The voice that Spector recorded in 1966 was the same voice that sold records in the early 1960s, that toured with the Rolling Stones in 1969, that turned “Proud Mary” into a number four hit in 1971. It was the same voice that, in 1984, found its way to a recording studio in London and did something with “What’s Love Got to Do with It” that Terry Britten hadn’t fully known to expect.
## The Rolling Stones and What Cultural Endorsement Means
The Ike and Tina Turner Revue’s 1969 opening slot on the Rolling Stones’ American tour deserves careful consideration, because what happened on that tour was more than a commercial opportunity. It was a cultural recategorization.
In 1969, the Rolling Stones were the most important rock band in the world. The Beatles had stopped touring. Elvis Presley was in his Las Vegas years. The Stones were the act that young white American music fans with a rock orientation were paying the most attention to. When Mick Jagger and Keith Richards specifically invited the Revue to open their American tour, they were making a statement about where their own music came from — about the Black American R&B tradition that had shaped rock and roll from the beginning, that British bands had absorbed and returned to American audiences in new configurations.
The effect was not subtle. The Revue had been playing to its established R&B audience for nine years. The Stones tour put them in front of arenas full of rock fans who had perhaps heard the name but not seen the show. And the show was, by every available account, a clarifying experience. Keith Richards described watching Tina Turner perform from the side of the stage in terms that indicated he understood he was watching something exceptional. Rock journalists who covered the tour wrote about the Revue in language that established its place in a broader musical tradition — not as a precursor or an influence to be acknowledged respectfully and moved past, but as a living, present, forward-moving creative force.