This is an article from the danish FREE fanzine 1998:


here's the 1st article, written by David Dyhr, in 1998 back when Prince was called "The Artist":


Cross The Line

By David Dyhr.

At last The Artist was going to play in Denmark again. By bus I arrived a couple of hours before the show and sat down waiting outside Valby Hallen. Mike Scott from NPG came and talked with us. Just joking I asked if we could join him for the rehearsal. But he refused, that he could not allow that and went away. Well I have never, in all my wildest dreams, imagined what then happened. Me and another fan walked around and came by an open door. I thought I would just look inside, but my friend was a little afraid of that, but I persuated him and inside we went.

In the large but empty Valby Hallen the houselights were on. There sat The Artist himself, right in front of us. He was sitting at the soundboard and mixed something or whatever. I wanted to run towards him and shout: "I love You" ! Like I did once at The Gold Tour in Holland in 95. Back then he answered: "Not as much as I love You", while he performed "I Love U In Me". But that is another story. I was affraid that if I had done so we immediately would have been thrown out. So we quietly passed by and sat down behind him. After a while he walked away from the soundboard, nearly fell and then walked behind a big guy. For fun he tried to immitate his special walk in a klumpsy way, looking really funny. Then he suddenly entered the stage for the rehearsal and he rehearsed on stage for an hour or more playing three old classics "Let's Go Crazy", "U Got The Look" and "She's Always In My Hair". it was great to watch how he controlled it all. He tuned up Mike Scott's guitar and then tested the microphone by asking the soundman to "turn up my mike". After a while a soundman came again and asked The Artist something, to which he replied: "Well, this is your world" and the soundman went away.

After the band had rehearsed they walked to the private area. My friend didn't dare to stay any longer, but I wouldn't miss this and decided to stay as long as possible. I walked to the dressing rooms. Chaka Khan wasn't there, but Tina, Larry Graham's wife, was. As l caught her eyes, I imitateted the kisses she had sent to the audience when The Artist guested the recent VIBE tv-show with Sinbad. She was very surprised that anyone in Denmark has seen that: "Wasn't that only showed on american tv", she asked.

We talked about how funny it was when Sinbad said: I'm a slave until my daughter get's a job". Then I was introdused to her pretty daughter, the sax and trumpet players from Sly and The Family Stone and even to Larry Graham himself. They were very friendly and I told them, that I think it's nice, that The Artist and Larry had got together. We also talked about The New Power Pak which you can get on the internet and why Larry had left Sly. Then we went to the kitchen and I sat down and ate together with NPG and Larry's band. We had a very tasty and delicious salad and the band told me that even they weren't eating meat any longer.

When I finished my eating I went back-stage and stood behind Mr. Hayes while he played with his computer. At that time the doors was opened and people were beginning to come in. Therefor I walked to the dressingrooms, where no other than The Artist and his bodyguard were standing talking. As I passed The Artist my shirt almost touched him and then he went into his dressingroom. The bodyguard was the tall guy that keeps the door open for The Artist in the "Somebody's Somebody" video. He asked me if i hadn't a passport and since I could not answer him (I had none), he showed me very polite the door saying these words: "I know your story". Then I found my place in front of the stage and the concert started.



- 2 more articles from "Free" Magazine 1998 will follow asap...





[Edited 2/10/10 23:13pm]
[Edited 2/10/10 23:13pm]

That was quick. Thanks for posting it. Nice read. I would have loved to hear the conversation about why Larry left Sly.

squirrelgrease said:

^

yes, I still had those articles scanned from the original Fanzine, scanned by Chastity a few years back...

2 more articles will be up soon...

2 more articles from "Free":

"The Meet & Greet Experience" - Meeting Prince before the concert in Valby Hallen 1998

http://prince.org/msg/7/330024

and..

"Meeting the N.P.G." at Hotel SAS Royal, Copenhagen 1998

http://prince.org/msg/7/330026

I'm amazed by this article. Imagine that someone actually had a kick out of meeting Larry and eating a salad with Prince's discount band.

You know, while all this was going on inside, someone was selling Uptown to the crowd outside and there was a lot of movement in the curtains to the entrance. Apparently was watching and then sent his bodyguards out to inquire about the magazine being sold. They brought a copy of Uptown back to Prince and a month or two later, Uptown got sued.

I think that's a much more juicy story.

scififilmnerd said:

Interesting.

^^ Aww, really bad..... I never understood the trial against Uptown. They couldn't print the symbol - distributed by Prince, himself...

thedance said:

I know. Incredibly ludicrous.

thedance said:

damnit thought this article was 1988. oh well still cool . thx!

Cool story !!! Well done David !!!

Thanks for the article!

