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[0:00] Tim Rice: Hello, this is Tim Rice, and this is Episode 72 of my podcast, Get Onto My Cloud.

[0:16] Tim Rice: When Tina Turner, born Anna Mae Bullock, died, the reaction to her death was surprisingly huge, not just within the boundaries of the music world. I say surprisingly, not because she did not deserve all the accolades and wonderful obituaries she received, but because it was clear that it was not merely music that caused the reaction. It was the story of her life, her rise from the cotton backwaters of Nutbush, Tennessee, her early musical success with her controlling husband Ike Turner, and her dramatic escape from the gruesome marriage, her downs as much as her ups, all of which led eventually to a truly worldwide following. Many writers referred to her as the Queen of Rock and Roll, which I felt was an inaccurate category in which to place her enormous talent, and a description I do not remember hearing when she was alive.

She was a great blues singer who rose to superstardom by incorporating powerful elements of both rock and mega-pop with majestic soul, interpreting, almost as if reliving, experiences such as those of Private Dancer and What's Love Got to Do With It, and many, many others. Her story's been told on stage and in film. She's written three books, autobiographical and self-help. Rock and Roll was not a sufficient description of her wonderful, life-enhancing music. I was first aware of Tina, and thus of Ike too, through their 1961 hit, It's Gonna Work Out Fine. Not a commercial success in the UK, but a substantial hit in the United States, a follow-up to their first success on disc, A Fool in Love, in July 1960. Here is A Fool in Love.

[2:05] ♪ Musical number: "A Fool in Love" — performed by Ike and Tina Turner ♪

[4:49] Tim Rice: Magnificent, but not really rock and roll. Be that as it may, Tina Turner was an extraordinary artist, both on record and in the flesh. After she died, quite a few people asked me if I'd ever met her; unless it was for 10 seconds at some crowded music business event, I don't think I did. But I did have the honor of hearing her sing some of my words. She recorded a song from the musical I wrote with Elton John, Aida. At the time of the writing and recording of this podcast, the show has not played in London, even though it was a considerable success on Broadway, running for four and a half years from the year 2000. It's also been performed in many different languages, translated from my original English in at least 20 countries, and translated into at least 16 languages.

Some of these foreign productions have been full-blown commercial ventures, such as those in Germany, Holland, Japan, and South Korea. Others have been lesser ventures by schools or colleges, or other amateur dramatic societies. I am grateful to them all. All this without any significant production in the UK at all, despite the fact that both composer and lyricist are British. There is a plan afoot for this to be rectified. A major staging of the work has recently, April 2023, opened in the Netherlands, at the magnificent Circus Theatre in Scheveningen, Holland, directed by Shelley Williams, who played the part of Nehepka in the original Broadway show. Many of the creative team who took part in the Broadway show have been retained for this new version, including David Henry Huang, the book, Bob Crowley, sets and costumes, and Natasha Katz, lighting.

Bob and Natasha both won Tonys for their work on AIDA Broadway, as did Elton and I for the score. Other than the fact that the show is in Dutch, it seemed to me to be ready to hit the West End, which I hope will happen within the next 12 months, i.e. early-ish 2024. It was certainly a highly impressive performance, strikingly staged, and marvellously acted. There again, in the world of musical theatre, nothing can be taken for granted. Anyway, back to Tina Turner and her recording of a song from the AIDA score. Just before the original Broadway show opened, a studio album of songs from the show, featuring a slew of distinguished recording artists, all pals of Elton, was assembled under the aegis of the late great recording producer, Phil Ramone.

Artists who each had a bash at one of the songs included Janet Jackson, Shania Twain, Sting, James Taylor, Lulu, Lenny Kravitz, the Spice Girls, and Tina Turner. Elton himself joined forces with several of the singers, including the two leading ladies from the Broadway show, Heather Headley and Cherie Renee Scott. The great Tina sang AIDA's big number in the second act, Easy As Life, on which track she was supported by Angelique Kidjo.

[7:54] ♪ Musical number: "Easy As Life" — performed by Tina Turner and Angelique Kidjo ♪

[13:01] Tim Rice: A Broadway cast album was issued after the show opened in 2000, and there have also been foreign language albums in Dutch, German, Japanese, and Hungarian. I hope there'll be a London cast album before too long. I said earlier that It's Gonna Work Out Fine was my introduction to the music of Ike and Tina Turner, and indeed it was. But the first recording of that song, written by Rosemary McCoy and Joe Seneca, that really made an impact on me, was the version by the British blues and pop quintet Manfred Mann, whose lead singer was Paul Jones. Manfred Mann, the band, had a string of hit records in the UK and elsewhere in the mid-60s. Their first album, The Five Faces of Manfred Mann, was released in September 1964 and included a fine cover of It's Gonna Work Out Fine, which led me to seek out the original Ike and Tina Turner version, which had not been a commercial success in the UK. Here is...

