1984 - What's love got to do with it? 7 Inch Single

"What’s Love Got To Do With It?" is a single from Tina Turner's album "Private Dancer".
The song is written by Terry Britten and Graham Lyle, and the song was many times offered to a different artist. Cliff Richard rejected the song, Donna Summer sat with it for a couple of years but never recorded it and Phyllis Hyman wasn’t allowed to record the song from her record company boss. However the song was given to Bucks Fizz. They did record the song a couple of months before Tina, but their producer thought it wasn’t suitable for a female lead vocal. Another demo was made with a male voice, but they’ve had to shelve the song this time, because Tina recorded it fast and released the song. The Bucks Fizz version was released in 2000 at their album "The Original Bucks Fizz".

When Roger Davies called Terry Britten, and asked for songs, Terry came up with a few including "What’s Love". Tina heard the demo and she didn’t like it at all. "What’s this? I’m doing rock ‘n’ roll, "Honky tonk woman" by The Stones, "Hot Legs" with Rod Stewart and now I get this song? It sounds a little frumpy." Roger convinced Tina to open up her mind because he knew it was going to be a hit for Tina. He told her that he had set up a meeting with Terry in London. Roger and Tina went off to London’s Mayfair Studio’s to meet up with Terry. However Tina still didn’t know what to do with the song and couldn’t sing it at all, she became a little fed up so to speak. When Tina met Little Terry, Terry sat down and played the melody for her on a guitar. Tina began to like the song, but still didn’t know how to sing it, and what the song was about. Here’s a little story from an insider when Tina came into their lives.

When Tina came in and did her vocals on that second Sunday, I was blown away. Beforehand I thought "OK, here's this artist who had some hits years ago and we've never heard from her since. I hope she can bloody sing or we'll be here all bloody night!" I was doing another session with Ultravox at 10 o'clock on Monday morning, so the last thing I needed was an all-nighter before that. We'd have to complete three songs, and at that point 'What's Love"? hadn't even been selected as a single. Tina didn't like it, and she, like the rest of us, was probably assuming "I Can't Stand The Rain? would be released, because it was a really rocking track. So, Terry decided to start things off with 'What's Love" as that was the one which was going to be the least demanding on her voice. He'd get it out of the way while hearing how she could sing.

 

 

"When we first put the track up, Tina sang like she was on stage in front of 25.000 people, belting it for all she was worth, and Terry was sitting there shaking his head, clearly concerned that this was going to be a disaster. He said "Tina, you just need to back it off a bit," and we spent ages trying to get her to do that, but she didn't appear to know what "back it off' meant. She was in the studio, Terry, myself and the assistant engineer were in the control room, and for a time it was very, very tense. She began getting annoyed, saying "I sing everything like this!" to which Terry said "But this is a love song," and he went into the studio and sang along with her to illustrate how it should be done. She liked how he'd sung on the demo, and he said "Well, if you want it to sound like the demo, you can't belt it."

With his back virtually pinned against the wall, the producer had to think fast about how to encourage a little light and shade. "Nothing sounds good cranked full up," asserts John Hudson. "If you want something to sound really loud and powerful it's got to be below 90 percent, because otherwise you've got no leeway for those extra little spikes, whether they're vocal or guitar. In the end Terry told Tina "Forget about the microphone. Imagine you're singing only to me, not an audience. Sing into my ear." And when she did that, she sang quietly and I was going "Yes!" I pushed the talkback and I said, 'Terry, that sounds great,' and Tina said "Oh, whaddya mean, whaddya mean?" She didn't really understand what was going on. Terry just stood there with his ear by the microphone and said "Right, sing the first verse," and by the time we'd recorded the verses with him standing there with his ear in her face, she had totally got the hang of it. At that point, she was so pleased. She thought it was great, and I think it was really good that we did "What's Love" first, because it put her in the whole mode of not giving 110 percent for every bloody note.

"As soon as she got a handle on it, she was brilliant. I mean, she locked into it within a couple of hours. It wasn't a case of playing it back and saying "Right Tina, that was great. Do it like that." There wouldn't be any point. She's a performer. She was relying totally on Terry and me, and once he'd sussed the way to do it, Terry was blown away by the results. He was going "Oh, this is fantastic." Her vocal was so smooth and powerful, and Terry was absolutely brilliant to get that performance out of her. Still, doing the ad libs was really funny, because she'd never do them in the right place.

"A lot of great singers aren't arrangers. Again, they're performers, so you don't want to stop the tape or say "I'll give you a couple of bars to run up and do a "whoa-whoa" after the chorus." You can't do that. Instead, Terry had to say "Don't sing the verses, just sing the chorus, and then do some ad libs when you get to the end." That way, although some of the ad libs were in the wrong place, we'd get a fantastic performance and so we could just move them. As we didn't have samplers in those days, we'd move the ad libs by offsetting the two tape machines. We'd have a click on both tapes, the guide mix on the second tape, and if, say, she did an ad lib two bars late, I'd just trim the offset until the clicks were in sync and then bounce the ad libs across. That's how we did all the ad libs."

