Prince Rogers Nelson: Biography

The Sacrifice of Victor - By Goldies Parade

Part 1 - May U Live 2 See The Dawn

Prince Rogers Nelson was born at Mount Sinai Hospital in Minneapolis on the 7th of June 1958. His father, John L.Nelson, a pianist, named Prince after his own band, a New Orleans jazz trio - Prince Rogers Band - whom his Italian wife, Mattie Shaw, had been their singer. Racism in the south saw Mattie and John move north to 915 Logan Avenue, Minneapolis in the 1950's one of the most racially tolerant cities in America. Prince's sister, Tika 'Tyka' Evene, was born in 1960. However, John and Mattie separated in 1968.

At 12, Prince ran away from home and became introverted. He was a keen basketball player but was too short to be picked for the team and turned his attention to teaching himself to play numerous instruments, namely the piano. It was at John Hay Elementary School where he met Andre 'Cymone' Anderson, they formed a band in 1974 named Grand Central, consisting of Prince's cousin Charles Smith (drums), Andre (bass), Linda Anderson - Andre's sister (keyboards) with Terry Jackson and William Daugherty on the percussion. They were later joined by Daugherty's cousin, Morris Day who replaced Charles on drums. The band was renamed Champagne in 1976 shortly before Prince graduated from Central High School in June that year. In 1977 Prince and Andre begin as session musicians recording with Pepe Willie's band, 94 East.Pepe was married to Prince's cousin. Prince used the time in the studio to record his own demo tracks which included Do Me, Baby and I Feel For You.

After touting record labels like RSO, ABC, A&M, and Columbia, Prince decided to go with the label that granted him full artistic control of his music - Warner Brothers. Legend has it that when Warner's asked Prince to find a name for his 'band', he replied that he wanted it to be named after him, simply as Prince. The deal was signed on 25 June 1977 and began recording with them in Los Angeles in August that year. At 19 years old, Prince had become the youngest record producer in history. His first album For You, was released on 7 April 1978, with every track, produced, performed, arranged, and composed, by himself. His first single, Soft And Wet, was a moderate success, hitting number 12 on the soul charts.

Prince assembled a band to perform on stage with him, Andre (bass) and Bobby Z (drums), Dez Dickerson (guitar), Gayle Chapman, and Matt Fink (both on keyboards). Their first concerts took place at the Capri Theatre on 5 and 7 January 1979 playing to 300 people. Feeling that he needed a new manager, Warner's put Prince in touch with Hollywood management partnership; Steve Fargnoli, Bob Cavallo and Joe Ruffalo. Prince began work on his second album, entitled Prince, which gained his first hit I Wanna Be Your Lover, released in December 1979 written about keyboardist Patrice Rushen. His first televised performance was on American Bandstand which aired on CBS on 26 January 1980. Prince's band joined Rick James as the support act for his Fire It Up Tour for nine weeks from February 1979, playing 38 dates. However, Californian born Lisa Coleman replaces Gayle as the keyboardist in September 1980, Gayle had left over disagreements in singing the lyrics to Head on the tour. By December, Prince was starting his own tour as the headlining act - the Dirty Mind Tour supporting his third album, Dirty Mind. During the tour he performed in Europe for the first time and received excellent reviews playing to 1,000 capacity theatres.

On his return, Prince began recording a debut album for Morris Day who had recently formed a group called The Time. Prince's involvement on the record was under the pseudonym of Jamie Starr, just in case the album failed. During this time Andre and Prince's friendship ended, Mark Brown 'Brown Mark' took the role as bass player. Despite the good reviews, Prince was still looking for his big break. The band opened for The Rolling Stones at the Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles on the 9th and 11th of October 1981 as part of the tour for his forth album, Controversy, however they were unceremoniously booed off the stage. During this time Prince worked on a second album for The Time and a new side project, Vanity 6. But his breakthrough came in the release of his fifth release, a double album, 1999, selling 4 million copies in the US alone, its second single, Little Red Corvette, became his first real hit, making number 6 on the charts. Because of this, the subsequent tour grossed $10m filling out 20,000 capacity venues. Prince made the cover of Rolling Stone magazine and was considered as the first artist to truly cross black music over to the appeal of a white audience. Dez Dickerson leaves the band when the tour finished in April 1983. So, Prince set about to form a new band, replacing Dez with Wendy Melvoin, and naming his group 'The Revolution'. Prince then begins to write his sixth album, Purple Rain and also begins writing the second album for his spin-off girl band, Vanity 6 (renamed Apolloina 6 after the female lead character of the movie Purple Rain), he also writes Sugar Walls for Sheena Easton under the name of Alexander Nevermind.

