“Proud Mary,” released in 1971, was perhaps the most significant commercial moment. The song was originally recorded by Creedence Clearwater Revival, and the Ike and Tina Turner version transformed it into something altogether different: the arrangement started slow and deliberate, built to an explosive uptempo finish, and Tina’s vocal performance was a demonstration of exactly what “electrifying” means as applied to a singer. The song reached number four on the Hot 100 and won a Grammy for Best R&B Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group. It became the moment that many music fans who had not been following the Revue discovered Tina Turner.
“River Deep – Mountain High,” produced by Phil Spector in 1966, occupies a different position in the record. The song reached number three in the UK but only number eighty-eight in the United States, a commercial failure domestically that reportedly contributed to Spector’s temporary retirement from producing. But Spector had given the recording one of his full “Wall of Sound” treatments, and the result was a showcase for Tina Turner’s voice in a context that most of her R&B recordings hadn’t created: a grandly produced pop record, designed to reach an audience well beyond the Revue’s existing fanbase. The song’s subsequent reputation — as one of the greatest pop records ever made, one that was ahead of the production technology available to match it commercially — has made it a piece of career evidence that confirms what certain people heard at the time: that there was a voice there capable of things the formats it had been deployed in hadn’t fully used.