{{{Excerpts from Alex Hahn's "Possessed: The Rise and Fall of Prince" on billboard.com. Apparently late on this, as already excerpt #3 of 4 is currently featured on the site. The previous two excerpts are still located on the site as well. http://billboard.com/bb/e.../index.jsp}}}

The full text of this week's excerpt:
Excerpt: "Crystal Ball"

Despite his bountiful romantic life, Prince's focus remained on his music. With "Crystal Ball" complete, the next step was for Prince's management team to present the project to Warner Bros. The modus operandi in dealing with Warners was to have Steve Fargnoli handle meetings with top executives, an arrangement that suited everyone well. [Warner Bros. executives] Mo Ostin and Lenny Waronker still viewed Prince as an unstoppable creative force, but had in the post-"Purple Rain" years developed concerns about his business judgments, believing in particular that he released albums too frequently. Fargnoli was the perfect middleman in this relationship; he understood Prince's personality and was a forceful, articulate advocate for his client, and yet was also well respected and liked by the Warners chiefs.

Time and time again Fargnoli had convinced Warners to support commercially risky ideas, such as releasing the demo version of "Dirty Mind," making "1999" a double album, financing the "Purple Rain" film, and selecting the controversial "When Doves Cry" as the lead single from "Purple Rain." Because such schemes had in the past been accepted, Prince came to believe that the company's support was unconditional, and he had great faith in Fargnoli's ability to elicit Warners' enthusiastic backing.

By late 1986, however, the dynamics in the Prince-Fargnoli-Warner Bros. triangle had started to shift. Prince, while unquestionably a favorite of critics and a signature artist on Warners' roster, was no longer an ascendant commercial force. Since "Purple Rain," his album sales had tapered off consistently. Warners officials began to view his behavior as erratic; he recorded far more material than the label could release and then damaged his own public image through incidents like the "We Are the World" fiasco and the firing of [bandmembers] Wendy and Lisa. Mo Ostin and Lenny Waronker had no doubts about Prince's talent, but began to see him as self-thwarting.

With "Crystal Ball," Prince faced an additional problem: No one in his inner circle, including Fargnoli, was entirely supportive of the concept of a triple-album. Alan Leeds, while enthusiastic about much of the material, feared that such a sprawling release could be perceived as a display of arrogance rather than a defining accomplishment. "A backlash among fans and critics was certainly possible," he noted. "Besides die-hard fans bathing in an orgy of new material, there were few upsides."

Even Fargnoli, charged with convincing Warners to release the record, was lukewarm and had started to harbor doubts about Prince's career. "Man, they're not going to buy this," Farngoli told Prince as discussions with Warners continued. Prince was not pleased. "You work for me -- you make 'em buy it," he responded.

Cracks thus developed in one of Prince's most important relationships. "I think Steve was getting to the point where he started to feel like he didn't need this," said Warners' Marylou Badeaux. "It's not unusual for an artist to make demands of his management, but some of Prince's demands were getting more and more out in left field."

The dispute also marked a turning point in the relationship between Prince and Ostin, who was deeply concerned about the economics of a triple-album set. How many consumers would shell out up to $30 for it? It would be expensive to produce and distribute and might not turn a profit even if, as Prince hoped, critics declared it a masterpiece. Shortly after learning of the project, Ostin visited Sunset Sound to hear the record and meet with Prince and Fargnoli. His response shocked Prince. "I respect your vision, but it just won't fly," he said, insisting that Prince pare "Crystal Ball" to a double album.

Bitterly disappointed, Prince refused to back down, and the battle over the album continued for several weeks. "There were a lot of meetings, a lot of loud hollering, a lot of frustration," recalled Leeds. "It was very, very ugly." On several occasions, Prince stormed out of conference rooms after exploding at Warners officials, according to Marylou Badeaux.

Faced with the reality of his diminished commercial clout, Prince finally agreed to trim the set as Warners had asked. But he would never forget that the company had taken a meat cleaver to his meticulously constructed masterwork. "Prince lost interest beginning with editing it into two albums," observed Leeds. "He had allowed himself to see it only as a three-record set, and as such it seemed to him an incomplete work -- not the true vision he had set out."

Needing to edit "Crystal Ball," Prince reluctantly scrapped the lengthy title track, which took up nearly half an album side. [Composers] Clare and Brett Fischer, after putting so much effort into it, were disappointed to learn the song might never be released. Prince also discarded strong cuts like "Good Love," an exuberant pop song that used the "Camille" vocal technique, and "Joy In Repetition," a hypnotic ballad that showed the influence of Kate Bush and Peter Gabriel.