[16:32] Tim Rice: Manfred Mann, Paul Jones, Tom McGuinness, Mike Vickers, Mike Hug, and Manfred Mann himself, with their interpretation of Ike and Tina Turner's "It's Gonna Work Out Fine." Many of the leading British groups of the 60s, including of course the Beatles and Stones, introduced a lot of famous, often hitherto not famous enough, and important American blues artists to British youth, which included me. Manfred Mann was one of the leading acts to acknowledge their debt to the blues, which they featured strongly live and on record, while simultaneously enjoying a dozen or more hits on the UK and international pop charts.

[17:11] Tim Rice: Paul Jones proved to be an important part of my music career. His own career has been long lasting and very successful, continuing to this day, 2023, as singer, songwriter, actor, and broadcaster. He can still knock them dead with "Do Wah Diddy Diddy," or with outstanding interpretations of blues classics, often while leading, on vocals and brilliant harmonica, another band, the Blues Band, which was exactly what it was.

[17:38] Tim Rice: I first ventured into a recording studio with Paul when Andrew Lloyd Webber and I were recording the original Evita studio album, following the accidental but wildly successful route we'd taken with our previous show, Jesus Christ Superstar, which became a big hit record before it ever made it onto any stage. Paul played the part of Juan Perón on this first Evita recording, but perhaps the most significant contribution he made to my songwriting career was via Manfred Mann's cover of the Bob Dylan song, "With God on Our Side," which contained the really intriguing lines, quote, I can't think for you, you'll have to decide whether Judas Iscariot had God on his side, unquote. To put it mildly, a powerful poser.

[18:21] Tim Rice: "With God on Our Side" was not a hit single, but was included on a Manfred Mann EP. I well remember the impact of Paul singing the song on a television music show in 1965, the impact it had on me. This refueled my schoolboy interest in Judas Iscariot. This follower of Jesus who is eternally damned, perhaps simply because he had the bad luck to be around at the time. But without his betrayal, where would Christianity be? Four years after I first heard "With God on Our Side," our album Jesus Christ Superstar was released, in which Judas Iscariot came to believe God was not on his side.

[19:04] Tim Rice: On a worldwide scale, to lift a quote from my Christmas hit "A Winter's Tale," Juan Perón is clearly not as significant a murky character as Judas, but he certainly affected many lives, not often to their owner's benefit, in Argentina in the 1940s and 1950s. In Evita, Perón's song, "She is a Diamond," he attempts to justify his ailing wife's influence in the nation's government, as per Paul Jones' performance.

[22:06] Tim Rice: I've had some fun in recording studios with Paul in later years, including a cover version of another great and very long Dylan song, "Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts." Unfortunately, we seem to have lost the tapes. And that's that 10 minute saga is lost to posterity unless somebody listening to this has got a copy, in which case it would be a bootleg. I wouldn't mind. Thus, I recommend you search out the Dylan original featured on one of his most highly rated albums, Blood on the Tracks. Paul and I even wrote a couple of lighthearted songs together which have never seen the light of day. "No Chicken" and "Loose Change" may be material for a future Get Onto My Cloud, maybe.

[22:45] Tim Rice: But one session we had back in the late 70s did result in a record actually being let loose on the public, which, by and large, rejected it. No taste. This was my bonkers idea of recording a couple of punk era classics in M.O.R., middle of the road, M.O.R. style. With sophisticated orchestral arrangements by Nick Ingman, we injected new life, or perhaps remove the old life, from the Sex Pistols' "Pretty Vacant" and the Ramones' "Sheena is a Punk Rocker." Reviewers and record buyers alike were bewildered. But the tracks still occasionally crop up in strange places and unusual frequencies. Such as right here, right now. Paul Jones sings Johnny Rotten.

[23:28] ♪ Musical number: "Pretty Vacant" — performed by Paul Jones ♪

[27:26] Tim Rice: That was episode 72 of my podcast, Get Onto My Cloud. Written and presented by me, Tim Rice. So there's 71 other podcasts floating around cyberspace, if this is the first one you've heard. All 72 of them have been produced by the immaculate, intelligent, incisive Peter Hobbs.