Prince: A Purple Reign Black Music Legends of the 1980s

Ladies and gentlemen, here is Prince!

APPLAUSE

# I ain't got no money...#

December 1979.

Prince Rogers Nelson is making his first appearance

on legendary US music show, American Bandstand.

This is not the kind of music that comes from Minneapolis, Minnesota.

-No.

-You're very shy. Modest.

Interviewed by host Dick Clark,

the young wannabe appears completely overawed.

-How many instruments do you play?

-Mmm...

FAINT LAUGHTER

-Thousands.

-We'll be with you...

One of those watching was his mentor Pepe Willie.

I go, "What the hell happened to you, man?!" I was yelling at this guy.

He says, "Pepe, it all hit me at one time.

"Millions of people were watching me." He got stage fright.

At that time he said to me,

"That will never, ever happen again".

Prince in his first motion picture!

Five years later, Prince was on the verge of global fame,

attending the premiere of a film based on his colourful young life...

Purple Rain.

# Are we gonna let de-elevator break us down

# Oh no, let's go... #

Purple Rain. Gosh.

When he goes on stage and he plays,

you lose yourself. The energy, the music, you just have lift-off!

The thing about Purple Rain is it was the first music video movie.

He gets down in that film, I mean, he gets DOWN.

He's walking music. He IS music.

Purple Rain set up this dichotomy in his career.

Is this the guy who plays stadiums and sells 10 million records,

or is this a musical genius

who will follow wherever the inside of his brain takes him?

Prince - gifted, outrageous, enigmatic.

He captured the imagination of a generation with his diverse mix

of musical styles and larger-than-life stage personas.

Rock star and funkster.

Guitar hero and sex god.

# My name is Prince, the one and only... #

This is The Artist Known As Prince.

Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Freezing in winter, it lies on the banks of the Mississippi

and is heavily populated by descendants of hard-working Scandinavian settlers.

Minnesota was home to wartime sweethearts the Andrews Sisters

and folk legend Bob Dylan,

but there wasn't a strong tradition of black music.

In 1970, African Americans made up only 5% of Minneapolis's population,

and for the young Prince,

it wasn't easy to track down the latest releases by his black musical heroes.

Minneapolis was hardly a bastion of urban music

when Prince was growing up in the '70s.

He talks about having got to the record store after school on Fridays

to get the latest 45s by the Motown artists, or James Brown, Funkadelic,

or whatever else he was into at that time.

KQ92 is Minnesota's best album rock.

Back then, everyone listened to one radio station, called KQRS.

So you might be hearing

Sly Stone one minute, Jimi Hendrix, Carlos Santana,

Grand Funk Rail Road, Cream.

All the cool rock stuff of the era.

This is KQRS FM, Twin Cities album station.

Some rock'n'roll from Led Zeppelin.

There wasn't a whole lot of black radio

so we always tended to listen

to more pop radio back in the day, and it influenced

the kind of music that came out of there.

Prince was immersed in all this rock, and different things

that your normal black kid just ain't around.

Here in Minnesota, we were around it all the time - we had no choice.

Born in 1958,

the same year as Michael Jackson and Madonna,

Prince Rogers Nelson's life was turned upside down

when his jazz pianist father left the family home

when he was just eight years old.

His mother, a social worker, struggled to keep the family together.

# Sometimes it snows in April...#

Prince spent his teenage years living with various friends

and family around the city,

dreaming of following in his father's footsteps as a musician.

I guess when his family broke up,

it was a turning point for him, that he had to succeed.

And maybe he had to try to prove something, looking for an identity.

"Who am I? What am I going to become?"

At 15, Prince was already an accomplished pianist.

and played guitar in a band called Grand Central.

Local musician and producer Pepe Willie went to check them out in rehearsal.

I knew he played keyboards as well as guitar.

He takes the bass and he starts playing this amazing lick.

You know, I mean, just playing.

A few weeks later, Pepe was passing Prince's home

when he heard a faint sound coming from the house.

Prince is down in the basement, playing drums.

Do-do-bu-bu-bu-bu-bu-bu... You know, he played bass, he played drums, he played keyboards.

I'm going like, "Wait a minute, wait a minute, this can't be right."

And at that time I'm in the studio recording with my group, 94 East.

So I said, "Prince... you've got to come to the studio.

"Have you ever been in a recording studio?" He goes, "No".

And we did five songs in four hours.

I mean, he was such a professional at such a young age.

And it just totally amazed me. It was like a kid in a candy store.

As well as mastering different instruments,

Prince taught himself basic studio techniques.

When he was 17, he recorded some of his own songs at a local studio run by an Englishman, Chris Moon,

who played the demo to Minneapolis marketing guru, Owen Husney.

# Hey, lover, I got a sugarcane... #

He says, "It's one kid, he's 17, he's writing everything,

"playing everything and singing everything." And I was like...

"OK, I got to sit down."

The very first minute that I met Prince, I saw the drive.

I could see the fire in his eyes.

