In the music industry, “A&R” stands for “Artists and repertoire,” which is the process / art / science of connecting performers with material. Not all songwriters are magnetic entertainers, and not all artists can generate material that matches their abilities, so the work of A&R men – and they were and are almost always men, of course – is essential to enrich all parties. Would Elvis have exploded so brilliantly without the work of songwriting teams like Leiber & Stoller providing him with hit after hit? Did the Motown machine match the Holland-Dozier-Holland catalog with the perfect vehicles like the Supremes and the Four Tops, to keep the Motor City metaphor rolling down the highway?
While there are plenty of examples in the ‘50s and ‘60s of the A&R assembly line churning out gems with maximum efficiency, it’s always fun to look a little later in rock history to find great examples of A&R diamonds, where all boats are lifted by a rising tide. When I was a kid, I had Private Dancer by Tina Turner on cassette, nine songs of sheer female bad-assery and vulnerability. Even as an underdeveloped teen dullard, I could see that it told a story of a woman’s empowerment in fits and starts, from the start (“I Might Have Been Queen”) to the finish (“Private Dancer”), and I ate it up, as did most of the world at that time.
It’s important to note that, before Private Dancer came out in the summer of 1984, the commercial fortunes of Tina Turner were at a low ebb. Without the input of Ike Turner, her former husband and one of the founding fathers of rock ‘n’ roll back in the ‘50s, Private Dancer was charged with re-introducing Tina to a new generation, freeing her from the baggage of the past, a history filled with abuse and neglect both personal and professional. And even in the era of the holy trinity of the MTV era – Madonna, Michael Jackson, and Prince – as well as the racist and jingoistic misunderstanding and distortion of Born In The U.S.A. by Bruce Springsteen, Tina Turner was able to make her presence known for something more than her understandably famous legs. In short, Private Dancer was a motherfucker of a record.
Coming back to it now, it’s amazing to take a dive into the credits to see behind the A&R masterpiece that is Private Dancer. If Tina Turner was to kick open the doors of the mainstream in the mid-‘80s, she would have to whitewash her blackness while still maintaining her innate soulfulness, which is a hard line to walk for such a singular R&B performer. As an American, the version of Private Dancer that I had was nine songs, excluding a cover of “Help!” by The Beatles that appeared on every non-American issue of the album. It’s clear why it was left off, of course, as the jazzy soulfulness – no doubt elicited by the backing performance of the popular ‘70s fusion band The Crusaders – harkened back to Tina’s history as a barn-burning rock ‘n’ roll interpreter, for those that remember her version of “Proud Mary” by CCR. And that kind of nuanced performance just wasn’t a fit with the ‘80s Tina brand that Private Dancer would create.
In many ways, Private Dancer is to Tina Turner what Let’s Dance was to David Bowie in that both were designed to bring a “heritage” artist into the present day by offering the artist’s spin on current genre exercises. However, while Bowie brought in ringers like Nile Rodgers and Stevie Ray Vaughan, Private Dancer cast the net wider. In Tina's case, this meant bringing in members of “New Wave” bands like The Fixx and Heaven 17, as well as rock royalty like Jeff Beck and Mark Knopfler from Dire Straits, to offer a sterling foundation upon which Tina could be Tina, albeit a sleeker remodeled version that kept the sex but shaved away some of the grit.
As for the material, there’s something for everyone on Private Dancer, which resembled Purple Rain or Thriller as a pop culture artifact with a deep and rich multi-format appeal. Aside from the original material, tailored to Tina’s persona of empowerment and strength (“I Might Have Been Queen,” “Better Be Good To Me,” “Show Some Respect”), there are the cover versions that hit all the touchstones, from mid-'60s Beatles (“Help!”) to ‘70s soul from Al Green (“Let’s Stay Together”) and Ann Peebles (“I Can’t Stand The Rain”) to the vibrant Irish rockabilly folk of Paul Brady (“Steel Claw”). And to close the album, why not cover the Shaft-meets-Orwell soul dystopia of Bowie’s “1984,” run through the synthesizers and drum machines of Britain’s finest futurists in Heaven 17?
And yet, it’s the title track that resonates most fully, written by Knopfler with a Beck solo for the ages, with a chorus that reads like a mission statement for the album:
I'm your private dancer, a dancer for money / I'll do what you want me to do / I'm your private dancer, a dancer for money / And any old music will do
After all, nobody listens to the taut guitar lines in “I Might Have Been Queen” or “Steel Claw” and says “man, that guy from The Fixx / The Yardbirds is great!” No matter the trappings, it’s always Tina Turner, cooing and cajoling in the linty darkness of your teenage bedroom, offering up her private symphonies of despair and declaration and triumph that are so personal, they’re universal. It’s only nerds like me who look for the seams and the stitching, when any old music won’t do.
