Prince Rogers Nelson: The Only Guy That Could Steal Your Girl and Wear Her Wardrobe. Flawlessly.
February 28, 2018
Prince Rogers Nelson was born June 7, 1958 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. His father was a pianist and songwriter, his mother a jazz singer. Growing up, Prince suffered from seizures caused by epilepsy.
His parents divorced when he was 10, and his mother remarried. Her husband and Prince, however, didn’t get along that well. Consequently, he went back and forth between his mother and father’s homes. Eventually, he moved into his neighbor’s house, the home of his future bassist, André Cymone.
Prince attended Bryant Junior High and Central High School in Minneapolis where he played football, basketball, and baseball. (MY MANS WAS KILLING THE ATHLETICISM!) It was in junior high school that he met Jimmy Jam, impressing him with his musical talent, knowledge of various instruments, and of course, his work ethic.
In 1975, Pepe Willie (Prince’s cousin’s husband) formed 94 East, a band with Marcy Ingvoldstad and Kristie Lazenberry. He asked André and Prince to record the tracks. Pepe wrote the songs and Prince played the guitar. Together, they cowrote “Just Another Sucker” for the band.
A year later, ya man Prince created his own demo tape with producer Chris Moon. Unfortunately, they could get a recording track from the demo, but Chris didn’t give up. He took the demo to Minneapolis businessman Owen Husney who signed Prince at 17 years old to a management contract. They then created another demo which, along with a press kit, gathered interest from numerous record labels. Which labels, you ask? Warner Bros., A&M, and Columbia are just a few.
Ya mans went with Warner Bros. For three albums, Warner Bros. agreed to not only give Prince full creative control, but also ownership of the publishing rights. Prince moved to Sausalito, California and got to work.
“For You,” Princes first studio album, was released April 7, 1978. This man wrote, produced, arranged, composed and played all 27 instruments on the album, asked from one song, “Soft and Wet,” which was co-written by Chris Moon. His album cost twice the amount of his advance, but he had songs hit the charts!
I’ve got to skip some stuff y’all cause this is already long, and I’m honestly not halfway finished.
Here are some highlights:
1979 - Price created a band with Andre on bass, Dez Dickerson on guitar, Gayle Chapman and Doctor Fink on keyboards, and Bobby Z. on the drums.
October 1979 - “Prince” was released. It hit #4 on the Billboard Top R&B/Black Albums charts, #22 on the Billboard 200, and went platinum.
1980 - “Dirty Mind” was released. He recorded it in his own studio and it was certified gold. He also opened for Rick James’ Fire It Up tour that year.
February 1981 - Ya mans made his first appearance on “Saturday Night Live.”
October 1981 - “Controversy” was released.
1982 - A double album, “1999” was released. It sold over 3 million copies.
In 1984, Prince starred in a major motion picture. We all know what it was: “Purple Rain.” It was a loss autobiographical and with it came the album of the same name, which was also the film’s soundtrack. The album sold more than 13 million copies in the US and was #1 on the Billboard 200 chart for 24 consecutive weeks. The film won Prince an Academy Award for Best Original Song Score and grossed over $68 million.
At one point that year, Prince had an album, single, and film simultaneously ranked #1 in the US. He was the first singer to ever achieve such an accomplishment.