Part 2 - The Chocolate Invasion

During the 1999 Tour, Bob Cavallo starts touting Prince to Hollywood and wins over Warner Films to finance the movie. Entitled Purple Rain it is filmed during November 1983 to March 1984, between Minneapolis and Los Angeles, directed by Albert Magnoli who had only one previous movie under his belt. Scriptwriter William Blinn wanted to base the story in Prince's life. It was to be shot on location at First Avenue, the club where Prince often performed since 1980, when it was known as Sams. The soundtrack for the film was recorded live at a local warehouse. Prince also managed to give some attention to work with long term friend Shelia Escovedo on her debut album, The Glamorous Life. The first single from Purple Rain, When Doves Cry, was released in May 1984 and became the year's biggest single, it was a good omen for the album. The album released on the 25th of June selling 10 million copies, the film premiered at Graumann's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood on the 26th of July. The film grossed $70m, becoming on of the year's major blockbusters, its soundtrack won the Academy Award for best original score on 25 March 1985. The Purple Rain Tour was an instant success too- selling 1.7 million tickets breaking venue records in its 90 shows, grossing $30m by attracting numbers such as 55,000 who attended the final show at Miami's Orange Bowl. The album stayed at number one for 24 weeks and amassed three number one singles. Prince won three American Music Awards in January 1985 and Grammy Awards in February. He uses part of his earnings to construct his own recording complex in Chanhassen, Minneapolis, which he names Paisley Park. One of the first artists signed to Paisley Park Records was Jill Jones whom Prince has known sing 1980 and was very keen to showcase her vocal talent and wrote all the songs on her debut self-titled album.

Because of his commitments on the Purple Rain Tour, Prince declined the offer to sing a line on the LiveAid single, We Are The World, and instead recorded 4 The Tears In Your Eyes in the New Orleans Superdome for the accompanying album, a video of him playing the song was aired during the LiveAid concert in Philadelphia. His next album was expected to match the euphoria of Purple Rain, written mostly during the tour, its music was very different from what everybody was expecting. Still, the psychedelic Around The World In A Day shifted 3 million copies, hit the number one spot and also produced a number one single, Raspberry Beret, of which the video won him an MTV award. The Time had disbanded after their third album, but Prince began yet another side-project called The Family.Prince then returned to movie-making, his second film, Under The Cherry Moon was shot in Nice, France, in black and white, from September to November 1985. The filmed bombed but its soundtrack, Parade, faired far better, Kiss became his fourth single to reach number 1 in the US charts and won him a Grammy award. Prince toured the album extensively around Europe which immediately sold out its 150,000 tickets. Towards the end of 1986 he begins working on side projects with Shelia E and an instrumental jazz/funk quartet Madhouse (Prince on keyboards, Shelia E on drums, Eric Leads on sax, and Levi Seacer on bass).

Prince announced the disbanding of The Revolution on 17 October 1986 because he wanted to return to recording alone. His next project Sign O' The Times, a double album, was released to critical acclaim on 30 March 1987. Although it contained two number one singles, the title track and U Got The Look - a duet with Sheena Easton, the album though failed to strike a chord with the American audience, the accompanying tour only visited Europe to instead shore up Prince's base overseas. His two shows planned for Wembley Stadium had to be cancelled due to poor weather and problems in finding in-door venues at short notice forced the entire UK leg of the show into being pulled. However, 350,000 European's managed to catch the tour on its other 34 dates. Footage from the live shows in Holland were spliced together with extra ones filmed the newly finished Paisley Park studios for the concert 'movie' which became a great success in repairing his reputation at home in the US. Paisley Park officially opened on 11 September 1987 at the final cost of $10m, containing two huge studios for filming as well as a 12,400 square foot sound stage for rehearsals.

Under the name of Camille, Prince set about working on a new album. In December 1987, days before its planned release, Prince pulled the release of the un-named work which became simply known as The Black Album as no cover art had been commissioned for it. He felt the album was too negative, it was written during his experimentation with drugs, and so he hurriedly began working on another album, far more positive in tone which was finished in February 1988. Taking a mere three months to complete, Lovesexy is one of the quickest albums to be written, recorded, produced and released. Again, it sold poorly in the US but extremely well in Europe, staying o friendly ground the tour, performed 'in the round', again concentrated in Europe selling out 500,000 tickets in stadium-sized venues in 32 dates. Frustrated with his falling sales in the US, Prince fired his management team, Cavallo, Ruffalo and Fargnoli, in January 1989.

