Growing up my parents didn't speak much English. My parents thought Prince music sounded too wild, but once in a while my mom would join my sister and I to dance a few songs for fun.

When Prince passed away my dad called me long distance to tell me he was sorry to hear of Prince passing away and he knew how he was a musician that was special to me.

Secular music was a definite no. So no one in my family knew.

My parents were very casual fans, enjoying the Prince that was on the radio and MTV. I don't even think they knew about most of his racy stuff tbh. They were always supportive of my brother and my interests and hobbies in general In fact, the first time I saw Prince I didn't drive (I was of age but I was terrified of driving for a long time) and neither did my younger brother yet, who went to the concert with me. Well, our parents drove us, the concert was over an hour away from our home and they sat and waited for us in the parking lot the entire length of the show. Just so we could see Prince.

My dad's favorite Prince song is Alphabet St. and my mom's is Raspberry Beret.

My mom called me that day, after she heard the news and she's been very supportive. She came over one day and I had been crying about Prince but was embarrassed to say that was the reason, so I told her some sunscreen had migrated into my eyes. Eventually, I started crying again and had to tell her why and she has been so understanding about my reaction. I'm glad to have a person IRL can share that with.

[Edited 6/2/16 16:13pm]

my mum couldn't stand him

My dad said he respected his business ethic and said he was very smart. He said he also had good taste in women......My mom (in the 80's) despised him and hated his guts. But in the last 10 years she warmed up to him and realized how musically diverse he was...And even my hardcore hip-hop loving brother dug the "Parade" record....Not that it mattered, but I always played "Dirty Mind" and "1999" with the headphones on so my mom wouldn't hear the profanity.

My mother and her husband blamed him for my delinquency. Truth was, he was just a great scapegoat to cover for their alcoholism and violence, which was the real cause of my lashing out.

Thank you for helping me through it all, Mr. Nelson!

My dad got me into him, he loved Purple Rain / Lovesexy / SOTT... (he got me into Stevie / Beatles / early MJ too)

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My mum doesn't mind him, she took me to wembley stadium in 93 when i was 13, she liked the show. However she's more of a simply red kind of person - yuk..

My mother loved Prince since the beginning of his career, so yeah...I ended up loving him when Rave Un2 The Joy Fantastic came out.

My father was indifferent. But he also wasn't around much.

My mother's sister loved Prince, and we'd listen to 1999 together a lot. My aunt was the cool aunt who let you taste wine at age 10, and let us cuss for kicks. She also taught me how to drive, and one car she had that I learned in was a 1976 red Corvette. I mean, we were blasting LRC in 1982 when she'd be driving me around town with her.

Mother hated Prince. Our church had some big anti-music thing one Sunday night. They passed around the 1999 cover, and played clips from "Let's Pretend We're Married" and "DMSR". The thing is, the sound system at our church was fantastic, and the bass was thumping. They also attacked The Police (Murder By Numbers), and others. They later attacked Christian artists like Amy Grant, and Petra (this was circa 1984, in the midst of the PMRC and backmasking craze).

We came home, and mom ripped all the posters off my wall, and told me I was going to have to get rid of my records. I hid them that night, and told her the next day that I gave them away. She tried to police everything I bought from then on out. (God, if she only really knew what the Mary Jane Girls were singing about on the "In My House" 45 I bought.) My brother and I still listened to Prince, just on the down low.

Prince died on the 4th anniversary of my mother's passing. Same day, April 21. I sent an iMessage to my brother later that day, and told him, "Imagine the look on mom's face when Prince showed up this morning." He said he thought about the same thing over lunch, and had a giggle about it. My aunt thought it was funny, too.

My mom liked him growing up and my dad is not a huge fan but when Kiss or When Doves Cry comes on the radio, him and I will jam out

My parents "grew up" with Prince, being that they were born in the 60's, so they weren't as shocked/outraged/turned off by him as, i guess, their parents would likely be. They liked a lot of his music and could be considered "casual" fans. My father, a miltary vet, told me a long time ago that the first cassette tape he bought was "Purple Rain" and it was his road trip music for an entire drive from North Carolina to El Paso, Texas, his first duty station in 1984 (ironically the year I was born). He also told me that he met an aquaintance of Prince from his younger years on a plane ride from Texas. They happened to be sitting beside each other, and this person showed him a photo album with high school pics and news clippings of Prince during the trip. Unfortunately, my dad doesn't really remember much else about this person. My interest in Prince's music later on in my teens kinda reignited my dad's so much that I passed on my "Hits/B-Sides" discs to him and "splurged" for the box set lol. My mom is also an admirer of Prince. She loved a lot of what she heard when I used to blast his tunes around the house. Her favorite song is "Diamonds & Pearls". She was the first person to text me when she heard the news in April. She didn't want to believe it, and figured I would know more. She admittedly shed tears as time passed, not only out of knowing how much his music impacted me, but because quite a few of her memories are intertwined with his songs.

