BROWNSVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A 10-foot statue of rock n’ roll queen Tina Turner was unveiled Saturday in the rural Tennessee community where she grew up — before becoming a Grammy-winning singer, an electrifying stage performer, and one the world’s most recognizable and popular entertainers.
The statue was revealed during a ceremony at a park in Brownsville, located about an hour drive east of Memphis. The city of about 9,000 people is near Nutbush, the community where Turner went to school as a child. As a teen, she attended high school just steps from where the statue now stands.
The statue shows Turner with her signature wild hairdo and holding a microphone, as if she was singing on stage. It was designed by sculptor Fred Ajanogha, who said he tried to capture her flexibility of movement on stage, how she held the microphone with her index finger extended, and her hair style, which he compared to the “mane of a lion.”…