Latest / Booked On Rock with Eric Senich / The Enigma of Prince: What Makes 'Sign O’ The Times' Timeless? [Episode 320]

Transcript

The Enigma of Prince: What Makes 'Sign O’ The Times' Timeless? [Episode 320] · Booked On Rock with Eric Senich

0:00
Speaker 1: I'll look back at the remarkable life and career of
0:02
Speaker 1: one of the most mysterious figures in music history, Prince,
0:05
Speaker 1: through the prism of the record most widely perceived as
0:08
Speaker 1: his masterpiece, nineteen eighty seven Sign of the Times. That's
0:12
Speaker 1: next on Booked on Rock. We're totally boomed rock and roll.
0:18
Speaker 2: I mean, I'll leave you. You're reading Little Hans this,
0:20
Speaker 2: it's time to.
0:21
Speaker 1: Rock and roll. Roll up, I totally booked. Welcome back
0:30
Speaker 1: to book on Rock. This is the podcast for those
0:33
Speaker 1: about to read and rock. The podcast today is going
0:37
Speaker 1: to be about Prince. We've had an episode on Prince recently,
0:41
Speaker 1: always happy to do another, and this time we have
0:45
Speaker 1: John McKee. He's the author of Prince A Sign of
0:47
Speaker 1: the Times. Welcome to the podcast.
0:50
Speaker 2: John, Eric is an honor lovely to meet you.
0:52
Speaker 1: You decided to tell the story of Prince's life and
0:54
Speaker 1: career through the prism of one particular album, nineteen eighty
0:58
Speaker 1: seven Sign of the Times. To talk about that, there's
1:01
Speaker 1: a lot.
1:01
Speaker 3: If you know about Prince, and most people do know
1:03
Speaker 3: about Prince, you will understand that as pop music goes,
1:07
Speaker 3: he's as good as it gets. I think you know,
1:09
Speaker 3: in terms of the way he played guitar, the way
1:11
Speaker 3: he played bass, the way played drums, and the way
1:14
Speaker 3: he sang.
1:15
Speaker 2: You know, there's few in line of that.
1:17
Speaker 3: You know, Paul McCartney, maybe, Stevie Wonder maybe, but in
1:21
Speaker 3: terms of you know what he did and you know
1:24
Speaker 3: his fashion template, you know, David Boye is he's in
1:27
Speaker 3: a class of very elite company. So if you then
1:31
Speaker 3: understand about Prince that he's as good as it gets
1:33
Speaker 3: when it comes to pop music.
1:35
Speaker 2: When was he at his very best?
1:37
Speaker 3: And a lot of people would say Purple Raine because
1:39
Speaker 3: that was his the high watermark commercially. Some people would
1:42
Speaker 3: say the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in two
1:44
Speaker 3: thousand and four when he did the guitar solo to
1:46
Speaker 3: pay tribute to George Harrison, or the super Bowl, which
1:49
Speaker 3: some people would say was the best super Bowl halftime
1:52
Speaker 3: show ever. But for me, I think nineteen eighty seven,
1:56
Speaker 3: some of the times you're talking about the best person
2:00
Speaker 3: and pop music being the best ever was because I
2:03
Speaker 3: don't know if you've anyone had a chance to see
2:05
Speaker 3: The Sign of the Times movie on Imax recently, but
2:08
Speaker 3: that is Prince dancing, singing, playing guitar, playing drums, in
2:14
Speaker 3: a way that few could. The Signing of the Times
2:16
Speaker 3: album I think shows the best number of sides to him.
2:20
Speaker 3: I think, if you want to understand Prince, there's ballads,
2:23
Speaker 3: there's rocky ones, there's songs that are very much in
2:26
Speaker 3: a class of their own. In terms of something like
2:28
Speaker 3: the ballad that's Rothie Parker or if I was your girlfriend,
2:31
Speaker 3: I don't think anybody else could have done records like those.
2:34
Speaker 3: So for me, I'd always been fascinated by this record.
2:38
Speaker 3: Signing at the Times Prince cultivated mystery. So for me
2:43
Speaker 3: it was the challenge of Okay, well, can I find
2:45
Speaker 3: out how he actually made this record? Can I find
2:48
Speaker 3: out it was the same year that he did the
2:51
Speaker 3: Black album and then he pulled it. It was the same
2:53
Speaker 3: year he did the movie and then maybe flubbed the
2:55
Speaker 3: distribution of it. How can I find out how this
2:59
Speaker 3: remarkable man had this remarkable year, and how he did
3:01
Speaker 3: it and who he.
