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My Dad's always been a big Tina Turner fan (Happy New Year if you're reading this!) so I remember the Private Dancer album (where this track appeared the following year) on pretty heavy rotation in the car for my formative years.
Back then, of course, I was entirely unaware that Tina Turner had any previous career, or that she was any older than any other pop star. As a matter of fact, this was the song that relaunched her, her first ever solo hit in the UK, and one that proved that this already-established performer was happy to pick up on the prevailing trends of the day; of course the fact that she probably didn't feel too much nostalgia for her former hit-making days might have helped with that. The track was originally recorded with the BEF (ie Heaven 17) who had a sideline in recording cover versions with what were then state-of-the-art production values and guest vocalists. Although they released two albums of these, it was this one track that became the biggest-ever success from the project. Listened to in the 21st century, the monotonous, programmed backing track does sound dated, but as with their own 'Temptation' it's somewhat rescued by the excitement of the vocal performance, which is given plenty of room by the starkness of the arrangement around it. It all sounds very much of its time of course (particularly those backing vocals, which admittedly might be a joke) but then again so does Al Green's original - that one just so happens to be in a style I'm more comfortable with. Neither would have been a fraction of the record it is without the quality of the singing, that's for sure.
Also appearing on: Now 4, 6, 16, 17, 18, 21, 25, 26, 32, 34, 44
Available on: Private Dancer
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