Tina Turner Trivia
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49 free Tina Turner trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Tina Turner trivia quiz covers the whole story of the Queen of Rock 'n' Roll: the girl named Anna Mae Bullock who picked cotton in Nutbush, Tennessee, grabbed a microphone at an Ike Turner show in St. Louis, and became the voice of River Deep – Mountain High, Proud Mary and Nutbush City Limits. It follows her escape from Ike in Dallas with 36 cents in her pocket, the years of cabaret and food stamps, and the 1984 comeback that made Private Dancer a ten-million seller and gave her the only US number one of her career. There are questions on the films (Tommy, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, GoldenEye), the record-breaking tours, the 180,000-strong crowd in Rio, her Grammys and two Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductions, her Buddhism, her Swiss citizenship, and the musical and documentary that told her story. Easy questions cover the hits everyone knows; the hard ones go into label deals, chart positions and the people around her. Every answer has been checked against Wikipedia's biography of Tina Turner and the sources it cites, and each question quotes the sentence that supports it.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What was Tina Turner's birth name?
Anna Mae Bullock
Anna Mae Bullock was raised largely by her grandmother after her parents split up. Rejoining her mother in St. Louis as a teenager put her in the clubs where Ike Turner's band played.
Q 02In which state was Tina Turner born?
Tennessee
Tennessee: the one-room school she attended there spent decades as a barn before it was moved to Brownsville and restored as the Tina Turner Museum, filled with stage costumes and gold records she sent.
Q 03What crop did Tina Turner recall picking with her family as a young child?
Cotton
Cotton: she picked it alongside her family, yet by her own account they were better off than many neighbours, because her father was the farm's overseer.
Q 04Which producer paid Ike Turner to stay away while Tina Turner recorded 'River Deep – Mountain High' in 1966?
Phil Spector
Phil Spector paid Ike $20,000 to keep clear of the sessions. The single he saw as his crowning achievement reached the UK top five but stalled at number 88 in America.
Q 05What was the name of Ike Turner's band that Tina Turner first saw perform in East St. Louis?
The Kings of Rhythm
The Kings of Rhythm played the Club Manhattan, where she and her sister were regulars. She ached to get up and sing with them, and by her own account it took a year before she did.
Q 06Whose blues ballad did Tina Turner sing at an intermission, winning a spot in Ike Turner's band?
B.B. King
B.B. King's 'You Know I Love You' was the song, sung when the microphone reached her during a break. Ike Turner, amazed that such a voice came from so slight a teenager, began working her into the show.
Q 07Under what name did Tina Turner make her recording debut in 1958 on the single 'Boxtop'?
Little Ann
Little Ann was the billing Ike Turner gave his new backup singer on 'Boxtop'. It was two more years before he renamed her Tina and put her out front.
Q 08Which 1960 debut single did Tina Turner sing only because its intended male singer dropped out?
A Fool in Love
'A Fool in Love' was written for Art Lassiter of Ike Turner's band. Tina sang the demo in his place, and her vocal got the act signed by Sue Records boss Juggy Murray.
Q 09Ike Turner modelled Tina Turner's stage name on which fictional jungle heroine?
Sheena
Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, inspired the name. Ike Turner never asked his singer before renaming her, and she did not like it.
Q 10What were the backing singers and dancers in Tina Turner's 1960s stage revue called?
The Ikettes
The Ikettes also made records of their own: their 1961 hit 'I'm Blue (The Gong-Gong Song)' resurfaced three decades later in the chorus of Salt-N-Pepa's 'Shoop'.
Q 11In 1967 Tina Turner became the first woman and first Black artist on the cover of which magazine?
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone gave its first cover to John Lennon and its second to Tina Turner, more than three years before Ike & Tina Turner had their first US top 10 hit.
Q 12Which band did Ike & Tina Turner open for on tours of the UK in 1966 and the US in 1969?
The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones invited the Revue onto both tours. White rock audiences began paying attention, and the Turners started working rock covers into their soul set.
Q 13'Proud Mary', Ike & Tina Turner's biggest hit, was first recorded by which band?
Creedence Clearwater Revival
Q 21Which song was Tina Turner's only number one on the Billboard Hot 100?
What's Love Got to Do with It
'What's Love Got to Do with It' was a song she disliked at first and had to be talked into recording. It went to number one in 1984 and made her, at 44, then the oldest woman to top the chart.
Q 22Which British Eurovision act recorded Tina Turner's signature 1984 hit before she did?
