The first time I saw Tina Turner in concert it was a rock and roll right of passage. For me, it was a coming-of-age musical moment by a musical artist for the ages.
Turner, who died this year, sparked a magnetic presence the second the spotlight shined on her. She seemed like some kind of superhero, with a flowing lion-mane shock of hair and long legs, accentuated by a tight, short dress.
But forget the physical gifts and sexual heat. When Turner opened her mouth to sing, out came her greatest gift of all – a rapturous voice.
That voice could do a soulful strut; deliver the blues from the heart, nail a power ballad or just plain rock out.
She didn’t just move on stage; Turner choreographed every moment with a dancer’s grace and style. She could rip the house down with “Proud Mary” and then break your heart with “What’s Love Got to Do With It.”
Tina Turner was everything a woman could be in the male-dominated kingdom of rock music.
Her memory endures and on Friday a huge crowd in Savannah Center came to see “Hot Legs: A Tribute to Tina Turner.”
A singer who bills herself as Lyrical Reign, played the role of Tina Turner. Like the famed singer, Reign is blessed with boundless energy, a stunning voice and strong body.
On stage, Reign could hardly stand still. She was jiving, shaking and gesturing with her hands in sometimes graceful and sometimes suggestive ways.
The singer wore a short, tight silver-metallic dress that seemed to explode with light every time she threw herself into a song. At one point – while singing “You Better Be Good To Me” –Reign took off on what seemed like a cross-country run around the Savannah Center auditorium. She made it from the first row in the front of the stage to the last row in the balcony.
The crowd loved it.
“Miss Turner always had her own way of doing a song,” Reign said.
While no tribute artist’s voice could match Turner, Reign, backed by a superb band, held her own.
She got down and dirty on “River Deep Mountain High,” with a vocal that ranged from soft introspection to screaming vengeance. There was more sexual hot sauce on the blues number, “Rock Me Baby.”
And when she covered Ben E. King’s “Stand By Me,” it came across as a desperate, soulful plea.
“Miss Turner loved to cover other artists,” Reign said. “But she always made their songs her own.”
It was that way on a torrid and psychologically draining version of the Beatles’ “Help.” The singer turned this song into a painful, psychotic plea for understanding.
Other covers included the Trammps “Disco Inferno” and Marvin Gaye’s “I Heard It Through the Grapevine.”
That set the stage for the big finish of “Proud Mary.” Once again, the singer raced into the crowd, and greeted people face to face. After it was over the audience stood and cheered with a long, standing ovation.
Reign rewarded them with an encore: “I Can’t Stand the Rain.”
It was a performance to remember and Tina Turner would have approved.
Tony Violanti covers music and entertainment for Villages-News.com. He was inducted into The Buffalo Music Hall of Fame as a music journalist.