I was going thru my Prince archives and found a notebook that was filled with 4 years of THE PRINCE FAMILY newsletters. After re-reading them, I realized how amazing this publication was. It came in the mail every two weeks, and listed EVERY Prince article, news mention, and associate artist news. It was amazing and combined with UPTOWN it made it the best time to be a Prince fan (information wise, not necessarily music wise). Around that time the PPML was in force as well. I love Prince.org, but there was something great about waiting for this in your mailbox. It truely sucks that Prince threatened the creators of the newsletter (Diana Dawkins & Edwena Brunell) with a lawsuit and they shut it down. That was the start of the end for so many Prince fans.

Now that I remember it, they even had a FREE phone line that you could call with news or listen to the latest updates (including tour dates and TV appearances) which they sometimes needed to update several times in a single day.

My hat goes out to those behind THE PRINCE FAMILY newsletter. You are very much missed. How many others out there feel the same way?

Never heard of it...Hmmm...U must be older than me...hmmm

madhouseman said:

Don't make stuff up to make yourself intertesting. Stick to the FACTS -- which in this case have been widely publicised: Diana was seriously pissed off with P for a long while, and then the lawsuits vs Uptown & co (which they were NOT mentioned in) were the final straw.

And out went an intelligent publication.

Cue the birth of the original prince.org news ... Which was okay until they allowed posts from users without having proper moderators, and then it all went downhill fast.

I have EVERY issue of the Prince Family newsletter and yes,it was great! Diana Dawkins (the person in charge) really gave us alot of news,exclusive updates,etc and it's obvious that she put alot of time and effort into it.I remember calling her hotline all the time,sometimes several times a day.It was so much fun getting that newsletter in your mailbox every two weeks.I wasn't on the Internet back then (mid-90s),so I had to rely mostly on Uptown and Diana's newsletter for all the latest Prince news.

Unfortunately,when Prince decided to sue Uptown and other fan sites in 1999,Diana got pissed and shut down.

I used to call their hotline once a week

At one point I had nearly every single issue...lost most all off them moving tho

DavidEye said:

She sold all her Prince stuff too...don't really blame her tho...the guy was being a dick!

i became a prince freek right when they were bein sued and shuttin down, so i have no idea how it all wuz

Handclapsfingasnapz said:

It was pretty cool, actually. There were a few fanzines out (The Prince Family, Prince Thang, Controversy, Uptown (with bootleg guides intact ), and a few others)

It was a good time to be a fan

BartVanHemelen said:

Bart-
Get your head out of your ass and look around for once. Reread my original post before you make a public jackass out of yourself again. How could I be trying to make myself interesting by praising someone else's work? I had nothing to do with THE PRINCE FAMILY. I was simply reflecting on how well done their magazine was during that time. If you have an issue with that, speak up son, but otherwise, shut the pie hole when it comes to me.

As I recall, TPF DID get a cease and desist notice back in the day, when the first round of letters went out. UPTOWN got theirs during the second round of Londell fun. Glad I could set you straight. Now if you are a good boy for the rest of the day, we'll take you out for ice cream. Sit up straight son, people are watching.

That's what time it is.

I remember and do miss it! Pity they got sued. They meant well!!!

I don't remember a FREE phone line. I thought I remembered paying ld rates to call. Like you, however, I called at least once a week to keep up with what was going on. I didn't have a computer so it was my connection to the current happenings. I also enjoyed reading the biweekly newsletters and have ALL of them in my collection of Prince memorabilia. I had contact with Diana a few times, won a couple of her contests like her Christmas card designs one year. Now that I think about it, it was this publication that connected me to so many more fans and introduced me to LovesexyDC! It was big fun back then and I really DO miss that kind of fan fun!

I won a " Hate U" promo cd single from The Prince Family...I still have it (I also still have the 'Dinner With Delores' cassette single they sent out)

NewPowerSista said:

Well...yeah...ya paid LD rates, but it was not a 900 number or anything. As long as ya did not call suring the day, it did not cost much at all

Being a Prince fan used to be ALL SORTS of fun, before Prince decided to be a party-poop



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[This message was edited Sat Jun 14 21:05:59 PDT 2003 by Nikster]

Nikster said:

I remember the online auction Diana held to sell off her Prince stuff. After the auction, she kept the website up for a while, then it disappeared and she's not around in the "Prince community" anymore.

i too miss diana.

but i completely respect and understand her decision to move on.

not speaking for her, but i doubt prince has done anything since then to make her regret her decision.

