CerpinTaxt said:

Yeah, in 1982 Prince's 1999 tour frequently bumped into Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band's The Distance tour, with them playing the same venues on successive nights. Prince asked Matt Fink to explain the appeal of Bob Seger's music. "I don't see what people see in it," Prince said. Matt said that southern rock ballads appeal to Middle America. "Write something like that, and you'll cross right over." Soon after, Prince made the song Purple Rain into a rock ballad.
[Edited 2/5/10 18:24pm]

rudeboynpg said:

Yeah, I mentioned the Seger thing in the original post. But I found the info on the WB survey interesting. It could have been a calculated cross-over move. What about this simple idea: his live gigs were more guiar heavy and the film features lots of live performances with the album posing as straight recordings of these. Would that be enough reason to focus on the gee-tar?

Yeah, Prince always rocked more live, while his early albums were more in a soulful R&B direction because he wanted to be involved in the black community, too. I believe the reasons Prince went more rock with the Purple Rain album and film was a combination of Matt Fink's suggestion to write something like Bob Seger's rock ballads to cross over more into the rock world and I believe another big influence was Prince's close friend and personal bodyguard at the time, the redneck looking guy, Chick Huntsberry.

As Dave Hill's book Prince A Pop Life states, Chick Huntsberry did not sing or play or know how to write a song, but his influence on Prince's state of mind should not be underestimated: he was with Prince twenty-four hours a day. He'd already had plenty of experience at the head-banging end of the rock spectrum. He had been a bouncer for a lot of hard-rock groups. I believe Chick Huntsberry was another influence on Prince to go more in the rock direction and influenced Prince to want more mainstream rock success. "When I first started with Prince, I remember being in hotels, and one time calling down for room service, and it was closed. I said, 'Look. I'm with Prince. And if I have to pay extra, that's all right.' The guy said to me, 'What country is he the Prince of?' I said, 'No, man, Prince, the rock star!' He said, 'I've never heard of Prince.' I got upset. But I remember Prince saying, 'Hey, settle down, Chick. Someday they'll know who I am.' A short time later, we was number one." Wendy said Chick Huntsberry would play air guitar when Prince played Purple Rain.

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