Lost Tina Turner song rediscovered and played for first time today

A song recorded for Tina Turner’s chart-topping and career-rejuvinating fifth album ‘Private Dancer’ has been unearthed.

The track, ‘Hot For You, Baby’, was originally intended to make the final cut but didn’t and was presumed lost for years. The master tape was recently rediscovered as her record label compiled a 40th anniversary re-release of ‘Private Dancer’.

The track gets its first play on UK radio today and will feature on the new anniversary edition of the album, alongside other previously unreleased tracks and live songs, as well as a film of Turner playing Birmingham’s NEC Arena in March 1985, featuring guest appearances by David Bowie and Bryan Adams. The collection comes out in March.

‘Private Dancer’, released in 1984, was a career defining album for Tina Turner, who had escaped an abusive marriage to Ike Turner at the end of the 70s.

She was left penniless after the divorce, and it wasn’t until Capitol Records gave her merely two weeks in a recording studio that things started looking up. The end result was ‘Private Dancer’, the sultry and soulful LP that propelled her to stardom and proved that she was a viable solo star.

It became a worldwide commercial and critical success, with era-defining hits like ‘What’s Love Got To Do With It’, ‘Show Some Respect’, ‘Better Be Good To Me’, ‘I Can’t Stand The Rain’, as well as the title track.

The album was dubbed “one of the greatest comebacks in music history” at the time. It sold more than 10 million copies, earned three Grammys, and by 1985, Turner was one of the world’s biggest stars.

It remains her best-selling album in North America to date and in 2020, ‘Private Dancer’ was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Recording Registry.

On 24 May 2023, Turner died at her home in Switzerland at the age of 83. She had multiple life-threatening illnesses throughout her life, including a kidney disease and intestinal cancer.

Additional sources • Billboard