Not to be outdone by ther MPLS Star-Tribune and NY Post, The Cleveland Plain Dealer has an article on Prince in its Sunday, March 14 edition.

You can access the article online through Cleveland.Com. As well, in a side note The Detroit Free Press and News has an in-depth feature on Detroit rocker Bob Seger, who is also being inducted into the Rock Hall with Prince and ZZ Top and The Dells and George Harrison on Monday.

[w] http://www.cleveland.com/...257381.xml

Prince: A look inside the elusive artist's purple reign

03/14/04

John Soeder
Plain Dealer Pop Music Critic


FROM: Prince's Publicist

TO: John Soeder

RE: Prince Interview



We may very well have an affirmative answer from Prince. Be prepared for a last-minute "Can you speak with Prince now?" phone call. Do you have a cell phone number . . . just in case?

And so it began, with an encouraging e-mail. . . .

Prince Rogers Nelson Prince for short, aka His Purple Highness, His Royal Badness and the Artist Formerly Known as Prince, back when he changed his name to a doohickey is a mystery wrapped in a riddle decked out in a trench coat and leg warmers.

At least that's what the enigmatic superstar was wearing when percussionist Sheila E. first met him backstage after a concert in 1978, the same year Warner Bros. released Prince's self-produced debut, "For You."

"I'm thinking, WHAT is he doing?' " Sheila E. said. "It was a shocker. But it was cool."

A quarter-century later, Prince continues to confound. Cool as ever, this incoming Rock and Roll Hall of Famer still makes us wonder: WHAT is he doing?

His albums have sold 36.5 million copies in the United States alone, according to the Recording Industry Association of America.

He has 30 Top 40 hits to his credit, including "Little Red Corvette," "When Doves Cry," "Let's Go Crazy," "Raspberry Beret" and "Kiss."

Alicia Keys and OutKast will do the honors Monday night when Prince is inducted into the Rock Hall during a gala ceremony at New York City's Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.

Keys covered Prince's "How Come U Don't Call Me Anymore?" on her first album. And OutKast's "Speakerboxxx/The Love Below" echoes Prince at his eclectic best.

Rock 'n' roll, R&B, psychedelia, pop, new-wave, funk - you name it, Prince has been there. He's Little Richard, James Brown and Jimi Hendrix rolled into one multi-instrumentalizing, singing-songwriting, all-around entertainer, with a touch of Sly Stone, too.

"Prince incorporated a little from here, a little from there," said guitarist Dez Dickerson, who backed Prince during the first five years of his career, through the 1983 double album "1999."

"Prince is a sponge," Dickerson said. "He knows how to move from imitation to innovation to imagination as well as anybody."

We're also talking about an artist who arguably has done more to popularize the color purple than Hendrix, Donny Osmond and Alice Walker combined.

And don't U 4get about the guy's groundbreaking use of alphanumeric shorthand.

Prince, 45, is hitting the road with his New Power Generation band on the heels of the Rock Hall hoopla for a national tour to promote his upcoming album, "Musicology." They'll perform Saturday, April 17, at Gund Arena.

"I've not met anyone like Prince," said Mavis Staples, a Hall of Famer herself. She was inducted five years ago with the Staple Singers.

Prince caught Staples in concert in the mid-1980s and introduced himself after the show.

"Lo and behold, here comes Prince walking toward me with this white suit on, white boots and a Lucite cane," Staples said. "He was doing this hip walk, too. He walks really hip.

"When we went in the dressing room, I found out this child is so painfully bashful. . . . He just stood there, rolling his big eyes at me and smiling."

Prince went on to produce two albums for Staples. He also cast her in "Graffiti Bridge," the sequel to his 1984 blockbuster "Purple Rain."

"Graffiti Bridge" was filmed in Prince's hometown of Minneapolis at his sprawling Paisley Park studio complex. Staples said her sister Yvonne fixed soul food for the cast in Prince's kitchen.

"Paisley Park was smelling like down home!" Staples said. "My sister cooked turnip and mustard greens, corn bread, ham hocks, neck bones, corn on the cob and candied yams."

Prince did not partake, however.

"I think Prince had him a cupcake," Staples said. "He's not into soul food."

Inside a purple haze

Three weeks passed with no "Can you speak with Prince now?" phone call. Then his publicist informed me of a change in plans: Prince wanted to do the interview via e-mail.

Was there still a chance of getting him on the phone? No. How about in person? No.

It was e-mail or nothing, the publicist said. She instructed me to submit questions ASAP. . . .