Bucks Fizz
Bucks Fizz, Britain's 1981 Eurovision winners, recorded the song for their album I Hear Talk, then left it off when Tina Turner's version came out first.
Q 23With which artist did Tina Turner duet on a 1984 cover of Iggy Pop's 'Tonight'?
David Bowie
Creedence Clearwater Revival took it to number 2 in 1969. Ike & Tina Turner's version starts slow and smouldering, then bursts into a frantic rock workout that reached number 4.
Q 14Which 1973 hit did Tina Turner write about the tiny rural community where she grew up?
Nutbush City Limits
'Nutbush City Limits' found a second life in Australia: a line dance to it, the Nutbush, spread through primary schools from the mid-1970s and became a staple of weddings and parties.
Q 15Which character did Tina Turner play in the 1975 film of The Who's rock opera Tommy?
The Acid Queen
She played the Acid Queen in Ken Russell's 1975 film of The Who's Tommy, and her 1975 solo album was titled Acid Queen after the role.
Q 16In which city did Tina Turner flee from Ike Turner in July 1976?
Dallas
Dallas: while Ike slept in their hotel suite, she slipped out and ran across a freeway to a motel with 36 cents and a Mobil credit card in her pocket.
Q 17In her 1978 divorce settlement, what was the one professional asset Tina Turner insisted on keeping?
Her stage name
Her stage name was legally Ike's, because he had trademarked 'Tina Turner'. She came away with it, but gave up her share of the studio and property and took on the debts from their missed concerts.
Q 18Roger Davies, the manager behind Tina Turner's comeback, first saw her sing while working with which Australian star's manager?
Olivia Newton-John
Olivia Newton-John's manager brought Davies, his assistant, to Tina Turner's San Francisco hotel show. Davies took her on, got her to drop the supper-club act and aimed her back at hard rock.
Q 19Tina Turner's 1983 comeback single was a cover of which Al Green song?
Let's Stay Together
'Let's Stay Together' was produced by Martyn Ware of the synth-pop band Heaven 17. Its success in Europe persuaded Capitol to pay for a full album, which became Private Dancer.
Q 20How long did Capitol Records give Tina Turner to record her 1984 album Private Dancer?
Two weeks
Two weeks was all Capitol allowed. Her manager flew her to England, gathered songs from British writers and split them among several producers, and the rushed record became her comeback.
David Bowie made 'Tonight' the title track of his 1984 album. A year earlier he had told Capitol Records that Tina Turner was his favourite singer, which helped win her the deal behind her comeback.
Q 24Which character did Tina Turner play as the ruler of Bartertown in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome?
Aunty Entity
Aunty Entity was the villain opposite Mel Gibson. Tina Turner took that part but turned down Steven Spielberg's The Color Purple, saying its story was too close to the life she had just escaped.
Q 25Which Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome song gave Tina Turner a transatlantic top 3 hit?
We Don't Need Another Hero
'We Don't Need Another Hero' reached number 2 in America. Its children's chorus is a British school choir, and one of the boys, Lawrence Dallaglio, grew up to captain England at rugby.
Q 26Who pulled off Tina Turner's skirt on stage during their duet at Live Aid in July 1985?
Mick Jagger
Mick Jagger tore away her leather miniskirt during 'It's Only Rock 'n Roll' in Philadelphia, and Tina Turner, then 45, danced out the rest of the song in a black leotard.
Q 27What was the title of Tina Turner's 1986 autobiography, later the basis for a hit film?
I, Tina
I, Tina, written with music journalist Kurt Loder, went far deeper into Ike Turner's abuse than the 1981 People interview where she first went public. It became a bestseller and the basis of the 1993 biopic.
Q 28In which city did Tina Turner draw about 180,000 people in 1988, then the largest paying crowd for a solo artist?
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro's Maracanã Stadium held the crowd in January 1988, a Guinness record at the time. She was 48, and five years earlier she had been playing hotel ballrooms and clubs without an American record deal.
Q 29Which enduring anthem came from Tina Turner's 1989 album Foreign Affair?
The Best
'The Best' was a cover. Bonnie Tyler's 1988 original stalled at number 95 in Britain; Tina Turner's version reached number 15 in America and became a fixture at sporting events around the world.
Q 30Who wrote 'Private Dancer', the title track of Tina Turner's 1984 comeback album?
Mark Knopfler
Mark Knopfler wrote it for Dire Straits, then decided it did not work with a man singing. Members of his band played on Tina Turner's version, with Jeff Beck taking the guitar solo.