Technically my parents are the reason I'm a fan. They've always liked his music, so I grew up listening to him every now and then. My Dad and Aunt went to the Dirty Mind and Controversy tours (before he met my Mom). Then he and my Mom went to the Purple Rain tour together. Years ago my aunt blew up a photo she took of Prince at the PR show that she went to and framed it for me as a gift, that meant a lot to me.

I played the Gold experience CD in the car when I first got it, my mom didn't exactly appreciate the lyrical subtleties of P Control.

Great stories everyone! Thanks for sharing. My mom used to say stuff like "oh, he's just like James Brown" or "he sure is ugly". I just thought she was old and out of touch. Then when Musicology came along and Prince was telling everyone to bring the whole family, I brought her to one of the shows. She has only said nice things about him since that concert. All my friends and entire family have been really nice to me ever since he died. They know how much he meant to me.

I was very lucky.

We lived in a suburban house with a great basement with a fireplace, carpets and two big sofas that had a great sound system: MacIntosh tube amplifier, top-of-line turn table and a diamond stylus we replaced every few months, plus two giant speakers that weighed 200 hundred pounds each. Don't ask me the make, my genius audiophile uncle made them himself and let us have them because they were too heavy to fly to his new job in Algeria.

People spent most of their time upstairs, so anyone that wanted to listen to music real loud had ample opportunity, and that included my dad with his Pink Floyd and Wagner, my mom with her sacred music, my sister with dance and rock records and my brother with his Led Zep, Deep Purple, Rush and Iron Maiden.

Everyone would play music loud, but the loudest was my dad, so he could never say: hey turn that down! The neighbors were complaining about him, not us.

I played my Prince records loud and often, and sometimes my sister or brother would put one of his songs or listen with me. Then we all moved out one by one, but I could still put a record there while visiting, they'd be all: "go on and play those, but it's no purple rain."

When Prince came on the scene I was only 10. His music was a little inappropriate for me at the time, however, by the time Purple Rain came around I was old enough to listen to and appreciate his music. Even my mother has a favorite Price song, "Kiss" She likes the lyric about "you don't have to watch Dynasty, to have an attitude..." Purple Rain was one of the few albums I owned as a teen.

my folks love him fortunately because I had access to his music.

My parents had no idea what I was listening to. They would have been mortified. My first, Purple Rain, was mostly okay, but I would run and skip Darling Nikki when it came on. By the time I bought Controversy and Dirty Mind, I waited until they weren't home or listened on cassette in my car.

Fast forward: I won't let my kids hear these records. Only the tame ones. Maybe when they are older.

Let's see:

Mom: LOVES HIM, Grew up listening to his music since '82 when Little Red Corvette's on MTV. Really wants to see him in concert so bad, Never really cared for his "newer" music. (She's more like a 1979-1994 person when it comes to Hits.....)

Dad: Hardly even care less of a damn about him. Once said "Purple Rain (album?) was the last good thing from him....until he made UTCM" and always keeps mentioning that movie like it was the "worst" thing ever from his entire career, oh and the name change thing. He perfers The Time over him....

Sister #1: Idk but has heard of him somehow.

Sister #2: Idk I would say she's ok with his music, she has seen the New Girl episode, watched Purple Rain w/ me one day, and is aware of his feud with having his music on the internet because he was too "anal" about it. She once said to me "I looked at his pictures the other day, he looks like he hasn't aged like god damn" like a year ago.

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[Edited 6/2/16 21:41pm]

[Edited 6/2/16 21:41pm]

MoBettaBliss said:

my mum couldn't stand him

Mine too. My mum called him "Prance" - which I still think was a pretty good pun.

Dad watched and saw a lot of Prince through me. He was an Elvis, Hank Willams, country music and rock and roll kind of fellow. He really like Purple Rain (which links with the country vibe people put to it), and he knew sexy mf for obvious reasons.

Mom is two years younger than my father was. As someone that grew up with black and white movies she really enjoys under the cherry moon the movie, more so than purple rain. She likes some of Prince's music and the fact he is well dressed and wears beautiful colors. She once said Prince sings better than michael Jackson when I played one of my favorite Prince songs, the Beautiful ones. It was a mighty proud moment. No knock against MJ, I am just more of a Prince fan.

I never let my parents see the cover of the Lovesexy album. The year was 1988.

When I was a teenager listening to Prince, my mother used to refer to him disapprovingly as 'That dirty little man'. Actually that was a perfect and wonderful description!