I loved her voice and the way she danced and strutted across the stage, giving every song her all. She was power and elegance and talent.

As kids my sisters and I loved Ike and Tina Turner’s version of “Rolling on a River.” We loved how they started the song out “nice and easy” because as Tina said, “we never, ever do nothing nice and easy” then halfway through they rocked the song like a river bursting over its banks.

We called Milwaukee’s Fun-Loving WOKY at 920 on your AM dial. They took requests. So we asked, “Can you play ‘Rolling on a River’ the way Ike and Tina Turner sing it?”

“Sure,” someone at WOKY said. After all, they were Fun-Loving.

Instead they played “Rolling on a River” by Creedence Clearwater Revival. Disappointed, we called again and again, asking for the “nice and easy” version. But we were kids, and we pissed them off with our insistence they get our request right. They told us they wouldn’t play Ike and Tina Turner’s version because they’d just played the CCR version.

We gave it a rest. But we called every couple of days, asking to hear “Rolling on a River” by Ike and Tina Turner. Fun-Loving WOKY at 920 on your AM dial never honored our request. After a couple of weeks we gave up.

Today I didn’t need to call a request line to hear Tina Turner sing “Rolling on River.” I’ve got YouTube. I watched three different versions of Tina sing and dance to the best version ever of “Rolling on River.” And I was twelve years old again.

Ike and Tina Turner live in 1971 singing “Proud Mary.”

Tina Turner live in the Netherlands in 1996 singing “Proud Mary.”

Tina Turner live in 1999 singing “Proud Mary” with Elton John on piano and a duet with Cher.