While the songs weren't all that great, I definitely heard

the quality of the musicianship,

the dedication, the passion, the sincerity.

It just screamed at me right through the music.

Husney secured Prince a three-album deal with Warner Records in 1978.

The young pretender insisted on being allowed to produce his own music,

but first had to prove his studio skills to the label's executives.

He walks out and lays down a drum track, perfect.

Goes back in, lays down a bass track, perfect.

A perfect rhythm section was built.

About halfway through, after laying down keyboards and guitars,

didn't even get to the vocals yet, they called me out into the hallway.

"We think he's got record sense. And we think he can pull it off."

The first album was more of an introduction, of "Here's who I am".

The first cut, For You, it's an a cappella. Simply fantastic.

# My life with you

# I share. #

Even growing up with him and knowing him,

he's like people that you see and you go,

"Man, he's so talented, he should be making records."

And then, bam, he's making records.

And he's playing all the instruments, which I thought was amazing.

Despite being an impressive technical and creative achievement,

the album made little impact on the R&B charts.

For You - that's not really pop music.

That's saying, "Look what I can do." And I think he wanted to do that,

to show, "I'm not your average guy."

For You was recorded in California,

but Prince was single-minded in his determination to build his career from Minneapolis.

Prince was determined not to leave, but to stay here and make it.

He'd joked before that those long winters keep the bad people out,

but it also keeps you in the house, composing.

So don't underestimate the value of him having stayed here

so much of his early career, in developing himself as a musician and as an artist.

Having played all the instruments on the album, Prince needed a band that could play his music live.

I saw this ad in the local music paper that said,

"Warner Brothers recording artist

"seeks guitarist and keyboard player."

And I knew that there was only one person within 500 miles

that had a Warner Brothers record deal.

As the auditions progressed, it was clear this wouldn't be your average R&B or funk band.

You had this band that was not only multiracial, but also men and women.

It was kind of like Fleetwood Mac meets Sly and the Family Stone.

# I've got a message sayin'

# All the squares go out... #

The model for Prince's band was late '60s funk legends Sly and the Family Stone,

one of the first bands to have a racially integrated, multi-gender line-up.

I think he was after a group that could make the crossover in America between black and white music.

And I did ask him, "Why did you hire me?" And he said...

# You got that look. #

"You're white, you're blonde, you have blue eyes

"and you can play funky keyboards."

Completing the original line-up of what later became known as The Revolution

was Bobby Z on drums and Andre Cymone on bass.

The new band played their first gig at the Capri Theatre, Minneapolis in January 1979.

Prince was very nervous. It was going to be the first time

that any of the label executives from Warner Brothers had seen

the result of their lab experiment.

The first time he was playing with an all-new band, there was definitely star quality.

Did I think he was going to be a superstar? Too early to tell.

But definitely there was a magnetism about him.

It was an historic show. But as a show,

I would've asked for my money back if it would've been me!

MUSIC: "I'm Yours" by Prince

I thought they were good. But Warner Brothers thought that

he wasn't quite ready to go out on tour yet.

So he got the band more tight.

And by the time the second album came out, he was ready.

# I wanna be your lover

# I want to be the only one that makes you come running... #

Prince's self-titled second album was built on the same R&B sound as For You,

but his confident swagger behind the mic masked a different personality.

# They say I'm so shy, yeah

# But with you I just go wild... #

He was obviously very, very, very shy, but at the same time,

not awkward or antisocial.

Once you got to know him, he was anything but.

Actually a major practical joker and prankster.

'He was already acting like a star, but in fact he was terribly shy, genuinely shy.

It wasn't an act. It was not an ego thing.

He was very much inside.

# I wanna be the only one you come for, yeah... #

I Wanna Be Your Lover reached the top of the American R&B charts

and Prince was invited to the country's number one television music show, American Bandstand.

All right!

'Dick Clark goes, "I heard that you play multiple instruments.

'"How many instruments do you play?"

How many instruments do you play?

I am waiting for him to answer him.

And Prince goes...

Mmm...

FAINT LAUGHTER

Then Dick Clark started talking to him, he would just go "Yes...

"No.." Couldn't carry on a conversation.'

Maybe.

You're very shy, modest.

This very public crisis of confidence proved to be a defining moment

in the career of the young artist.

He could not control that. It scared him to death.

At that time he said to me, "That will never happen again."

He came to the band and said, "OK, here's what we're going to do.

"Everyone in the band is going to have a distinct personal image

"that we're going to project.

"I am going to just portray pure sex."

# Head

# 'Til you're burnin' up... #

The trenchcoat and bikinis - who saw that coming? Not me.

He turned heads because of the way he looked.

He was diminutive in his stature. He wore heels.

My God, who was doing that back then?

# 'Til your love is red, talkin' head... #

'It was a liberating time in music and the arts anyway.'

The so-called sexual revolution was peaking

and it was just before AIDS brought all that to a screeching halt.

