DAILY DIRT: Tina Turner always had a good hair day

January 22, 2024 | By Steve Eighinger Muddy River News Minister of Culture and Doctor of Love

The late, great Tina Turner.

Let’s be honest. There’s good hair and bad hair. And Tina Turner always had good — no, make that great — hair … Welcome to today’s three thoughts that make up Vol. 847 of The Daily Dirt.

1. Hairstyles can do more than define a person. At times, they can illustrate an entire era. with that in mind, here’s The Daily Dirt’s top 10 hairstyles from the 1960s to the present:

1. Tina Turner: We lost Tina in May 2023, but thankfully her music will live forever. And so will her hair. Writer Ayana Herndon may have captured Turner’s look, popularized in the 1980s, better than anyone: “Turner’s hair was often styled as a direct extension of her talent, representing her fierce stage presence and emotional resilience throughout life’s hardships,” Herndon said. The image included Turner’s patented “spiky, gravity-defying” ‘dos. They were amazing, just like her talent.
2. Jennifer Aniston: Her look, “The Rachel,” helped make Aniston and the “Friends” TV show famous. Aniston has never changed that style, which has been a wise choice.
3. Farrah Fawcett: That floppy, feathered look helped sell a lot of “Charlie’s Angels” posters back in the 1970s.
4. Princess Diane: Her frosted, short side-swept swoosh look was all the rage in the 1980s.
5. Halle Berry: Not that she did not look great before, but her 2002 tousled pixie cut helped turn into her into an icon.
6. Ariana Grande: Have you noticed how many of those high, long ponytail looks are around today? You can thank this girl.
7. Pam Grier: She was one of the most popular actresses in the 1970s, cranking out one memorable character after another (Foxy Brown, Sheba Shayne to name a couple), all highlighted by her familiar and well-coiffed afro.
8. Debbie Harry: She brought that bold, cropped look to video and film at the height of Blondiemania in the late ’70s and most of the ’80s.
9. Julia Roberts: Those magnificent locks, which were often curly, first captured us in “Mystic Pizza” (1988) and later became legendary, thanks to “Pretty Woman” (1980).
10. Jackie Kennedy: The former first lady’s style and bouffant hair made her the most popular woman in the world in the early 1960s.
Honorable mention: Donald Trump: When you talk about famous hair, it’s hard not to include a mention of The Donald.

2. Although there are no new additions to the medal standings this week, The Great Plate Debate of 2024 workers uncovered some quality finds in recent days.

What might be my all-time favorite license plate in the three-year history of this competition NOT to earn a medal is the first one included in this week’s honorable mention list.

Gold medal: DA LIFE. (Week No. 2 atop the medal board.)

Silver medal: 2 FARR.

Bronze medal: NUFSED 9.

DLE ERN 3 (A quality plate, not to mention a fitting tribute to NASCAR’s greatest driver. Ever.)
FUZZY 02
KATZ 14 and KATZ 59 (I saw these on same day, in different parts of town. Kind of eerie.)
FISHY 1
U BABE 1

3. One music category we never discuss much in the The Daily Dirt is disco.

That era, though overall lame, did produce some quality sounds. A rather lengthy weekend conversation I had with a friend about this particular period, which was roughly 1970-80, produced the following medal winners.

Maybe that era wasn’t so bad after all …

Gold medal: “Don’t Leave Me This Way (1977),” by Thelma Houston: Ms. Houston, who is now 77, won a Grammy for this great song.

Silver medal: “Disco Inferno (1977),” by the Trampps: That great line from this song, “Burn that mutha down … ,” was just so-o-o-o ’70s. Jimmy Ellis, who was the lead singer for the Trampps, died at age 74 in 2012.

Bronze medal: “Stayin’ Alive” and “Night Fever,” by the Bee Gees: We had to some Bee Gees sounds, right?

Steve Thought O’ The Day – Disco took a lot of crap — and much of it rightly so — but that genre was with us for a solid decade. And I must give it credit — disco was/is better than most of today’s “country” music, but that’s another subject for another day.