Listen to any given Prince song and chances are it's about one of three things:

Sex. Or sex. Or sex.

OK, maybe four things - Prince is prone to singing about spirituality, too.

"Look at the 'Lovesexy' record [from 1988] and tour," Dickerson said. "It was one big public admission: 'I'm conflicted about all of this. There's a sexual side of me and there's a spiritual side of me. I'm trying to reconcile both of them and make them work together.' "

During a break from Prince's "Dirty Mind" tour in 1980, Dickerson became a born-again Christian. He went solo three years later. Today he runs Absolute Records, an indie label specializing in Christian music.

He often discussed matters of faith with Prince. "He definitely felt he had a relationship with God that was unique to him," Dickerson said.

"One of Prince's favorite books is the Bible," Staples said. "He got so spiritual around me one time, I said, 'Boy, you gonna be a preacher!' He just laughed."

Prince reportedly became a Jehovah's Witness in the late 1990s. Last year, he showed up to proselytize on the doorstep of a Jewish family in suburban Minneapolis - on Yom Kippur, no less.

Don't underestimate his powers of persuasion. In the 1980s, it wasn't unusual for Prince to call Sheena Easton around 2 a.m. and talk her into dropping by the studio in the middle of the night to check out his latest work in progress.

"He lived in the studio," said Easton, the Scottish-born singer whose 1985 Top 10 smash "Sugar Walls" was penned by Prince.

He also had a hand in hits for Chaka Khan ("I Feel for You"), the Bangles ("Manic Monday") and Sinead O'Connor ("Nothing Compares 2 U"), among others. Prince nurtured the careers of other acts, too, including the Time and Vanity 6.

Easton was privy to the vault at Paisley Park where Prince stored hundreds - perhaps thousands - of unreleased recordings.

"There were reels and reels of multitrack [tapes]," Easton said. "He'd have half-finished songs, better than anything on the radio."

On more than one occasion, Staples emerged from Paisley Park after jamming into the wee hours with Prince and found a new day had already dawned, to her surprise.

"Oh, Mavis - sleep is a waste of time," Prince told her.

Sheila E. was one of Prince's many love interests through the years. They teamed up for numerous tours and recording projects, including her 1984 album "The Glamorous Life," whose title track was a Top 10 hit.

She'll never forget her first duet with him. "I thought I'd be playing percussion," Sheila E. said. "He was like, 'No, I want you to sing this song called "Erotic City." ' I went, 'Ohhh-KAY.'

"I didn't want to sing the curse words. So he sang 'em and I didn't sing 'em. . . . We had a great time doing it."

Prince didn't agonize during recording sessions. Songs often got knocked out in one or two takes, Sheila E. said.

"Prince has an insane work ethic," Dickerson said. "I've never seen anybody else who will go in the studio and wear out two or three [recording] engineers because he'll work three days straight without sleeping."

On the road, Prince and his bandmates shot hoops to unwind, Dickerson said. They played video games, too.

"We thought Space Invaders was incredible," Dickerson said.

From all accounts, Prince also enjoys a good laugh as much as the next guy.

"He loved to make fun of me," said Easton, who these days co-hosts a cable-TV talk show in Las Vegas. Prince used to get a kick out of hearing her repeat street-slang phrases with her Scottish burr.

Case in point: Their 1987 Top 5 duet "U Got the Look" - specifically, the line: "Your body's heck-a-slammin!"

"I'd go, 'What the hell is heck-a-slammin?' " Easton said. "He'd be on the floor, dying with laughter."

She barely had time to learn the tune before recording her part. "That was typical working with Prince," Easton said. "You got to hear the song twice and then he expected you to sing it, because that's how his mind worked. He'd hear something once and he knew it."

Nothing 2 say 2 U

The publicist forwarded my questions to Prince. Less than 24 hours later, she called me to break the bad news.

After having a look at the e-mail, Prince changed his mind. He didn't want to do the interview after all. . . .

Sheila E. said Prince decided years ago to let his music speak for itself. He was weary of being misquoted.

Besides, his elusiveness only adds to his mystique.

"He was brought up a loner," Sheila E. said. "I think he wanted to make things mysterious because he didn't want anyone to know who he was."

Two members of Prince's New Power Generation band - drummer John Blackwell and sax player Candy Dulfer - declined to be interviewed for this story. Blackwell said he could not discuss Prince without Prince's permission. Dulfer was too busy, according to her management company.

New Power Generation bassist Rhonda Smith did not respond to an interview request. Neither did two former members of Prince's Revolution band, guitarist Wendy Melvoin and keyboardist Lisa Coleman.