To boost US interest in their star act, Warner Bros asks Prince to write the soundtrack for their new movie, Batman. Prince wrote and recorded it alone, and was a great success, shifting 6 millions copies and becoming one of the fastest selling albums in history (1 million copies sold in 1 week). Latching on to his revived success in the US, Warner's allows Prince to write the script for his third film, and its soundtrack Graffiti Bridge again on his own using computerised drums and synthesisers, the films is shot at Paisley Park in just 36 days and is completed in March 1990. Again, unable to even come close matching the cinematic success of Purple Rain, Prince was saved by the success of the follow up Nude Tour, again staying clear of the US, it was attended by 1 million people throughout Europe and Japan. It was during this tour Prince fell back in love performing with real instruments and a band and ditched his drum machines. Though he was still desperate for a commercial hit record.

Part 3 - Prince EyeHate U

Prince formed the New Power Generation; Michael Bland (Drums), Sonny Thompson (Bass), Kirk Johnson (DJ), and Tommy Barbarella (Keyboards),for his next project Diamonds And Pearls which, boasting two number one singles - the title track and Cream, achieved considerable success both critically and commercially. The tour became a considerable success too, breaking records such as 7 capacity shows at London's Earls Court, the world tour sold 850,000 tickets over its 50 dates. Prince also used the tour to showcase his new protegee, Carmen Electra. The success of Diamonds And Pearls reminds Warner Brothers to double their efforts to extend Prince's contract which was about to expire, and in September 1992 they sign him for a new five year deal worth $100m the largest recording contract in history at the time to a solo artist, it also granted Prince a seat on the Warner Brothers Board.

A clause in the contract gave Warner's the right to own his own master recordings under this contract and all previous songs dating back to 1978. Prince was in no position to argue, he needed the money, his spending was going out of control, but he soon began a campaign to claim back the ownership of his recordings. Warner's also demanded that Prince slow down his output so to give his albums maximum sales and stopping them competing with each other, plus even limiting the number of live shows he could perform. Prince quickly grew dissatisfied of the contract, he wrote albums at such a speed that he wanted two releases a year to keep up, but Warner's felt this would swamp the market and dilute his sales, they agreed, even though Warner's wanted him to release an album every two years, they agreed to meet in the middle with one album per year.

Prince names his 14th album a confusing symbol - Prince: Symbol Album - and despite releasing the song, My Name Is Prince, the dispute with his contract reached a head on 7 June 1993, when he pronounced Prince dead and changed his name to 'Prince Symbol'. Prince argued that as Warner's owned his name and all the music associated with it, changing it to an unpronounceable symbol would somehow void the contract. With no name to call him by, this miffed the press, the recording industry, and isolated his fans. Prince's success did not falter in Europe, from selling out 72,000 seats at Wembley Stadium in less than an hour in 1993 on his summer Act II Tour, to winning best international solo artist at the Brit Awards in 1992, 93, 95 and 96.

Against Prince Symbol's wishes, Warner Bros releases a greatest hits compilation in 1993. Prince was always against the concept of having a 'greatest hits' album, so in revenge he charged Warner's a fortune for the photo shoot for the cover. Warners then pulled out of hiatus The Black Album in 1994, again angering Prince who was opposed to having this material ever see the light of day. Prince Symbol now released music just to fulfil his contractual obligations, and had enough material left in his fabled vault so not needing to record new music for them, his 1994 album - Come - consisted of tracks gleaned from this vault. During 1993, Prince Symbol had set up a new record label, NPG Records, one Warner's did not have any claim too as under the 1992 contract, Warner's had taken ownership of the Paisley Park label. He would only release 'new' music - starting with GoldNigga - via his independent label. When Warner's held back the release of his The Gold Experience album, Prince Symbol was furious and decided to go ahead with a tour that March even though it was months before the album was eventually released in September 1995. As a result, the Gold Tour did not sell well, and only visited Europe as he refused to tour to the US again until he was 'free'. Because the album was withheld, the song The Most Beautiful Girl In The World was released in May 1994 as a maxi-single on his NPG Records label, it had been written for his choreographer, Mayte Garcia, whom he married on Valentines Day, 1996, it was a surprise hit and became his eleventh number one single in the US, and first (and only) number one single in the UK. His subsequent fall from grace in the charts was not helped due to writing 'slave' on his face for every public appearance in protest against his contract. Refusing interviews the media became angry that the artist in a $100m contract would have the nerve to call himself a slave, turned against him.