It was kind of the sky was the limit. Most people who were broadminded were just,

"Bring it on. Whatever you've got, bring it"

# If you're looking for somewhere to go

# Girl I'll take you to a movie show

# We can sit in the back and I'll jack you off... #

'It was particularly brave for a black artist'

to go up against the traditional conventions of black masculinity.

Rock'n'roll is always had this androgyny as part of the rockstar thing,

whether it's Iggy Pop or the New York Dolls or Jagger, there's a tradition of that.

But no one of colour was doing that.

Prince did it in a way where it was an expressive kind of thing

as opposed to, "I am pushing it to sell records."

Seeing a guy wearing suspenders and still finding it sexy -

do you know what I mean? It was amazing how he managed to do that.

# Sexuality... #

This new persona allowed Prince to express himself musically without revealing his true self.

The air of mystery surrounding him grew when his managers banned all interviews.

The enigma that Prince created is that less is more.

Also Prince is not the kind of person that is just going to tell you his life story

right out there.

In the element of doing that, people want to know more, to read more about you.

They can't get enough. But if your music is damn good, which his is -

bingo, you've hit it. Home run time.

# She saw me walking down the streets of your fine city

# Kinda turned me on when she looked at me and said, "Come here"... #

Determined not to be pigeonholed as an R&B artist,

he set out to appeal to a wider audience with his 1980 album Dirty Mind.

# My sister never made love to anyone else but me

# She's the reason for my sexuality... #

Now he was mixing rock and new wavey, punky stuff -

things that were happening at that time.

All sorts of bands from that era,

like the Cocteau Twins, were a big, big influence.

Roxy Music. Gary Numan.

# If I open my door in cars... #

'He would listen to them, whether to study, to understand the rhythms,

'he would go to sleep listening to these records.'

And you'd wake up to them.

Dirty Mind was the final album of Prince's original three-record deal with Warners

and their gamble was looking high-risk, with no sign of a commercial breakthrough.

# When you were mine

# I gave you all of my money... #

The turning point was Rolling Stone did a review of the record

that was just glow-in-the-dark. It was the greatest thing since the Beatles.

So at that point, people started adopting the attitude,

"Let's back off and let him do what he does."

Following this glowing review,

Prince continued to explore new sounds with his band The Revolution,

now featuring Lisa Coleman on keyboards.

But for this prolific musical dynamo, one band was never going to be enough.

In 1981, Prince signed a new deal with Warners,

and with the label's backing, formed a succession of new bands to perform his work.

# I don't like this groove

# Try and give me something I can croon to

-# Don't you want to come with me?

-Do you think I'm a nasty girl? #

In addition to writing the songs, Prince also produced Nasty Girl's Vanity 6,

experimental jazz fusion combo, The Family...

# Woah no

# Woah, oh... #

..and under the pseudonym Jamie Starr, one of his many alter egos,

Prince was also the puppet master behind funk band The Time.

# America, have you heard?

# Got a brand-new dance, and it's called the Bird... #

The Time starred some of Prince's hometown buddies, including Jimmy Jam, Jellybean Johnson,

and Morris Day on vocals.

They joined Prince on tour as his support act,

and with their energetic funk and choreographed shows, soon had a cult following of their own.

'You play in the black urban areas and the people go nuts.'

'The black crowds would eat us up'

and sometimes he'd have a little problem when he comes out there doing his rock thing.

'We had really come into our own as a band.

'And Prince was torn. Sometimes like a happy father,'

watching his kids go out there.

But then when we toured with him, he had this big light show

and we'd get about four lights.

Prince was absolutely a control freak.

But the thing I remember the most about working with Prince is his work ethic.

He would come and rehearse The Time. He'd rehearse us through our shows for three or four hours.

Then he'd go and work with The Revolution for three or four hours.

# Taxi! Taxi! #

Then he'd go to the studio, and come back the next day

with a cassette and go, "This is what I did in the studio last night."

And put it in and it's like...

SINGS INTRO TO "1999"

We're going, "Man, are you kidding me? When did you do that?"

"Last night." "When?!"

"After my band practice."

It's like, "OK, when do you sleep, man?"

# The sky was all purple

# There were people running everywhere

# Trying to run from the destruction

# You know I didn't even care

# Cos they say two thousand zero zero, party over

# Oops, out of time

# So tonight I'm gonna party like it's 1999. #

The 1999 album was designed to appeal to a mainstream audience

and included the radio-friendly Little Red Corvette.

DJ: 92.5 FM, it's 9:18 and Prince, Little Red Corvette.

# I guess I shoulda known

# By the way you parked your car sideways

# That it wouldn't last. #

But by 1982, radio wasn't the only way of reaching audiences across America.

MTV had launched the previous year

and was increasingly influential in promoting new music.

ANNOUNCER: MTV Music Television. We are here all day and all night.

MTV was as much a product

of the ethnically segmented marketplace as anything

but two things happened.

# Beat it, beat it Beat it, beat it

# No-one wants to be defeated. #

Michael Jackson had Eddie Van Halen play on a song called Beat It

and then right behind it, Little Red Corvette broke.

