50 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 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What was Tina Turner's birth name?
Anna Mae Bullock
Family and friends went on calling her Ann for the rest of her life.
Q 02In which state was she born?
Tennessee
She grew up in the unincorporated community of Nutbush, which she later immortalised in song.
Q 03What crop did she recall picking with her family as a young child?
Cotton
Her father was an overseer of sharecroppers at Poindexter Farm on Highway 180.
Q 04After high school in St. Louis, what job did she take before her singing career began?
Nurse's aide
She graduated from Sumner High School in 1958 and worked at Barnes-Jewish Hospital.
Q 05What was the name of Ike Turner's band that she first saw perform in East St. Louis?
The Kings of Rhythm
She said she 'almost went into a trance' watching Ike play, and kept coming back until he let her sing.
Q 06Whose blues ballad did she sing at an intermission, winning a spot in Ike's band?
B.B. King
The song was 'You Know I Love You'; Ike had promised to let her sing but never followed through until she forced it.
Q 07Under what name did she make her recording debut in 1958 on the single 'Boxtop'?
Little Ann
The record featured Ike Turner and vocalist Carlson Oliver, two years before 'Tina' existed.
Q 08'A Fool in Love', Tina Turner's 1960 debut single, was written for which singer, who failed to show up to the session?
Art Lassiter
Ike only meant to use her vocal as a demo and erase it later; the label boss heard 'screaming dirt' and bought it.
Q 09Ike Turner chose the name 'Tina' because it rhymed with which comic-book jungle heroine?
Sheena
He trademarked 'Tina Turner' so that if she left, as earlier singers had, he could simply hire another one.
Q 10What were the backing singers and dancers of the Ike & Tina Turner Revue called?
The Ikettes
The revue rivalled James Brown's for spectacle and once played 90 straight days on the road.
Q 11Which producer's 'Wall of Sound' powered the 1966 single 'River Deep – Mountain High'?
Phil Spector
He called it his best work; it hit number 3 in the UK but stalled at 88 in the US.
Q 12In 1967 she became the first woman and first Black artist on the cover of which magazine?
Rolling Stone
The magazine later ranked her among the greatest singers of all time.
Q 13Which band did Ike & Tina open for on tours of the UK in 1966 and the US in 1969?
The Rolling Stones
Their singer would famously rip her skirt off on stage at Live Aid in 1985.
Q 21How long did Capitol give her to record the Private Dancer album in 1984?
Two weeks
It went on to sell 10 million copies worldwide and remains her most successful album.
Q 22Which was her only number-one single on the Billboard Hot 100?
What's Love Got to Do with It
It topped the chart on September 1, 1984, when she was 44, an age the industry considered past an artist's prime.
Q 23Which British pop group had recorded her signature 1984 hit before she did?
Bucks Fizz
Their version went unreleased for years, which left the song free for Capitol to hand to Tina.
Q 14Ike & Tina's biggest hit, a Grammy-winning 1971 cover, was originally by which band?
Creedence Clearwater Revival
Their slow-then-fast arrangement of the riverboat song became her signature closer for five decades.
Q 15Which 1973 hit did Tina write herself about the tiny community where she grew up?
Nutbush City Limits
It went to number 1 in Austria and earned the first-ever Golden European Record Award for a million sales in Europe.
Q 16In the 1975 rock opera film Tommy, which character did she play?
The Acid Queen
Filming alone in London gave her a first taste of independence from Ike, and her next solo album borrowed the character's name.
Q 17In which city did she finally flee from Ike Turner on July 1, 1976?
Dallas
She ran across a freeway to a Ramada Inn with 36 cents and a Mobil credit card in her pocket.
Q 18In the 1978 divorce settlement, what was the one professional asset she insisted on keeping?
Her stage name
She also kept two Jaguars, her furs and jewelry, but took on an IRS lien and lived on food stamps for nearly two years.
Q 19Which Australian manager took her on in 1979 after seeing her perform at San Francisco's Fairmont Hotel?
Roger Davies
He steered the comeback that turned a cabaret nostalgia act into the biggest female touring artist of the 1980s.
Q 20Her comeback single in November 1983 was a cover of which Al Green song?
Let's Stay Together
It was co-produced by Martyn Ware of Heaven 17 and reached number 6 in the UK.
Q 24With which artist did she duet on a 1984 cover of Iggy Pop's 'Tonight'?
David Bowie
It stalled at number 53 on both sides of the Atlantic, one of the few misses of her comeback year.
Q 25In Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985), she played the ruler of Bartertown. What was the character's name?
Aunty Entity
It was her first acting role in ten years and won her an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actress.
Q 26Which song did she record for Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome that became a transatlantic Top 3 hit?
We Don't Need Another Hero
The film's other song, 'One of the Living', won her a Grammy for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance.
Q 27Who ripped her skirt off on stage during their duet at Live Aid in July 1985?
Mick Jagger
She was wearing black swimsuit-style bottoms underneath, and the moment became one of the day's most replayed.
Q 28What was the title of her 1986 autobiography, later the basis for a film?
I, Tina
The 1993 biopic based on it earned its two leads Oscar nominations.
Q 29In which city did she set a 1988 Guinness record for largest paying audience for a solo artist?
Rio de Janeiro
Roughly 180,000 people packed the Maracanã Stadium.
Q 30Her 1989 album Foreign Affair gave her a first UK number one album and which enduring hit single?
The Best
A 2010 fan campaign by Rangers supporters sent the single back into the UK Top 10.