"Prince has surrounded himself with people who aren't going to talk about him," said Alex Hahn, author of the biography "Obsessed: The Rise and Fall of Prince."

Hahn is an attorney, too. He defended pro bono the Prince fanzine Uptown when Prince's attorneys tried to shut it down five years ago. The case was settled out of court, with Uptown staying in business.

"Prince is a control freak," Hahn said. "In the 1990s, he became increasingly insular, shutting out naysayers and anyone who would provide alternative perspectives. . . . He wants to control any discourse about him."

From the get-go, Prince had a "problematic" relationship with the media, said Bob Merlis, former publicity director at Warner Bros.

"He just didn't talk," Merlis said. "When he did do a few interviews, they were strange. They had non sequiturs."

The situation grew exponentially stranger in 1993, when Prince changed his name to an unpronounceable symbol.

"It seemed in character with the guy he had become," Dickerson said. "He became obsessed with continually turning a corner."

For his next stunt, the Artist (as the former Prince came to be known) started making public appearances with the word SLAVE scrawled on his cheek. He was unhappy about how Warner Bros. was treating him.

"I always said, if he's a slave, he's one of the best-paid slaves in the world," Merlis said.

Warner Bros. wasn't releasing albums by the Artist fast enough to keep pace with the Artist's prolificacy - at least not to his satisfaction.

"The third single from the previous album would bump into the first single from the new album," Merlis said. "The promotion department couldn't handle the output because he would be in competition with himself. It was like, 'OK, we love the guy - but can we have a break?' "

Since parting ways with Warner Bros. in 1996, Prince (he resumed going by his old name in 2000) regularly has put out albums, EPs, singles and videos in partnership with other record labels and through his online NPG Music Club at www.npgmc.com.

He earned a Grammy nomination for his latest release, "N.E.W.S.," a collection of instrumental jams. Prince didn't win an award at last month's Grammy ceremony, although his sizzling duet with Beyonce stole the show.

His induction into the Rock Hall was "automatic," said Merlis, a member of the hall's nominating committee.

"He's a musical force of nature," Merlis said. "He changed everything."

"In terms of pushing himself and pushing the envelope as much as he can, Prince will always steward his talent well," Dickerson said. His memoir "My Time With Prince" is available online at www.dezdickerson.com.

"Prince isn't like the average Joe," Staples said. "But he's no Howard Hughes, either. . . . He's a beautiful spirit. He reminds me of Curtis Mayfield more than anyone."

Staples hopes to have a new CD of inspirational music in stores later this year. Sheila E. is gearing up to record a gospel album.

And what's next for Prince?

"He can turn his mind to whatever he wants and be successful at it," Easton said. "And for Prince, success is on his own terms. . . . When has he ever done anything to conform to what people think he should be doing?

"Success to him is when he finishes a project and he's happy with it."

To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:

jsoeder@plaind.com, 216-999-4562



© 2004 The Plain Dealer. Used with permission.

sorry for the double post -- dang 56k dial-up!

Good article!

Very interesting article. The journalist did a very good job of writing an article, even though Prince refused to speak with him.

awwwww, man! i woulda been like, "at least have a candied yam!"

I live in Cleveland, Ohio, and I bought today's Plain Dealer so that I can check out the article about Prince. Haven't had a chance to read it yet, but I certainly will make time for it.

That is bullshit. If you go song by song through Prince's albums, I bet songs about sex are less than 20% of them....less than 10% even. He sings about love more than anything else. This guy wrote a decent article, but was too lazy to get his facts straight. He is obsessed with sex, so that's mainly what he sees in Prince's music.

RupertZ said:

seems to me that maybe the guy who wrote this is just pickin up of what's on the surface of whatever songs he's listenin to, and not really listenin to stuff very closely. least that's what it seems like...

RupertZ said:

Come on, for someone who basically exists as an artist because of his (former) sexual explicitness, you can expect people to regard him that way. Prince deliberately choose to create this niche to propel his career --- and it is to be regarded as just that, a facade.

Besides, I don't think you should take the author litteraly on this, it is a cynical kind of joke.

a2grafix said:

Cool. I love hearing this sort of trivia. It means nothing to everyone else, but to Prince fans that's such a cool thing to know.
Sheila: "If we cannot make babies, maybe we can make some time", Prince: "F*ck so pretty you and me, Erotic city come alive"
[This message was edited Mon Mar 15 3:00:54 2004 by toejam]

The article also says you can see the induction as it happens online at www.cleveland.com/rockhall