And between those two songs and videos,

that was a significant shift.

# Little Red Corvette

# Baby, you're much too fast, oh

# Little Red Corvette. #

Where many acts were experimenting with story-based videos,

Prince used MTV to showcase his talent as a live performer.

Prince was great for video, man.

He was perfect for the MTV and that whole video generation then

because he was different. He had raw sexuality going on. He could play, he wasn't a fluke.

He could sing like a bird.

# I guess I shoulda closed my eyes

# When you drove me to the place Where your horses run free. #

I just remember very, very literally seeing

the impact the song was having

reflected in the make-up of the audiences in the shows.

This tidal wave of white was hitting the arena every night!

And the audience was getting whiter and whiter and whiter

as that song was climbing the charts.

# Oh, yeah

# Little Red Corvette. #

Little Red Corvette finally delivered Prince's first Top 10 hit

on the US Billboard chart.

But just as they were breaking into the big-time, Dez Dickerson

left the band and was swiftly replaced

by guitarist, Wendy Melvoin.

Keen to capitalise on his chart breakthrough,

Prince embarked on the most ambitious project of his career.

ORGAN PLAYS

# Dearly beloved... #

We first got a drift of the idea of Purple Rain during the 1999 tour.

You know, like, "Yeah, right!" I was probably the most sceptical of anybody in the camp. It's like,

"Who the hell does he think he is?

"Great artist, it's a fun tour, love working for him but a movie? Get outta here."

I don't think anybody took the idea seriously but Prince.

Riding high on the success of the 1999 album,

Prince convinced Warner Records and Pictures

to support his vision for a feature film.

Loosely based on events in his own life and filmed in Minneapolis,

Purple Rain starred Prince

as The Kid and supported by newcomer Apollonia Kotero,

his band, The Revolution, and their nemesis, The Time.

Here was an unproven star making a movie in Minneapolis?!

With a rookie director and unknown cast,

it was a huge gamble for all involved.

Do you have any experience?

# If you don't like the world you're living in

# Take a look around... #

But by the time of the film's Hollywood premiere in July '84,

word was out that Purple Rain was a must-see,

and an A-list of stars gathered for the biggest night of Prince's career to date.

As Prince entered the theatre that night, no-one,

not even Prince, could've predicted the impact of the film.

MC: His Royal badness, Prince!

MUSIC: "When Doves Cry" by Prince.

The movie was set up by When Doves Cry

which was the first single from it. And how does Prince give you

one of those riveting things that you can't get away from?

Have you ever heard a Number One song on the radio

that didn't have bass?

There's like a three-note hook and it's like, "That's it!

"It's a million-seller, forget about it." It's, you know...

Anybody who had pop ears recognised that was going to be

an absolutely drop-dead huge single.

# Dig, if you will, the picture

# Of you and I engaged in a kiss

# The sweat of your body covers me

# This is what it sounds like When doves cry. #

It's just a song that resonates, I think for all of us

who have relationships that are turbulent.

What I really love is the imagery.

You know, to say, "this is what it sounds like when doves cry."

What does that sound like?

You know, it's... You know what it is.

When Doves Cry was Prince's first Number One

on the US Billboard charts, but for many,

the film's highlight was a performance that showed just how far he'd come

since his traumatic appearance on American Bandstand.

MUSIC: "Purple Rain" by Prince.

# I never meant to cause you any sorrow

# I never meant to cause you any pain

# I only wanted one time to see you laughing

# I only wanted to see you laughing

# In the purple rain

# Purple rain, purple rain. #

You listen to the influences of that song.

That song could've been done by a country artist, you know.

It's very mainstream, Mid-Western United States rock'n'roll.

# Purple rain, purple rain. #

There's no funk in that thing at all!

There's no R&B in that song, it's just straight-ahead, anthemic rock 'n' roll.

# I only wanted to see you bathing in the purple rain

# I never wanted to be your weekend lover... #

Because the song itself is very cinematic and emotional,

and you couple that with the visual element of the film

and it's hard not to have a hit.

That was the perfect song at the perfect time.

# Baby, I could never steal you from another... #

Purple Rain was a very conscious decision to try to take

all these different styles and ideas he was swimming around in

and laser-focusing them down to something that would be

so accessible to a dance audience and a rock audience,

to a male and a female audience.

That would make him this kind of sex god

and also this crazy guitar hero that heavy metal kids would respect.

GUITAR SOLO

Hollywood's history with bringing rock'n'roll

to the screen wasn't good.

I think it's fair to say that it may be the first time

that the excitement of that kind of a rock'n'roll concert

was really, really brought to the screen as vividly as it was.

# I'm not your lover I'm not your friend

# I am something that you'll never comprehend

# No need to worry No need to cry... #

I dug the fact that Prince showed everybody,

"You know what, I'm going to show you how to get down.

"I'm not just a recording artist.

"I'm-a get down."

And he gets down in that film. I mean, he gets... DOWN.

He performs his ass off, man. That's what Purple Rain was.