You can read the whole story here.
After these recording sessions Tina start to promote the song in tv shows and live shows. Tina made a deal with Lionel Richie, to open up for him, and her schedule was pretty full. Promotions for her album, opening for Lionel Richie, solo gigs. The song was released in May 1984 and climbed up the charts. In September it became number 1 on the charts and it was Tina’s first and only number 1 hit in America as a solo performer. Tina recalls that as the best day in her life because that same day when she heard from her manager she was number 1, she also was called to do the movie Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome.
Tina made the biggest comeback in history of music. She was 44 years old and broke all records with it. Tina shot two different video’s for "What’s love got to do with it". In the original version Tina wears a jeans jacket and a leather mini skirt, high heals and fishnet stockings. Tina walks through the street of New York and teaches us that love has everything to do with it. The second video was an alternative version in black and white. The video was shot in a bar and let’s us see that love can be a very painful emotion.

Tina performed the song many times on tv and live. It never left her setlist since 1984. She performed it during the first MTV awards in 1984, Grammy awards 1985, Solid Gold and many more tv shows.

"What’s Love Got To With It" was released in different formats. 7’’ single, different versions, 12’’ single, different versions, cassette single, 12’’ picture disc.
The B-side was "Don’t Rush The Good Things" or "Rock ‘n’ Roll Widow".
"Don’t Rush The Good Things" is a rock/pop song about having a good time with a drink, a friend and learning lessons from the past.

 

 

"Rock ‘n’ Roll Widow" is a beautiful rock ballad about a woman who has a man in the music business. She is crazy about him, but he only has eyes for his music and fame and he let’s love slip away. Both songs were produced by John Carter. Tina did perform "Rock ‘n’ roll widow" many times live between 1981-1984. We never heard of Tina singing ‘’ "Don’t rush the good things’’. Both songs were released in 1997 and 2015 when the "Private Dancer" album was re-released.

 

 

Track Listing
"What's Love Got To Do With It?" - 3.48 min.
"Don't Rush The Good Things" - 3.44 min. or
"Rock And Roll Widow" - 4.42 min.

Released: 1984
Genre: Soul, Pop, R&B
Length: 3.48 min.
Label: Capitol
Writers: "What’s Love Got To Do With It" – Terry Britten and G. Lyle
"Don’t Rust The Good Things’’ - Neil Gammack
"Rock ‘n’ Roll Widow" - Tom Snow
Producers: Terry Britten (What's Love Got To Do With It?) and John Carter (Rock 'N Roll Widow and Don't Rush The Good Things)

Chart Positions (1984)
Australia (Kent Music Report) - 1
Austria (Ö3 Austria Top 40) - 4
Belgium (Ultratop 50 Flanders) - 20
Canada Top Singles (RPM) - 1
Canada Adult Contemporary (RPM) - 7
Finland (Suomen virallinen lista) - 19
France (SNEP) - 21
Germany (Official German Charts) - 7
Ireland (IRMA) - 4
Italy (Hit Parade Italia) - 21
Netherlands (Single Top 100) - 10
New Zealand (Recorded Music NZ) - 3
Norway (VG-lista) - 10
Spain (PROMUSICAE) - 6
Sweden (Sverigetopplistan) - 4
Switzerland (Schweizer Hitparade) - 8
UK Singles (Official Charts Company) - 3
US Billboard Hot 100 - 1
US Adult Contemporary (Billboard) - 8
US Hot Dance Club Songs (Billboard) - 21
US Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs (Billboard) - 2

 

Source: Wikipedia and Discogs

1975 - Under my thumb
1975 - Whole lotta love
1976 - Acid Queen
1978 - Root Toot Undisputable Rock 'n Roller
1978 - Viva la money
1978 - Sometimes When We Touch
1979 - Fruits of the Night
1979 - Music keeps me dancin'
1979 - Backstabbers
1980 - Are you breaking my heart
1982 - Ball of confusion
1983 - Lets Stay Together
1984 - Help
1984 - What's love got to do with it?
1984 - Better be good to me
1984 - Private Dancer
1984 - I can't stand the rain
1985 - Show some respect
1985 - We don't need another hero - Mad Max
1985 - One of the living
1985 - It's only love - with Bryan Adams
1986 - Typical Male
1986 - Back where you started
1986 - Two People
1987 - Girls
1987 - What you get is what you see
1987 - Break every rule
1987 - Paradise is here - Special Edition
1987 - Tearing us apart - with Eric Clapton
1988 - Nutbush City Limits
1988 - Tonight Live - with David Bowie
1988 - Addicted to love
1988 - A change is gonna come
1989 - The Best
1989 - I don't wanna lose you
1989 - 6345789 - with Robert Cray
1990 - Steamy Windows
1990 - Foreign Affair
1990 - Look Me in the Heart
1990 - Be Tender With Me Baby
1990 - It takes Two - with Rod Stewart
1991 - Nutbush City Limits
1991 - Way of the world
1991 - I want you near me
1991 - Love Thing
1993 - I don't wanna fight
1993 - Disco Inferno
1993 - Why must we wait until tonight?
1993 - Proud Mary
1995 - Goldeneye
1996 - On silent wings
1996 - Whatever you want
1997 - Cose della vita - with Eros Ramazzotti