One thing I really liked about Diana's newsletters was the fan letters.Do you remember someone named "Nikki G",she wrote a really great letter in the mid-90s,and it got alot of response from other readers.Diana herself would write the occasional commentary and I usually agreed with everything she wrote.


I also remember in the summer of 96,Diana sent all her readers an exclusive promo cassette of the "Dinner With Delores" single.She received these from a "mysterious donor".Do you guys remember that?

Those were the days, I certainly remember The Prince Family Newsletter. Used to call the hotline from work to have a little Prince in my workday. I miss it too, I have the Dinner with Delores cassette they sent out and I won some contest where they sent me a Girl 6 promo keycahin and T-shirt. I sent in a few articles to the newsletter and they were included in a couple issues, concert reviews and stuff. It was great fun getting it in the mail, and it had every little itsy bitsy news item relating to any artist ever affiliated with Prince. That let me know when it was time to go out and hunt for some obscure CD or something.

Off the subject but I found a Cd at MediaPlay the other day by Matt Fink entitled Music for Angels. It was $4.99 so I got it. It's all instrumental and etheral.It was just so weird to see his name on one of their little white plastic things separating artists from each other I couldn't believe it when I saw Matt Fink. It's from 1994. Anyone else have it?

I remember calling the hotline one time,and Diana starts off by saying "There is ALOT of news,so grab a pencil".LOL...she had a ton of important dates,TV appearances,concert dates,etc to tell us about and she sounded really excited.This was sometime during the mid-90s,which brings up another point...



Even though the "slave years" were filled with alot of drama and disappointments,I still miss all the excitement from those days. Prince's career was still very active at that point,which is one reason why Diana always had alot of news to report.If her newsletter was still in existence today,she wouldn't even have much to report!

It is so cool to see that there are others who miss it as well. I have been looking thru them, and they really did create excitement for them. I agree with Davideye, the 1990s weren't his best time but it was a great time to be a fan. There were many tracks leaked out, concerts and tours actually took place with some planning, Glam Slam clubs existed, and there was music worth listening to.

I think that we were all waiting for something amazing in 1999, and then...

the lawsuits, the letdowns, the crappy albums and most of us dropped out of the hardcore circle and into the fan, but not fanatic league. THE PRINCE FAMILY newsletter brought back alot of great memories. If you have them, check them back out.

Yeah, That was great. They had a cool website for news. You could always get fast information about related artists performances around town.

madhouseman said:

Apply this to yourself first.

madhouseman said:

Learn to read. I said you were sexing up the story, pretending you knew the inside scoop.

madhouseman said:

Where do I say you had?

madhouseman said:

Yes they did, but they didn't shut down. They changed the symbol to a "zero" in their name.

madhouseman said:

Hilarious. Don't you know the difference between a threatening email and a LAWSUIT? Uptown learned that they were sued by reading it on BillBoard! See the difference?

YOU said origianlly (scroll up to the first post):

madhouseman said:

They shut it down when the lawsuits came down, but they were NOT mentioned in those. They were getting fed up with Prince after a constant barrage of insults on the official website, after the threats to ALL sites, and the lawsuits were the final straw. (And it didn't help that the music sucked.) But they did NOT shut it down after a threat.

DavidEye said:

Againsomeone trying to make himself interesting. She got them from WB, and IIRC she told so at the time.

DavidEye said:

I still have mine , it's in another state, but I have it

BartVanHemelen said:

Bart,I see you're playing your same old tired game,the annoying "Mr.Know-It-All",huh? I remember Diana specifically saying that those cassettes came from a "mystery donor".Yes,we could all figure out that it was probably Warner Bros.

Could you please stop being such a smartass?

DavidEye said:

Yep, but this "mysterious donor" was Warners, IIRC...

Neversin.

BartVanHemelen said:

Indeed she did...

Neversin.

I used to call that number like every day. I never bothered subscribing to the newsletter because I didn't want to wait a month to hear the news, when I could hear it sooner over the phone.

That was back during my first quarter at college, and my first time living on my own. I recall my phone bills were quite high.

Nikster said:

I still have mine too


I also won some contest that Diana put together.The prize was a huge promotional poster from 'Emancipation.

BartVanHemelen said:

Damn,are you happy now,Bart? You're truly one of a kind.You actually get off on proving somebody wrong (as if ANY of this information is really important).You really should get out more.

madhouseman said:

Here's a list of stuff they did to piss off Diana:

http://groups.google.com/...i1.aol.com

But they did not threaten her with a lawsuit.