It's like, "You might not understand me, you might not even know me yet.

"This is my world I'm going to present to you.

"Come into my world."

# Darling, if you want me to... #

I think what we underestimated was that Prince was representing a trend

in which Minneapolis was a little ahead of the curve

compared to most of America

and that was the idea that mixed audiences here, reflecting

his band, could actually be in the same club grooving to the same music,

dancing with each other without any self-consciousness.

It was a statement that really hadn't been made

in mainstream culture as yet.

So Prince had really brought all of these people together,

you know, for the love of his music, his performance,

his style of entertainment.

Prince won an Oscar for Best Soundtrack

and the film grossed over 80 million.

For the first time since The Beatles' A Hard Day's Night,

a pop act simultaneously held Number One

at the box office, album and single charts.

But his elevation from musical maverick to poster boy

wasn't without controversy.

# I knew a girl named Nikki

# I guess you could say she was a sex fiend

# I met her in a hotel lobby

# Masturbating with a magazine... #

I bought the Purple Rain album for our 11-year-old

and I didn't know that Darling Nikki was on it,

and I felt that it was inappropriate for her

and her eight and six-year-old sisters to hear a song describing a girl masturbating

in a hotel lobby with a magazine.

The film carried an R rating in America, suitable for 17-year-olds,

but the music industry didn't have a similar rating for song lyrics -

a fact seized upon by influential members of the Parents Music Resource Center.

I had no warning. In fact, all I knew was that Prince

was the new creative teen idol on the scene.

# Nikki started to grind... #

The 1985 congressional hearings

into song lyrics resulted in records

having warning stickers for explicit sexual and violent content.

It's easy to look back at the '80s and Madonna and Prince

and say it was this time of liberation and expression,

but really, what was so powerful about those guys was this was the Ronald Reagan America -

in some ways,

the most socially conservative era

that the United States had ever seen before.

From the early days, the sexual nature of Prince's songs and shows

had attracted its fair share of controversy.

# I just can't believe all the things people say

# Controversy... #

Yet behind the raunchy image was an artist torn between the erotic

and the spiritual - themes that have remained centre-stage

throughout his career.

# Do I believe in God?

# Do I believe in me?

# Yeah

# Controversy... #

He's always been immensely spiritual

and God has always been a part of his work.

He began to juxtapose the blatantly sexual stuff

with, sort of, oddly religious things.

I think the first real manifestation of that was in Controversy.

# Our Father, who art in Heaven... #

He put the Lord's Prayer in the middle of the song,

and, increasingly, that became kind of a motif,

where there'd be something really, really raunchy and sexual

followed up by something really religious.

# Our daily bread

# And forgive us our trespasses... #

The tensions and the conflict between sex and religion

sit at the very heart of the history of black popular music.

Whether it was Sam Cooke or whether it was Marvin Gaye,

and certainly, with Prince, there's always been

this undercurrent of this big spiralling spirituality.

He will substitute the subject of his affections from God to love.

The refrain at the very end of the song Anna Stesia,

from the Lovesexy album - "Love is God, God is love

"Girls and boys love God above..."

# Love is God

# God is love

But the chorus is, "Anna Stesia, come to me, talk to me, ravish me."

# Anna Stesia, come to me

# Talk to me

# Ravish me

# Liberate my mind... #

There has always been this kind of rubbing

of the tectonic plates of sex and God.

Those are the biggest questions. He's making music that's never been afraid

to go straight at those biggest questions.

# If you ask God to love you longer

# Every breath you take will make you stronger... #

Later in his career,

it's become much more the defining part of his work.

This is obviously something that he's struggled with for his career

and will struggle with for all of his life.

# Tonight the truth will be told

# And this time I was listening Listen to me now

# Let's go down to the holy river

# Let's go down to the holy river

# Let's go down, down, and down. #

# She wore a raspberry beret

# The kind you find in a second hand store

# Raspberry beret

# I think I love her

# Built like she was She had the nerve to ask me... #

In 1985, Prince followed the anthemic rock of Purple Rain

with the psychedelic album Around The World In A Day.

There were still colours in his palate that he hadn't used yet.

He was surrounded by an increasingly broad spectrum of people,

that brought different ideas.

You know, so his whole scope was still broadening.

# She wasn't too bright

# But I could tell when she kissed me

# She knew how to get her kicks

# She wore a raspberry beret... #

You listen to that album, it's experimental-sounding to me.

Pretty complicated technically.

He was literally playing exactly what he heard in his head

in one take.

Kind of like Mozart used to write parts to symphonies down,

hear it in his head and he'd just write it out on paper.

He was in and out of the studio constantly

and it seemed like, more than at any other time in his career,

just brilliant music was passing through him.

# Uh... #

It was as if this huge flower had finally just blossomed.

# Don't have to be rich to be my girl

# You don't have to be cool to rule my world

# Ain't no particular sign I'm more compatible with

# I just want your extra time and your...

# Kiss

# Yes... #

During the mid '80s, Prince combined his talent for writing smash hits

with studio experimentation -

a combination that peaked with the release

of a groundbreaking double album in 1987.

