beautyunaffected said:

Out of curiousity... Any white people that have been Prince fans from the beginning? You know since 1979? Looking back on the era it seems like music industry was pretty segregated. There was separate music charts and everything. Even from personal experience my mother (who is white) didnt take notice of Prince until Purple Rain. Where as my father (who is black) has been a fan since 1979.

i'm white 24/7...loved Prince since late 79.

I'm not white, but I can weigh in on the subject, because I've got lots of white friends. The vast majority of my white friends knew nothing of Prince until Purple Rain, maybe one or two with 1999. Whereas my black friends/remember Soft and Wet, Still Waiting, I Wanna Be Your Lover, etc. when Prince was played exclusively on R&B stations. He crossed over with Purple Rain, so perhaps that's why. I will say that white friends who are musicians are more familiar with his earliest music, because they are music junkies, and research everything.

beautyunaffected said:

Yep am a white Prince fan since 1980. Already loved I Wanna Be Your Lover in 79 when i first heard it. Music is for everyone

[Edited 8/7/16 5:05am]

beautyunaffected said:

Out of curiousity... Any white people that have been Prince fans from the beginning? You know since 1979? Looking back on the era it seems like music industry was pretty segregated. There was separate music charts and everything. Even from personal experience my mother (who is white) didnt take notice of Prince until Purple Rain. Where as my father (who is black) has been a fan since 1979.

I'm actually black. The white is just a birthmark.

But seriously folks, I'm a white boy from the mid-south, in my late 40s, and I found Prince right from the get-go. I grew up listening to country music like Johnny Lee, Mickey Gilley, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, etc., alongside stuff like Earth Wind & Fire, The Commodores, Three Dog Night, Ambrosia, Christopher Cross, Player, ELO, and more. I really found him on a K-Tel record, which had "I Wanna Be Your Lover" tucked in the middle of side one. I'd casually heard of "Soft and Wet" before that, but the K-Tel record sealed the deal.

My mother haaaaaated Prince. We battled forever over Prince. The irony is that they both died on t he same day, April 21 (she in 2012). I messaged my brother after I heard the news about Prince, and said, "Imagine the look on mom's face when Prince showed up this morning".

PS The beginning was 1978.

beautyunaffected said:

Out of curiousity... Any white people that have been Prince fans from the beginning? You know since 1979? Looking back on the era it seems like music industry was pretty segregated. There was separate music charts and everything. Even from personal experience my mother (who is white) didnt take notice of Prince until Purple Rain. Where as my father (who is black) has been a fan since 1979.

I'm a white older woman I wasn't a big Prince fan in his early days (when Prince hit the music scene, I was already getting close to 40 years old) but my son became a fan and I was happy that he had discovered Prince. He started to learn about Prince's influences from the musicians of my generation and I helped introduce him to a lot of that music. It kind of created a musical bridge between us. I grew up listening to black music - all the early STAX, Muscle Shoals and Motown stuff. Those long discussions helped us create a bond through music which was really neat and endures to this day. We became a family of musicologists - tracing all of the influences of different artists. When I was a teenager in the 1960s, we tuned into all the music stations that played R&b, soul and funk. We travelled to the USA just to buy records we couldn't get in Canada. Toronto had a big R&B music community. We had clubs that featured black artists and bands from all over - so there were some live music venues with both black & white audiences. That particular music scene was not very segregated. I think that's why Prince liked hanging around and playing in Toronto.

[Edited 8/7/16 9:24am]

RainbowGranny said:

Another Whitie that has been a fan since 1979. I have always made an effort to follow all types of music closely, and after hearing I Want to be Your Lover on Top 40 of all things, I was a fan. You are right though about the segregation of stations. I didn't even know Soft & Wet had been a R&B hit until after the fact. I started checking our R & B stations after that for a line of Prince singles that never hit mainstream radio.

I'm a white girl who's 3 months older than Prince-almost to the day.

American Bandstand did it for me and I was a strong fan from then on-but when I read the list of P's influences-he and I listened to the same things on the radio in the 60's and 70's. I was always that kid that listened to stuff none of my friends were listening to.

Lost track around '90 when babies took over my life-catching up as quickly as I can.

Funny thing is-it's like falling in love all over again with the constant innovation.

Nothing compares.

Bunsterdk said: