Would there be a big market for a book about Prince's time in the studio? There are books about The Beatles, Hendrix, Clapton, and more recently The Beach Boys and Nirvana, but would people like to read a book about Prince?

How many Orgers read Per Nilsen's books? The book I am talking about would be similar to UPTOWN's "Days Of Wild", but would focus on what was recorded when, where and by who with Prince.

The question is, how popular would a book like this be? What sort of information would people want in it? Pictures? Interviews with bandmates? Quotes by Prince? copies of lyrics sheets? work orders?

Odds are Prince would never release a book like this, but if one was written by Warner Brothers or something like that, would you read it?

Well, since I'm a sound engineer, if would interest me to know how he works.
What he recorded first, or how the song came to mind, how they start recording, whatdecisions came in through the recording sessions and also the details of songs (when, where and with whom)

I recently saw a documentary on a fellow I had never heard of before and am now ashamed of that fact. A fellow by the name of Tom Dowd. This fool had his hands in EVERYTHING. From the earliest recordings from Atlantic, to Ray, to Eric, to The Allman Brothers, ANYTHING. The relationships he had with the artists is what I was most jealous of. Tom Dowd was a sound Engineer/Producer for Atlantic. Before that he was a physicist or summin' like that and had a hand in the a-bomb. His charcter is portrayed in Ray which I was pleasantly suprised with. I know this is a little off topic, but if u're intrested in studio sessions, U should check this out, even is Prince isn't involved in any way.




edit: spelling
[Edited 2/13/05 9:35am]

madhouseman said:

If the book were to present facts that were different and additional to those provided in, say, 'The Vault' (rather than just provide the same information in a different way), then I guess that the book would at least command the same interest as that shown for 'The Vault' - all other things being equal e.g. number of facts included, price, size of font etc..
.

Thank you to all of you who emailed me, etc. about this. It has given me a lot of ideas of how to do a book like this.

madhouseman said:

The Complete Beatles Chronicles by Mark Lewisholn is a good benchmark to start from.It covers every working day the Beatles undertook... sessions, TV , gigs etc. Something similar on Prince would be great. I have the vault but it is sometimes difficult to navigate or cross-reference the information. Helluva task though, The Beatles book only covered approx. 15 years and was quite a hefty book. A similar book on Prince and his 30+ year career, including countless aborted sessions and side projects would probably be the size of a Chinese phone book.

Since he does have so many years in the studio, maybe it would be best to break the book up into smaller books. Perhaps, a 1970/80s book to be followed by the 90s and beyond. Or maybe a book about the Warner Years, and then do followups.

The Beatles Studio Sessions is always the bible for these type of books. There are studio books about Hendrix, The Rolling Stones, Clapton, Nirvana, The Beach Boys and others... why not Prince?

Mark Lewishon (Beatles Studio Sessions) stuck mostly with the actual studio sessions (and releases) for that book, but he has another book that cover TV, and other appearences as well. UPTOWN has done a great job of covering alot of those other dates, so the main thing missing is a book that explores Prince's recording dates only.

Personally, I wish he'd come out with something like this (hint hint!)