# Oh, yeah... #

You knew when you heard Sign O'The Times, it was history.

There weren't many musical instruments.

It was kind of futuristic sounding - it was very sparse.

But the lyrical content was incredible.

He was speaking about the situation of the world in a really unique

and different way.

Sign O'The Times, he's almost rapping on that.

That was very inspirational to me,

especially in the beginning of my career,

to try to write more songs that were kind of like...

Would jab at you and then punch you with a line.

It is the rhythm plus the instrumentation plus the delivery

that just makes for something that was truly distinctive to me,

that was sort of that one moment

where he hit everything out of the park.

# It's silly, no? When a rocket ship explodes

# And everybody still wants to fly

# Some say a man... #

No-one was touching the writing, the explorative nature

of that album.

He was trying different recording techniques. I mean,

he was one of the first to do that whole thing of singing a vocal

and speeding it up to create an alter ego,

in his case, Camille,

and then, on If I Was Your Girlfriend,

you had Camille going, # If I was your girlfriend... #

# Would you remember

# To tell me all the things you forgot

# When I was your man? #

I mean, you had the backing vocals,

which was his voice tuned down, so it was really slow, like this.

I was like, "I've never heard ANYTHING like that!"

# Would you run to me

# If somebody hurt you

# Even if that somebody was me? #

When he did the characters like Camille,

you didn't know who he was or what he was trying to be

and maybe he didn't know.

He just thinks he's got different people that are inside him

and he shifts into that persona.

Does he shift into those personas for music? Absolutely.

# Housequake

# In your funky town

# Housequake

# And the kick drum is the fault

# We got to rock this mother Say housequake

# Uh

# We gotta rock this mother Say housequake, uh... #

This landmark album signalled the end of an era.

The Revolution was disbanded and Prince signed up

a new crop of brilliant musicians

such as Eric Leeds on saxophone and sultry percussionist Sheila E.

# Damn! We got to get off You know what I'm talking about

# On the one, y'all say

# Housequake Top of your body... #

Sheila.

His spectacular live shows contained elaborate choreography and design,

with Prince directing every aspect of the operation

with his usual attention to detail.

In every four, you need the long snare roll, right?

The thing that gets to be crazy is that

we will learn the show and then the next day, he'll change it,

as if we didn't learn anything, and start all over again.

# Just my imagination... #

The rehearsal process for Prince

is kind of a process of self-discovery

and once we go through the several months of actually learning

the material and really learning the music,

then we go into the production rehearsal.

And it's real tedious work.

It is not enjoyable for anybody, probably least of all Prince.

BAND PLAYS "Sister" ON VIDEO

It's a bad spot for you there.

When he goes on stage, you just lose yourself.

The energy, the music... You just have lift-off.

He's just the ultimate showman.

Yeah, oh, Alphabet Street!

-AUDIENCE:

-Yeah, oh, Alphabet Street!

Yeah, oh, Alphabet Street!

-AUDIENCE:

-Yeah, oh...

As if performing these physically demanding sets wasn't enough,

Prince would often rush away to play all-night sessions

at his now legendary after-show parties.

These gigs are still a big draw,

with Prince inviting other musicians to jam with him,

from Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood to an unsuspecting 18-year-old singer.

Suddenly, he goes, "We have Mica Paris here tonight

"and I'd like her to sing."

And then I had no choice. And it was Just My Imagination

by the Temptations.

# It was just

# My imagination... #

I know that song for some reason. I was so nervous I actually forgot the words.

# Just my

# Just my imagination... #

There seemed no limits to Prince's energy and passion for music.

Keen to keep his song-writing and producing talents in-house,

Warners offered him his own label - Paisley Park Records.

Running his own label gave Prince a thirst for being in control

of every aspect of his creative world -

not only the music, but also film-making, design and wardrobe.

And in 1988, he built his own Paisley Park Studios

on the outskirts of his hometown, Minneapolis.

There was an aspect of Prince that was very Howard Hughes-ish,

wanting to have an isolated environment

from not just the public but the industry.

Since the early days, Prince had refused interviews

and tried to control what was said about him by girlfriends and those within the camp.

# U got that look... #

Paisley Park, with its 24-hour studios, grand designs

and a wardrobe department fit for royalty

was a perfect creative hideaway, but it came at a price.

You know, a multi-million dollar oversized complex,

it became a very expensive playground for him.

You could certainly make the argument that he didn't need

a wardrobe staff of ten people that were constantly manufacturing

clothing for he and his band and any girlfriend and anybody else he decided to dress.

I don't think he ever gave a thought to the expense of it.

It was just part of that fantasy, that Howard Hughes idea that...

"Now we don't even have to leave the complex to shop for clothes."

# I have only had one lover

# Since I was 12 years old... #

One of the first singers to record for the Paisley Park label

was former girlfriend Jill Jones,

who appreciated Prince's ability to get the best out of his artists.