While there are plenty of examples in the ‘50s and ‘60s of the A&R assembly line churning out gems with maximum efficiency, it’s always fun to look a little later in rock history to find great examples of A&R diamonds, where all boats are lifted by a rising tide. When I was a kid, I had Private Dancer by Tina Turner on cassette, nine songs of sheer female bad-assery and vulnerability. Even as an underdeveloped teen dullard, I could see that it told a story of a woman’s empowerment in fits and starts, from the start (“I Might Have Been Queen”) to the finish (“Private Dancer”), and I ate it up, as did most of the world at that time.
It’s important to note that, before Private Dancer came out in the summer of 1984, the commercial fortunes of Tina Turner were at a low ebb. Without the input of Ike Turner, her former husband and one of the founding fathers of rock ‘n’ roll back in the ‘50s, Private Dancer was charged with re-introducing Tina to a new generation, freeing her from the baggage of the past, a history filled with abuse and neglect both personal and professional. And even in the era of the holy trinity of the MTV era – Madonna, Michael Jackson, and Prince – as well as the racist and jingoistic misunderstanding and distortion of Born In The U.S.A. by Bruce Springsteen, Tina Turner was able to make her presence known for something more than her understandably famous legs. In short, Private Dancer was a motherfucker of a record.
Coming back to it now, it’s amazing to take a dive into the credits to see behind the A&R masterpiece that is Private Dancer. If Tina Turner was to kick open the doors of the mainstream in the mid-‘80s, she would have to whitewash her blackness while still maintaining her innate soulfulness, which is a hard line to walk for such a singular R&B performer. As an American, the version of Private Dancer that I had was nine songs, excluding a cover of “Help!” by The Beatles that appeared on every non-American issue of the album. It’s clear why it was left off, of course, as the jazzy soulfulness – no doubt elicited by the backing performance of the popular ‘70s fusion band The Crusaders – harkened back to Tina’s history as a barn-burning rock ‘n’ roll interpreter, for those that remember her version of “Proud Mary” by CCR. And that kind of nuanced performance just wasn’t a fit with the ‘80s Tina brand that Private Dancer would create.
In many ways, Private Dancer is to Tina Turner what Let’s Dance was to David Bowie in that both were designed to bring a “heritage” artist into the present day by offering the artist’s spin on current genre exercises. However, while Bowie brought in ringers like Nile Rodgers and Stevie Ray Vaughan, Private Dancer cast the net wider. In Tina's case, this meant bringing in members of “New Wave” bands like The Fixx and Heaven 17, as well as rock royalty like Jeff Beck and Mark Knopfler from Dire Straits, to offer a sterling foundation upon which Tina could be Tina, albeit a sleeker remodeled version that kept the sex but shaved away some of the grit.
As for the material, there’s something for everyone on Private Dancer, which resembled Purple Rain or Thriller as a pop culture artifact with a deep and rich multi-format appeal. Aside from the original material, tailored to Tina’s persona of empowerment and strength (“I Might Have Been Queen,” “Better Be Good To Me,” “Show Some Respect”), there are the cover versions that hit all the touchstones, from mid-'60s Beatles (“Help!”) to ‘70s soul from Al Green (“Let’s Stay Together”) and Ann Peebles (“I Can’t Stand The Rain”) to the vibrant Irish rockabilly folk of Paul Brady (“Steel Claw”). And to close the album, why not cover the Shaft-meets-Orwell soul dystopia of Bowie’s “1984,” run through the synthesizers and drum machines of Britain’s finest futurists in Heaven 17?
And yet, it’s the title track that resonates most fully, written by Knopfler with a Beck solo for the ages, with a chorus that reads like a mission statement for the album:
I'm your private dancer, a dancer for money / I'll do what you want me to do / I'm your private dancer, a dancer for money / And any old music will do
After all, nobody listens to the taut guitar lines in “I Might Have Been Queen” or “Steel Claw” and says “man, that guy from The Fixx / The Yardbirds is great!” No matter the trappings, it’s always Tina Turner, cooing and cajoling in the linty darkness of your teenage bedroom, offering up her private symphonies of despair and declaration and triumph that are so personal, they’re universal. It’s only nerds like me who look for the seams and the stitching, when any old music won’t do.
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