh, talking about her first impression of the song.

“I was rock and roll. It was a pop song,” she explained.

How Tina Turner was persuaded to sing “What’s Love Got to do With It”

But Davis managed to get Turner to talk to composer Terry Britten to try to find a middle ground.

“She came over and immediately said, ‘You know I don’t like that song.’ I don’t want to sing this song. Roger wants me to do it,” said Britten, who was also interviewed for the documentary clay.

Turner and Davis eventually tried several vocal variations until they found one that the performer liked. “I put my strong voice to it. They are not used to having a strong voice over the music,” explains Tina Turner.

“What’s Love Got to do With It” was eventually included on the 1984 album Private Dancer, which sold over 20 million copies in its first two weeks of release.

The pop song earned Tina Turner nearly a third of her Grammy awards

And “What’s Love Got to Do with It” was one of the biggest songs of the year, peaking at number two on the Billboard Top 100 in 1984, behind only Prince’s “When Doves Cry.”

At the Grammys held early the following year, the song won Tina Turner 3 awards: Best Record of 1984, Best Song, and Best Pop Performance. “What’s Love Got to Do with It” practically brought Tina Turner almost a third of the Grammy Awards she won in her career (8 in total).

Turner dedicated the Record of the Year award to her manager.

“I’d like to accept this award and hand it over to a man who has been wonderful to me as a friend and in business in many, many ways, my manager Roger Davis,” she said in her Grammy acceptance speech, adding that “this it was a great year.”

The American artist excitedly remembered the song 2 years ago

Turner also opened up about the song’s story in an Instagram post two years ago to mark the release of a documentary about her career and life.

“Did you know that when I first read the lyrics to ‘What’s the Love’, I rejected the song? It’s crazy to think about it now. Hearing the song in the documentary TINA was one of the most emotional moments of the film for me. It reminded me how far I’ve come,” she wrote on the social network.

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Posted by Tina Turner (@tinaturner)

Hit entered the pantheon of world music by being inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2012.

documentary clay can be viewed on HBO Max, HBO’s American television streaming platform, which finally launched in Romania last March.

Tina Turner died on Wednesday, May 24, at the age of 83, leaving millions of fans around the world in mourning.

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