The dispute over "Crystal Ball" left Prince frustrated and depressed, and to make matters worse, his relationship with Susannah Melvoin was spinning out of control for the last time. In the months since the couple had concluded their brief attempt at cohabitation in Prince's Chanhassen [Minn.] home, their fighting had continued, taking an emotional toll on both of them.

In December 1986, Susannah finally decided she had had enough; she packed her things and returned to Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley, joining Wendy and Lisa. "You can only subject yourself to so much, unless you're self-abusive, and she had a lot of respect for herself," observed [tour manager] Karen Krattinger. "He probably would have kept her back and forth on a yo-yo forever."

One evening shortly after Susannah's departure, [recording engineer] Susan Rogers could tell something was very wrong when Prince came down to the basement studio. Looking disconsolate and barely speaking, he began constructing a song around a melancholy piano pattern. His spoken lyrics portrayed a fictional dialogue between himself and Wally Safford, a dancer in the band. Sounding sad and lost, Prince asks Wally to borrow $50 and some sunglasses so he can impress his lover, but then changes his mind and returns the items, telling Wally that since he is alone now, he has no one to spend the money on. Prince was accompanied only by piano throughout the verse, but guitar, bass, and drums enter as the song built into a chorus on which he sings the phrase, "o-ma-la-di-da."

Watching Prince construct the song, which he called "Wally," Rogers was stunned by the honest emotion and wistful resignation it conveyed. She saw the song both as a farewell to Susannah and a means of expelling the poison of a failed relationship.

"Do you know that malady means sickness, illness in French?" Prince asked Rogers, referring to the phrase he sings in the chorus. "It's almost like the word melody, isn't it?" Prince, who rarely exposed his inner feelings, even in his music, was groping for a metaphor that would convey his feelings of loss. Rogers felt it was a turning point in his songwriting.

But as the session continued, Prince started to distance himself from the creation. He added extraneous instruments that diminished the song's clarity. A percussion part cluttered the verse, detracting from the lyrics.

"Don't you think it was better before, Prince?" Rogers said. "Maybe we should stop." He ignored her, adding a synthesizer riff. Soon it became clear to her: He was intentionally destroying the song. After larding the piece with additional instruments, he finally spoke.

"Now put all 24 channels on record and erase it," he told Rogers.

"No, you can't do this!" Rogers said, dismayed by the prospect of losing the statement at the core of the song.

"If you don't, I will," Prince responded.

Rogers stood her ground, and Prince was forced to operate the soundboard himself as he destroyed his own music. "Wally," like his relationship with Susannah, Wendy, and Lisa, involved more emotional intensity than Prince was willing to accept. "I thought it was the greatest thing he had done," says Rogers. "I had waited years to hear a Prince song like this. I ached to hear him be this honest."

Yet, Prince's refusal to explore his feelings was not altogether surprising. Rogers had discussed the topic of depression with him before and found Prince contemptuous of the very notion. "He thought it was practically a sin to be depressed," she remembered. Many other associates have observed that Prince -- not only in his relationships, but even in his music -- is cryptic and unrevealing of his deepest feelings. "His music is very passionate, but he doesn't let himself open up emotionally," observed Marylou Badeaux. "And look at the way he's dealt with women in his life -- he's not able to get emotional, he just keeps it on the level of sex play."

Though Susannah had never formally been part of the Revolution, her personal and creative influence on Prince from 1983 to 1986 rivaled that of Wendy and Lisa. With her exit from the scene, the Revolution period ended irrevocably. The epitaph of this time would be "Wally," a song no one would hear.

vashti1999 said:[quote]Excerpts from Alex Hahn's "Possessed: The Rise and Fall of Prince" on billboard.com. Apparently late on this, as already excerpt #3 of 4 is currently featured on the site. The previous two excerpts are still located on the site as well. http://billboard.com/bb/e.../index.jsp

Thanks for that vashti1999! I copied the all 8 pages from Billboard.com and made a compilation of the 4 excerpts, click on Possession(excerpts) for those who want a bit of a read.

Enjoy.

Very intersting... i think i might go and get that book..

What is Prince up to these days? recording again?
Anyone?

I highly recommend the book for the more analytical Prince fans out there. Lots of interesting tidbits...and Hahn's clearly not out to fellate the man, which is why I decided to check it out. I think the Susannah 'storyline' is one of the best parts of the book...he paints an interesting picture of Prince and his women. Sometimes troubling sometimes intriguing...always interesting. You definitely read it in front of the stereo though