A 10-foot statue of rock n’ roll queen Tina Turner was unveiled Saturday (Sept. 27) in the rural Tennessee community where she grew up — before becoming a Grammy-winning singer, an electrifying stage performer, and one the world’s most recognizable and popular entertainers.
The statue was revealed during a ceremony at a park in Brownsville, located about an hour drive east of Memphis. The city of about 9,000 people is near Nutbush, the community where Turner went to school as a child. As a teen, she attended high school just steps from where the statue now stands.
The statue shows Turner with her signature wild hairdo and holding a microphone, as if she was singing on stage. It was designed by sculptor Fred Ajanogha, who said he tried to capture her flexibility of movement on stage, how she held the microphone with her index finger extended, and her hair style, which he compared to the “mane of a lion.”
Turner died May 24, 2023 at age 83 after a long illness in her home in Küsnacht near Zurich. Her Grammy-winning singing career included the hit songs “Nutbush City Limits,” “Proud Mary,” “Private Dancer,” and “We Don’t Need Another Hero,” from the film “Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome.” Her movie credits also include Tommy and Last Action Hero.
Turner teamed with husband Ike Turner for hit records and live shows in the 1960s and ’70s. She survived her troubled marriage to succeed in middle age with the chart-topping “What’s Love Got To Do With It,” released in 1984.
Her admirers ranged from Mick Jagger to Beyoncé to Mariah Carey, and she was known as the the “Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll.”
The unveiling was part of the 10th-annual Tina Turner Heritage Days, a celebration of her life growing up in rural Tennessee, before she moved away as a teenager. The statue was sculpted in clay and cast in bronze, and it took about a year to complete.
Karen Cook said she traveled from Georgia to attend the event with her friend, a cousin of Turner’s, to honor the legendary performer.
“She’s a great artist, I love her music,” said Cook, 59. “My mom listened to her a lot. It’s a big deal and a great thing for the community to have Tina Turner in her small town.”
About 50 donors gave money for the statue, including Ford Motor Co., which donated $150,000. Ford is building an electric truck factory in nearby Stanton.
The statue stands near a museum honoring Turner at the the West Tennessee Delta Heritage Center in Brownsville. The museum opened in 2014 inside the renovated Flagg Grove School, a one-room building where Turner attended classes in Nutbush. The school closed in the 1960s and was used as a barn before the dilapidated building was moved by tractor-trailer from Nutbush to Brownsville.