His final release for Warner's - Chaos & Disorder - was aggressive against his soon to be former label. It featured tracks called; Dig U Better Dead, I Rock Therefore I am, Chaos And Disorder, with the final song on the album entitled, Had U. The music was intended only for his personal demo use, as a result the album sold poorly. Tired of advancing him money, Warner's tried to recoup some of their losses by closing down the Paisley Park label in February 1994, but Prince Symbol quickly releases the leftovers of Paisley's unfinished projects on his NPG Records label on the album 1800-NEW-FUNK so named to promote his newly formed on-line store. Undeterred, he uses his new label to release more of 'new' music, the Exodus album, for which Prince Symbol renamed himself 'Tora Tora Tora' after the Japanese 'attack, attack, attack' command used at Pearl Harbour. The premise behind the album was to declare that the exodus of artists from recording contracts had begun, referring to Warner's in all but name as 'that record company'. He made promotional appearances for the album with his face covered by a scarf as Warner's were threatening to sue for breach. By July 1996, he had fulfilled his contractual obligations by passing the required output of his music to Warner's, though the contract itself would not fully expire until 2000. Making only one concession in 1996 by providing Warner's with material the soundtrack for Spike Lee's movie, Girl 6, for which he allowed the album to refer to him as 'Prince'. Prince Symbol campaigned for greater artists rights that record companies rather sell cheap music - "12 CD's for a $1" - than nurture artistic talent - "Money and art don't mix".

However, now free of his contract and able to release the volume of music he desired, he realised that the material released via NPG Records was only reaching his core fan base. For his next project, in 1996 Prince Symbol decided to team up with EMI, to put out a triple album, Emancipation, containing the 'new' music that was written when he was working off his Warner's contract, surprising many that its sheer volume, still managed to achieved critical acclaim.

Part 3 - Welcome 2 The Dawn

Deciding in 1997 to go on tour until his contract expires in 1999 he also focuses his attention to selling his music on the internet through his NPG label directly to his core fans, cutting out the middleman, increasing his royalties to as much as 70% per sale. Now responsible for his own marketing, he wanted to reign in the intellectual property he had ownership of, in 1998 Prince Symbol sued nine fan-sites for abusing his trademark name and selling bootlegs, making public opinion and some fans turn against him. He also set up a charity, Love4oneanother, to aid the homeless. However, the success in his online music store had surprised him as well as the industry; in 1998 without a single cent spent on advertising, his 1800-NEW-FUNK internet store had sold 250,000 copies of his Crystal Ball album, a triple set of previously unreleased material from the vault, plus an extra CD containing new acoustic material - The Truth. Prince Symbol had become the first major artist to utilise the internet as a tool to sell market and sell their music directly to their fan base. The set sold 250,000 without a single cent spend on advertising. He encourage other artists to also 'go it alone' and be 'free' but acknowledged that record companies were needed to market un-known and un-established acts. However Prince Symbol realised that his NPG Record label vastly lacked the distribution and marketing resources available to the larger labels and so began to negotiate a string of one album deals with record company's following the success of his experience with EMI. As with EMI, he set the condition that he own his recording masters, not even a physical contract was signed, they were literally handshake agreements. Along with EMI, Prince Symbol released one album each with BMG (Newpower Soul, 1998) and Arista (Rave Un2 The Joy Fantastic, 1999). Furthermore, to affirm his distrust with contracts Prince Symbol annuls his marriage with Mayte in February 1999 stating that they needed no 'CONtract' in order to remain partners, however, they grew apart and separated in 2000. Warner's continued to release Prince's music recorded up to 1996, the music they owned, to go towards recouping their losses on Prince's contractual payments; The Vault...Old Friends 4 Sale was released in 1999 along with a second greatest hits compilation - The Very Best Of Prince - in 2001.