Cool story! Tina waved to me once during the Key Club performance in L.A.. She seems like a nice lady.

Klick

squirrelgrease said:

He'd probably lie about it anyway. Seriously, Larry has a tendency to change his stories.

Best source of what went on inside the Family Stone is "Sly and the Family Stone: An Oral History" by Joel Selvin, which basically consists of interviews with a lot of the people that were around. Larry doesn't come off looking good. It's a raw and painful book, because there was a lot of nasty stuff going on in private. IIRC the members from S&TFS hate the book, which means it's probably too honest for their liking.

It's kinda depressing so few books and documentaries exist about S&TFS, mostly because almost everyone is sitting on their stories waiting for the time when someone will pay them crazy money for their "tell all" book. I've got a Dutch documentary from the early/mid-1990s on a VHS somewhere that's really depressing, I think that some S&TFS members were doing seriously crappy jobs just to get by. There was a recent docu by two Dutch twins on their quest to interview Sly, which was OK but kinda anti-climatic.

I've just ordered "Sly: The Lives of Sylvester Stewart and Sly Stone" by Eddie Santiago, which seems to be good, according to some reviews I've read. "I Want to Take You Higher: The Life and Times of Sly and the Family Stone" by Jeff Kaliss seems to bets be avoided: it's apparently a thinly disguised rewrite of "Sly and the Family Stone: An Oral History" and doesn't add anything.

BartVanHemelen said:

That's good information to have. Thanks.

BartVanHemelen said:

Thanks. Another classic example of Rock Journalism's abandonment of the serious analyis of black music. It's depressing to go to the music aisle of one of the chain bookstores and find 300 Springsteen, U2, Rolling Stones, Patti Smith and Sex Pistols books and not one that seriously explores the artistic gifts of Stevie Wonder, Aretha or George Clinton.

And your right, the Kaliss book was weak. It's strange that the complicated and painful histories of other bands (RS, Pistols, Kinks, etc.) usually make for deep and interesting books.

BartVanHemelen said:

The twins you talk about are working on a book: see www.slystonebook.com
Also, Willem Alkema made a documentary including an interview with Sly. See www.dancetothemusic.nl.
There's an article in the latest issue of Mojo about it.

so let me get this straight... whoever this person is broke into/gatecrased an unauthorised private zone?

i felt slightly uncomfortable reading this.

nuthinbuttamuffin said:

nuthinbuttamuffin said:

Yes, he did. And he got to see in rehearsal, darn it!

jdcxc said:

I sense a racial overtone in that complaint.

jdcxc said:

Those sell.

jdcxc said:

Part of the problem is that so many of these people seem to be unavailable and/or unwilling to cooperate. On Dutch TV around Christmas they have a daily show where they talk about the records that populate the "Top 2000" people vote for, and part of that program are short documentaries on some of the hits. And each time it involves a soul/r&b artist, I keep getting the feeling that they were holding back, and that while they were happy somebody paid them attention, they weren't planning on being 100% open.

BartVanHemelen said:

There's no "overtone" about it, it's explicit. Great generalizations in your Dutch TV example. Are you trying to say that soul/r&b artists are less interesting than other genres? Stevie, Aretha and GC have sold more records than many of the obscure musicians on the book racks. I didn't know you were such a believer in the "free" market and "true" capitalism. I don't think book publishers and editors have purely analyzed the strength of African-American dollar, middle class or crossover potential. Just look at the success of Ray, to a lot of people's suprise.

hi nice 2 see that u like the article it was cool 2 be there i tell u :O) peace from david dyhr

blacksworld said:

Hi David, it's Bo here... Nice to see you here at the Org....

- and a very nice story / experience from back then...

cool...

blacksworld said:

Cool story !!!!

blacksworld said:

Hi David. Could you shed some light on why Larry left Sly, at least what you gleaned from the conversation that you had. I know it was a long time ago, so if memory fails, that's cool. Thanks.

^ Hi Squirrelgrease,

I think David is gone again, and not very often here on the org..

But I will send your request to him in an email....

maybe he can remember something about that.... return here and write, let's see..

thedance said:

You're a champ.

jdcxc said:

No.

jdcxc said:

Years ago, perhaps. But does their audience buy books? Fact is that UK mags would love to put someone besides Pink Floyd/Beatles/... on their covers, but those issues simply don't sell. The Word magazine put Prince on the cover: bombed. Another mag had a similar experience.

jdcxc said:

Look, these days there are a lot less music books than years ago. There simply isn't a big market for it, and that market has shrunk. Music mags are dying or dead.

jdcxc said:

Perhaps, perhaps not.

BartVanHemelen said:

hi squirrelgrease i cant remember but it was very nice 2 talk 2 tina Larrys wife and nice 2 be there peace