Tulsa, Tina, and Me

To this day I’m a mediocre housekeeper and it’s Tina Turner’s fault.

You see, every Saturday mom would get me and my sisters to clean the house by playing music. Really loud music. We had one of those enormous cabinet stereos that housed the turntable, speakers, and record collection — the showpiece of every hip 1960s living room.

My parents had a decent-sized record collection, everything from Merle Haggard to Miles Davis. But Saturday mornings? The needle always dropped on Tina Turner. Technically the Ike and Tina Turner Revue but it was her husky, powerful voice that got the party started.

Proud Mary starts out “nice and easy” with Tina beckoning us in a voice that’s comforting and familiar, like sweet tea on a hot summer day. By the time Tina was rolling down the river, we were dancing around the room, our dust-rag microphones barely connecting with any hard surfaces. The house didn’t get very clean but man we had fun.

Did I mention that my mom’s name is Mary? When Tina belted out Proud Mary I just knew she was singing about my mom. I didn’t really understand the lyrics but that song and Tina Turner and my mom were all connected in my childhood brain, and it felt good.

I had no idea at the time that they both had tough childhoods and grew up picking cotton — Tina in Tennessee and my mom in Arkansas. It’s hard to truly comprehend something so unfamiliar to your own experience, even if it happens to your mom. Hard to understand what others have gone through and how it shapes them. How that kind of strength gives them invisible superpowers that they can summon when they need them.

I don’t think my mom knew about Tina’s background when they bought that record. She just loved the music. But part of me wonders if there was some glimmer of recognition in the grit and the grind and the courage to persevere.

My parents loved all kinds of music and their record collection was a big part of my childhood. I didn’t think about one kind of music versus another or what the singers looked like. There were no lessons or lectures about what we were listening to, just a genuine appreciation for the talents of all kinds of amazing singers and musicians.

As an adult however, the irony hasn’t escaped me that we listened to those jazz and R&B records in the 1960s and early 1970s in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The city where the Black Wall Street Massacre happened in 1921. It’s hard to come to terms with the fact that the city where I was born and raised, where we danced to Tina Turner on Saturday mornings, was also the city where one of the worst incidents of racial violence took place 100 years ago. I feel a shame by extension and a sorrow for how little the racial equality needle has moved in our nation. But thinking back on my childhood, I also feel there's hope that music can be a unifying force that helps us heal.

Black women artists have played, and continue to play, a vital role in expressing the human condition and creating empathy. Throughout my life they’ve helped me celebrate the good times and get over the bad. Aretha empowered me to demand respect. Tracy Chapman’s Fast Car and Revolution nearly wore out my Sony Walkman when I was traveling in Asia. And my go-to anthem when I need a dose of what’s really important in life is Alicia Keys If I Ain’t Got You. But it all started with Tina.

Dancing to Tina Turner was the first time I remember allowing myself to get lost in the joy of the moment. Her music helped this shy kid, who preferred reading to just about any other activity, to stop thinking and just feel. Raw, human emotion. The kind that binds us all together. Reminds us there's more that unites us than divides us and that music has the power to unite us at a soul level. There’s magic in that and we could all use a little magic right now.

Looking back on my childhood and on raising my own sons, when I think about what we teach our children, what we expose them to, and what we adopt and nurture as our family values, what’s love got to do with it? Everything. Thank you Tina.