# But there's something about you, baby... #

He had a tremendous way of making people feel comfortable.

He was not a stickler for "No, no, no, no."

And if you could do something to surprise him

and you could get that moment, he was cool with that.

Prince was also keen to use the label to produce some of his

musical idols, such as legendary gospel singer Mavis Staples.

Those were moments that were just so incredible for him,

because they were singing and they surprised in the studio

and that's just, like, joyous.

He came on the phone. He said, "Mavis, how would you like to go in the studio tomorrow?

I said, "What are we going to do?" He said, "I have this song I've written, a gospel song."

I said, "Wait - let me look at your lyrics here."

What he first told me is, "God is coming, like a dog in heat."

I said, "Wait a minute, Prince! 'God is coming, like a dog in heat'?!"

He said, "But wait, Mavis - you got to hear the rest."

He's looking for soldiers with strong feet.

And I just said, "Well, all right, then. We can go with that."

Just think about that when you're doing it

because we're together now, and we got something to say, right?

It's really interesting, working with him and watching him.

He works the board.

When we go in, he sends the engineer out and he does everything.

# God is alive... #

Oh, I got a live one here.

MANIACAL LAUGHTER

The financial strain of running a studio complex was balanced

by a growing demand for his music,

including a song for Tim Burton's blockbuster movie Batman,

that reached the top of the US charts in 1989.

Get the funk up!

Batman!

He was so prolific that he could even afford

to give away some of his songs, such as Manic Monday for one of his favourite bands,

The Bangles.

# It's just another Manic Monday

# Oh-oh

# I wish it was Sunday

# Oh-oh

# Cos that's my fun day... #

And in 1990, Sinead O'Connor's cover of Nothing Compares 2 U

was the first Prince song to reach number one in the UK Charts.

# I know that living with you, baby, was sometimes hard

# But I'm willing to give it another try

# Nothing compares

# Nothing compares

# To you... #

During the early '90s, Prince continued to be as prolific as ever

with his latest band, the New Power Generation.

# Cream

# Get on top

# Cream

# You will cop

# Cream

# Don't you stop

# Cream Sh-boogie bop

# You're so good... #

His band to this day, the super-sized NPG's early line-up

included vocalist Rosie Gaines and Prince's future wife,

dancer and singer Mayte.

When the 1991 album Diamonds And Pearls was a global hit,

there seemed little threat to Prince's commercial appeal.

# Diamonds and pearls...

# Would you be a happy boy or a girl?

# If I could I would give you the world

# All I can do is just offer you my love... #

However, Prince's now-familiar mix of ballads, funk,

rock and raunchy lyrics were losing ground to the latest sounds.

# Competition's payin' the price I'm gonna knock you out... #

One thing that happened to him was that really he had lost contact with the black audience.

Black tastes in music had changed. Rap had happened.

# And I'm just gettin' warm... #

He at first completely rejected rap and said it wasn't valid.

Well, with Prince, I mean, with anybody, it's easy to be down on hip-hop.

He probably said, "This is what's coming through the mainstream

the most, and I take issue with that.

# Don't

# Don't believe the hype... #

But then he started to get deeper

and deeper into what was done behind the scenes.

That is when Prince's understanding of hip-hop and rap

started to become, you know, a little different.

# My name is Prince

# And I am funky... #

Prince is the ultimate musician.

So eventually, you know, he was able to absorb what was going on,

the great aspects, leave the bones to the side

and use it in his music.

# My name is Prince and I am funky

# When it comes to funk

# I am a junkie

# I know from righteous

# I know from sin

# I got two sides And they're both friends... #

But his flirtation with hip-hop wasn't the commercial success

Prince had hoped for.

Like any other artist, he very predictably started lashing out

at his label and holding them accountable for that.

What artist has ever blamed his or herself?

The relationship between artist and label collapsed.

Prince demanded to release albums as soon as he produced them,

but as record sales started to slump, Warners put pressure on him

to record less and promote more.

# My name is Prince

# And I am funky... #

On June the 7th, 1993,

The Artist announced to the world that Prince was dead,

and he was now to be identified by an unpronounceable symbol.

# There's a mountain

# And it's mighty high

# You cannot see the top

# Unless you fly... #

Since his first album in '78, The Artist Formerly Known As Prince

had demanded and been given total control over his recordings.

Now Warners wanted to restrict how much he released,

leading to a public battle over the control of his music.

There was a theory in the industry at that time

where you'd release an album every two years and tour for 18 months...

# If you ain't gonna break the mould... #

..sell zillions of records, go back in the studio and make another record and start all over again.

He didn't want to know about that.

A few years ago when I spoke to him he said,

"I make a record - by the time it's out, I've made another record.

"By the time I tour, I've made a third record.

"And the label is insisting that I go back

"and promote this thing that I made two records ago."

The normally reclusive artist came out of hiding to voice his grievances with the label

as he attempted to break free from Warners.

I'm here with the New Power Generation and The Artist Formerly Known As Prince

is a member of the band.