As scheduled, once his contract with Warner's expired and on 16 May 2000 to much joy, Prince Symbol announced that he would become known as Prince again. After taking a year out, Prince had shed his aggression, became more relaxed and turned his attention to jazz and instrumentation - The Rainbow Children (2001) Xpectation, and NEWS (2003) sold largely through his website made their sales illegible on Billboards charts. Because of a lengthy departure from the charts, The Rainbow Children which had received considerable acclaim, achieved minimal attention, so the subsequent One Nite Alone Tour in 2002 kept in low key, playing only theatres, leaving many commentators to believe it was possibly Prince's farewell outing. Prince released One Nite Alone...Live ceasing a lifelong vow never to release a recording from a concert as doing so would require it to be his definitive performance. The tour, however, did prove a great success both with the critics and the box office, restoring Prince's confidence that he could be a chart hit once again. More importantly, his costs for this tour were kept to a minimum compounding the profit earned; the Lovesexy Tour saw Prince's carry a staff amounting to 90 people, compared to a the handful he brought with him for the One Nite Alone shows. His experiences on the tour became a crucial turning point.

Back on the home front, his father, John, died on 25 August 2001, shortly after he and Prince had reconciled. His mother, Mattie, died on the 15th of February the following year. But Prince also had reasons to celebrate, he secretly marries a staff member at his Love4oneanother charity, Manuela Testolini on 31 December 2001 in Hawaii, in fact so secret was the wedding, it was only when they filed for divorce in May 2006 was their marriage confirmed.

In March 2004, the 20th anniversary year of Purple Rain, Prince was inducted into the US Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. His album Musicology, released by Columbia went double platinum, and surprised many by hitting number 3 on the charts and the supporting tour grossed $90m from 1.47m tickets from 96 shows, making it his biggest draw since 1984. The album also won him two Grammy awards, his first since 1986, confirming his return to the mainstream. Splitting his time between Los Angeles, where he rented a house of which his album, released by Universal Records in 2006, was named after its street number - 3121, Sierra Alta Way, West Hollywood. Critics hailed 3121 as his best album since the 1980's, the public thought so too and sent it straight to number 1 in the Billboard charts his first album to do so since Batman in 1989.Capitalising on his new found success Warner Brothers released a third greatest hits album, called Ultimate Prince it contained his hits and extended versions to entice even the fans to buy it. Scheduled for March 2006, Prince filed legal action so close to its release date many copies were not removed from stores in time and so ended up on eBay as much sort after items, giving the album mediocre chart success when it was officially released that August.

In November 2006 Prince was inducted in to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame of the UK, the same month he began a highly lucrative deal with a major Las Vegas hotel to perform twice a week at his purpose-built, Club 3121, complete with its own restaurant, Jazz Cuisine, his run there was well received, extending into the following April, 2007. Winning a Golden Globe in 2007 for the track, Song of The Heart which he wrote and performed himself for the animated film Happy Feet. Also in 2007 Prince performed during the halftime slot at the Super Bowl in February, the most coveted spot in the sporting calendar, performing hits from the Purple Rain album.  The summer of 2007 saw Prince make a long-awaited return to Europe with his sell-out Earth Tour, comprising of an historic run of 21 sell out shows in London's 23,000 seat, O2 Arena, in which he fulfilled a decade-long promise to 'free music', he gave away its supporting album Planet Earth completely free in a UK national newspaper, becoming the first major artist in history to give their new album to fans for free, the move infuriated the music industry. To mark the success of his unprecedented run in London, he released a compilation, Indigo Nights, featuring recordings taken at its aftershows. Still adverse to conventional record contracts Prince continues to pursue new avenues to distribute his music, in which in 2009 saw the triple-disk set LotusFlow3r released through an exclusive deal the North American chain-store giant, Target; still almost managing to top the Billboard charts as number 2.

Somewhat but settling in to his return to mainstream success, Prince now has his finances under control, gone are the lavish party's, fleets of cars, and legions of hangers-on. He invests in property, and reportatly earns around 70% royalty on his post Warner's material. Today, Prince is his own manager and more importantly, far happier with himself and his rediscovered love affair for writing music that resides firmly among popular culture. He is happier securing album deals that rely neither on chart success or waiting for the sales figures to rack up. For his 2010 release, titled 20Ten, he repeated his Planet Earth success by distributing it free across Europe as a newspaper covermount. Aware now that "money and art [actually can] mix", his legacy as the greatest 'all in one' artist of our time, remains unchallenged and that there is plenty of life left in the Purple Reign yet.