Next day, I think a Sunday because we were the only ones there as far as I remember, he called up to me and said to come to "A".
I walked into the studio - it was dark and just a few candles burned. He gestured for me to sit next to him and played me a song over the speakers. He said he had just recorded it. It was an intimate and personal song, nothing but layers of vocals. Lush and yearning. Unbelievably raw and beautiful.
It finished and I was stunned. I think I managed to say "thank you" and possibly some other mumbling of gratitude and walked out - back upstairs to work.
I never took anything for granted working in that environment, but in Prince's world these are the kind of things that could happen, so as blown away as I was I also had to get my work done.
I never heard it again.
I have no idea what happened to it.
But I will never forget it.

***

Most people don't know I was a theater major through college. Good thing that was my field of study because it was something that taught me to dive into situations full on. I picked up the art stuff on my own.
Shooting a cover and spread for Notorious magazines 1999 New Year issue took place at 6 am - or midday Paisley Park time…lol.
Ideas had buzzed the day before, and the art director at Notorious was all about 1999, Prince was about the freedom he was experiencing as anartist. So the word “FREE” across his stomach was the concept. In gold paint as if fingerprinted by his female muse in the photo.
The art director mixed up the paint got ready to apply it, someone Prince had only met the day before.
Prince looked at the art director, then nodded to me and said “He can do it.” Keep in mind the idea was finger painting. So I got a finger full of the thick metallic gloop from the styrofoam cup and started writing. On Prince’s stomach.
And he started giggling. A lot.
Because it was cold and it tickled. And it was 6 am. I quickly wiped off my hands and grabbed my camera…because the paint was running.
It was a funny start to what became a relatively serious image.

***

Prince had a pretty great sense of humor. We would sit late into the night working together, and the main phone line in the studios was set to ring the whole building when no one was at the front desk. Often it was Hans (engineer), Prince and me. So invariably the phone would ring. I was terrible at answering because I always forgot the code. But quite a few times Prince looked at me like - - you going to get it? I tended to shrug and keep working. So he took to answering the phone. In doing so he had a fake "country" voice or a super thick midwestern accent. I only heard his part of it but it regularly was "No, Prince isn't here." "I'm sorry, what number were you calling." or "Can I take your order?" It went on from there. He would laugh after he hung up. Punked by Prince.

I took a few days away from posting because I have been steeped in the emotion surrounding the death of someone I really cared about. Generous outpourings of concern and love can be overwhelming, even when appreciated. I did a few interviews, was asked for some quotes, shared a lot of photos, and managed to make it through Purple Rain at the movie theater for the sake of my son, who had never seen it. Through it all I started to think of how Prince literally built a world around himself - a place to create all the time. He was not a work-aholic, he was a create-aholic. He could casually be laying down a rhythm guitar line while holding a conversation with me. Or tell me to grab my camera and hop in his car and we'd be in a beautiful arboretum snapping images in five minutes. Or hand me a video camera and ask to shoot while he played guitar to a track and writhed in the smoke of a fog machine. Or have me involve pretty much every breathing person at Paisley Park speed-melting candles around a set so he could start filming (The Most Beautiful Girl in the World). This was just the way it was.
Prince gave you a chance, what you did with that chance seemed to define how things played out. I did it for 13 grinding and glorious years. Years that taught me that pretty much anything was possible, and if it was impossible at least you tried. I recall Prince once telling me I was one of the "most in the moment" people he knew. It was hard not to be when your sole reason for existing in that moment was to create.
It occurs to me that Prince learned by trial and error. He was self taught, just like me. I'm not sure if that had anything to do with why he trusted my eye enough to do things I really had no specific business doing. Even in photography, where I only had prior hobby (and film) knowledge, learning a digital interface and then the tools to make those terrible early digital images passable were giant leaps I only took because he asked if I could do it. He simply trusted me to figure it out. In a day before "Googling" how to do something was even possible, it just meant reaching down and finding it inside. I will always be grateful for that trust and opportunity.
I'm sure I will post more about him, for now I'm going to get back to the now. Prince would have liked that.