He's agreed to his first television interview in over a decade,

but is refusing to answer any questions.

You seem to be fighting for freedom.

What is it that you want to be free from

when you are talking about your record company? Maybe Mayte could tell me what?

In your job, can you leave it if you want to?

-Yeah, I can.

-Well, in the record industry, you can't.

'They advance you a bunch of money to make your album.'

Then you pay them that money back through your record royalties,

but at the end of the day, they still own it!

Part of the reason they owned him is because of contracts he signed

and the agreements he made and money he took from them, that you cannot undo.

He was having a lot of trouble with them owning him, hence the word "slave" on the side of the face.

# How beautiful the words have to be

# Before they conquer every heart... #

A lot of people had no idea what he was talking about

when he was painting "slave" on his face

and talking about how the label was controlling his music

and keeping it down and not letting him put out what he wanted to put out.

I think now everybody understands those issues.

If you lined up every superstar artist there is they would all say "Thanks, he was right."

He was the only one that had the courage to fight it.

# If I came back as a dolphin would you listen to me then?

# Would you let me be your friend? #

History will never deny that Warners was incredibly supportive

of Prince throughout their relationship

and the support they showed him in terms of the freedom he had

to record and produce wherever, whenever,

how often he wanted to, at whatever cost - nothing was ever questioned.

I can't think of another artist who enjoyed that kind of freedom

or took advantage of it to the point that Prince did.

Like a lot of marriages, it reached a point when it no longer worked.

It was really just that simple.

# Could you be

# The most beautiful girl in the world?

# It's plain to see... #

Even in the midst of his battle with Warners,

Prince maintained a knack for writing smash hits and celebrated his first UK number one

with The Most Beautiful Girl In The World.

# When that day turned into the last day... #

When his contract with Warners came to an end in '96,

he reverted to his own name.

No longer slave to a recording deal, Prince was now free

to distribute his music whenever and however he wanted.

# Sweat

# Sweat

# Sweat... #

Prince is on record as saying he is going to record a song every day until the day he dies.

# Workin'

# Workin' up a black sweat

# Workin' I'm workin' up a black sweat... #

He is as good now as he is ever been, but the way that he releases the music makes it hard sometimes

for people to pay attention.

A good example of that is when he released Emancipation.

It's a huge three-hour triple disc set that takes a long time to get through.

Then he released a four-CD box set with Crystal Ball.

# If I had a dollar for every time... #

The output was so extraordinary that there wasn't time to listen to it or think about it.

# Then it hit you like a fist on a wall

# Who gave you life when there was none at all?

# Who gave the sun permission to rise up every day? #

Prince is so much of a perfectionist

that I think people could get lazy at his brilliance

and also get numb to the fact that

he can release high standards at any given time,

at an enormous rate.

# Let's go down to the holy river... #

From Christian rock to jazz, funk and pop anthems,

this prolific artist has to date recorded more than 30 solo albums.

A musical chameleon who has followed his creative instincts,

he is the ultimate entertainer.

And from pioneering marketing to blockbuster shows,

Prince Rogers Nelson remains a force to be reckoned with.

# Musicology

# All right

# Musicology... #

The most remarkable thing about Prince today is this is a guy

who hasn't had a contemporary hit record in many years

but still draws at the box office, unlike anyone else of his generation.

He's out-paced Madonna, he's out-paced Janet Jackson.

There isn't another phenomenon on the planet quite like Prince these days.

# You must have heard it on the news this morning

# Congratulations, a new star is born

# Sun to shadow Rose to a thorn

# There ain't no fury like a woman scorned... #

When he's on stage, he owns everybody.

If you've never seen him perform and you see him perform for the very first time, you're hooked.

You are hooked.

# You must have dug it when you did your thing... #

He's a true artist, a love of music, a true genius

and that is why we're still talking about him.

# At last I can tell you what I've known so long

# My heart's been crying out to sing this song

# I don't care who knows it

# Cos there's nothing wrong

# Te amo corazon... #

There are fans who just want whatever he can put out there.

As an artist, that's a great place to be, but you can't have that,

and also an expectation that everything is going to be consistent,

everything's going to be a hit, each one will be bigger than the last one.

Those are different trajectories.

# Can't bear the thought of another day apart

# My heart, my heart

# Corazon... #

He is the most complete rock star there is.

Play every instrument, dance, visionary, designs his look,

his costume, manages the marketing, building the mystery.

No one in the history of popular music

has been able to do all of that with such mastery the way Prince has done that.

# Come on now

# Get funky

# Ow! Come on! #

He started by creating a mystery and he keeps adding to the mystery.

Rather than peeling away the layers, he's added more layers.

We're more inquisitive about him than ever.

There is of course the Prince that plays up to the enigma.

People from the outside might think of him as being a man of few

words and desperately shy, but of course he's not really.

He's quite playful. Sometimes quite coquettish, I'd even say!

The mystery has continued to surround him.

There is always this aura and this mystique around him

and there's never a sense that we've got him figured out.

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