3:02
Speaker 1: Was, talk about where he's at with his career. When
3:04
Speaker 1: he begins to create the album sign of the Times,
3:07
Speaker 1: commercial high with Purple Rain, but then the follow up project,
3:11
Speaker 1: not received well, under the Cherry Moon Revolution also comes
3:15
Speaker 1: to an end. So this is a period where he's
3:17
Speaker 1: coming back from some adversity.
3:20
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I mean the story personal if I can
3:22
Speaker 3: move away from Prince and talking about me, if it's
3:24
Speaker 3: not indulgent. Is that I wrote a feature for the
3:27
Speaker 3: BC News in twenty seventeen and it was the thirtieth
3:30
Speaker 3: anniversar for a cent of the Times, and I didn't
3:33
Speaker 3: really get close to the subject matter. But part of
3:36
Speaker 3: the reason I wrote the book was I sort of thought,
3:39
Speaker 3: I wrote this feature and it was only, you know,
3:41
Speaker 3: eight hundred words or something, and it was essentially, how
3:44
Speaker 3: come the guy who gets rid of the band with
3:47
Speaker 3: whom he had the greatest success he splits up with
3:49
Speaker 3: a fiance that he thought he was going to marry
3:52
Speaker 3: and who lived with him, the first serious girlfriend he's
3:54
Speaker 3: adedly that lived with him, and he's coming off the
3:58
Speaker 3: flop of under the chair where he's ready killed. How
4:02
Speaker 3: does he go from that to his best of a record?
4:05
Speaker 3: And then I thought, and the light bulb in my
4:07
Speaker 3: head went, there's a book in this. And so fast
4:11
Speaker 3: forward to twenty twenty when Lockdown happened and I finally
4:13
Speaker 3: drummed up the courage to write it. And the answer
4:17
Speaker 3: is that this was someone with incredible drive, with incredible
4:20
Speaker 3: work ethic, with incredible belief in himself. But he did
4:24
Speaker 3: also have help, and that was part of the reason
4:26
Speaker 3: I wanted to find the book. So write the book,
4:28
Speaker 3: because you know, the Revolution do infuse a lot of
4:33
Speaker 3: the flavors of Sending the Times, even though the Prince
4:35
Speaker 3: recorded a lot of it on his own, A lot
4:38
Speaker 3: of the songs about Susannah who Sonna Melvoyne, which the
4:42
Speaker 3: woman that he split up with that I just mentioned.
4:45
Speaker 3: And you know, he did people around him in the
4:47
Speaker 3: studios sometimes when he made these records, not just engineers.
4:51
Speaker 3: So it was just figuring out how this singular, talented,
4:56
Speaker 3: mercurial individual created it when he needed help and when
5:00
Speaker 3: he didn't need help.
5:02
Speaker 1: The opening to Sign of the Times is the title track,
5:05
Speaker 1: the world was in a different place. It's not by
5:09
Speaker 1: many as his most socially conscious song to date. What
5:12
Speaker 1: was going on around Prince at that time when we
5:15
Speaker 1: hear the song, because this is, as you know, for
5:17
Speaker 1: pop songs. Usually pop artists do not tread in this territory,
5:22
Speaker 1: not even rap groups like Public Enemy. You point out
5:25
Speaker 1: that too.
5:26
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think Signing of the Times is a remarkable record.
5:29
Speaker 3: Sign of The Times was made partly in La whether
5:33
Speaker 3: We're earthquakes.
5:33
Speaker 2: At the time HIV AIDS was becoming an issue.
5:38
Speaker 3: I thought what was fascinating was, I don't know if
5:40
Speaker 3: you've seen the quest Lot movie Summer of Soul where
5:43
Speaker 3: the Harlem Festival. One of the precurring one of the
5:47
Speaker 3: recurring issues is people at that festival saying, why is
5:51
Speaker 3: the US spending all this money on space travel? This
5:54
Speaker 3: is a big almost you know, social argument in the sixties.
5:58
Speaker 3: And fast forward to ninety eight six, nineteen eighty seven
6:01
Speaker 3: when Princes making the record and he's saying, is Sellino
6:04
Speaker 3: when a rocket ship explodes? So he was, I think
6:08
Speaker 3: making on the console recording in his new house in
6:14
Speaker 3: gulp And Boulevard when Challenger happened, which was the explosion
6:19
Speaker 3: of the.
