MickyDolenz said:

I wonder if these were taken with a 110 camera.

Bulldog said:

MikeyB71 said:

The gig in Savannah GA was on 10th April 1980, while supporting Rick James.

Dirty Mind tour began 4th December 1980 in Buffalo.

Thanks, that makes more sense. After thinking about it, I get the suit. Prince was performing in GA...the deep south. Had he come out half naked in front of an audience that came to see Rick, God knows how hostile they may have reacted. That may have been ok in NY or LA. I'm sure he dressed according to the city and state. Very smart.

At this point, it was about work and continuing to build his black audience. I remember Dez saying, after the (1999) videos aired on MTV in 1983, 50% of his audience were white.

That guitar looks brand new!

[Edited 10/17/10 6:37am]

I didn't think Prince was trying to build a black audience, especially since from the very beginning he did not want to be catagorized as a 'black artist/musician' He was trying to be diverse with his audience from the start.

OldFriends4Sale said:

Bulldog said:

Thanks, that makes more sense. After thinking about it, I get the suit. Prince was performing in GA...the deep south. Had he come out half naked in front of an audience that came to see Rick, God knows how hostile they may have reacted. That may have been ok in NY or LA. I'm sure he dressed according to the city and state. Very smart.

At this point, it was about work and continuing to build his black audience. I remember Dez saying, after the (1999) videos aired on MTV in 1983, 50% of his audience were white.

That guitar looks brand new!

[Edited 10/17/10 6:37am]

I didn't think Prince was trying to build a black audience, especially since from the very beginning he did not want to be catagorized as a 'black artist/musician' He was trying to be diverse with his audience from the start.

WB was paying the bills and booking the shows...I don't think he had much say in the end..well after 1999 and Purple Rain and had just a little.

Bulldog said:

OldFriends4Sale said:

I didn't think Prince was trying to build a black audience, especially since from the very beginning he did not want to be catagorized as a 'black artist/musician' He was trying to be diverse with his audience from the start.

WB was paying the bills and booking the shows...I don't think he had much say in the end..well after 1999 and Purple Rain and had just a little.

ahhhh, I think with the pull Prince had even at the start they did pretty much what he wanted.

Even though the music itself might have easily sounded targeted to a specific audience, that's not what WB or Prince were trying to do

It's also why from day one of assembling a band Prince wanted it mixed

But before making his final decision, Prince voiced an important concern directly to Warner Bros. officials:He didn't want to be pigeonholed as an R&B artist. "I'm an artist and I do a wide range of music," Prince insisted. "I'm not an R&B artist, I'm not a rock n roller. At a time when most labels, including Warners, had seperate "black music" departments, Prince dreaded the idea of limiting his appeal in any respect.

The executives said all the right things, and Prince signed a three-album contract with Warner Bros. on June 25, 1977, just weeks after turning nineteen. An association began that would become one of the most fruitful and lucrative-but also one of the most frustating and embarrassing - in the company's venerable history. For the moment, Ostin and Waronker felt nothing but confidence-they had an artist who might be a once-in-a-generation talent. Had they paused, however, the executives might have wondered about the darker side of Prince's passion and ambition, and they might have wondered how such a fiercely independent figure would react to the constraints that inevitable arise from working within a major U.S. corporation. For an artist like Prince, how much control would be enough?

At a celebration luncheon with company executives, he seemed shy and awkward. After the fete, though, he recorded a song that represented his own way of communicating with his new patrons. Called "We Can Work It Out," the unreleased song's lyrics can only be interpreted as an expression of hope that the Prince-Warners partnership would be a happy one. It ended, though, with the sound of an explosion.

-Possessed: the Rise & Fall of Prince

Oh how I wish I could've been there!

Nice!

Dude looks like Phil Lynott or something.