There had been strong female role models in rock before, from Tina Turner to Janis Joplin, but no one had ever combined performance and poetry in such a visceral way.

I got some inspiration for giving the same old speech when Tina Turner came to Little Rock for a concert.

With “River Deep—Mountain High”, it had been worse: Tina sang, Phil Spector produced his waterfalls of sound, and Mr Turner was barred from the recording sessions.