6:20
Speaker 1: The NASA April of eighty six.
6:22
Speaker 3: I think that was April of eighty six, and that's
6:25
Speaker 3: the start of Signing of the Times. You've also got
6:27
Speaker 3: earthquakes on the West Coast. You've also got the emotional
6:31
Speaker 3: earthquake of splitting out his girlfriend. You've also got you know,
6:35
Speaker 3: in the book deals with the were makeup artes where
6:38
Speaker 3: people around Princess Camp who were living with HIV and
6:42
Speaker 3: people at that time are going, what is this new
6:44
Speaker 3: thing that people are talking about. It was also in
6:46
Speaker 3: the cover of the La Times, which was in this
6:49
Speaker 3: hotel room when he was checking out one day. So
6:52
Speaker 3: Prince was if you understand Prince, Prince was a student
6:57
Speaker 3: of lots of things. He was a student of music, obviously,
6:59
Speaker 3: and you can hear that he was a student of
7:01
Speaker 3: the news. He was very clued up, certainly the older
7:04
Speaker 3: he got, he used to sit for hours in Paisley
7:07
Speaker 3: and when he went to stay in as Elie rentals
7:10
Speaker 3: and had parties there, he would have social rights leaders,
7:14
Speaker 3: he would have intellectuals that he would sit and talk
7:17
Speaker 3: until the small hours with them about all sorts of issues.
7:20
Speaker 3: So you hear that in Sign of the Times.
7:23
Speaker 1: The lyrics in France, a skinny man died of a
7:25
Speaker 1: big disease with a little name a chance. His girlfriend
7:29
Speaker 1: came across a needle and soon she did the same.
7:32
Speaker 3: You know, as we said it was I think it
7:34
Speaker 3: was eighty six. Eighty seven was the first the year
7:36
Speaker 3: of the first Public Enemy album, and you know Death
7:40
Speaker 3: Jam tour was eighty seven, so so rap music was
7:43
Speaker 3: growing at social consciousness. I mean, it was always socially conscious,
7:46
Speaker 3: wasn't a hip hop but you know, certainly in the
7:49
Speaker 3: mid eighties and late eighties bands rap acts started becoming
7:52
Speaker 3: a lot more outspoken or a lot more mainstream.
7:56
Speaker 2: I think they were always outspoken, but Prince.
8:01
Speaker 3: Prince would talk about politics, but he would do it
8:04
Speaker 3: in his own terms, just like everything he did. You know,
8:07
Speaker 3: he'd play guitar, but he would play in his own terms.
8:09
Speaker 3: He would choose the bandmates on his own terms, and
8:12
Speaker 3: some of the times the song is definitely a man
8:15
Speaker 3: doing things in his own terms.
8:17
Speaker 1: And it does make sense now after reading that why
8:20
Speaker 1: he declined the offer to sing on Michael Jackson's Bad.
8:25
Speaker 1: He didn't like the opening.
8:27
Speaker 3: Lyric He's talked about that, doesn't he? You know who's
8:30
Speaker 3: singing that? Who's singing what to whom? I think was
8:32
Speaker 3: his phrase to Michael Jackson. And you know, I love
8:34
Speaker 3: this story. That's I heard Susanna told not the writer
8:38
Speaker 3: tour he who's written a couple of excellent books, but Prince.
8:41
Speaker 3: But I believe she told him that Prince Re recorded
8:43
Speaker 3: a version of Bad and sent it back to Michael Jackson,
8:46
Speaker 3: that this is how it's meant to sound, And there's
8:49
Speaker 3: a couple of stories in the book elsewhere of Prince
8:51
Speaker 3: doing that. There's a story which he was in a
8:55
Speaker 3: studio and he heard a bass player's rendish of something
9:01
Speaker 3: and if he's basically going to re record it with
9:03
Speaker 3: his base on it and a little sense the base,
9:06
Speaker 3: you should have played on it and send it back
9:08
Speaker 3: to him, which was very very Prince in terms of
9:11
Speaker 3: how competitive he was. So I think given how competitive
9:16
Speaker 3: he was, I don't think there was any ever any
9:19
Speaker 3: chance of recording.
9:21
Speaker 1: He looked your butt is mine now, although.
9:26
Speaker 2: I just say that.
9:27
Speaker 3: But one of the things the book does disclose, and
9:30
Speaker 3: I believe it was the first I ever heard of
9:32
Speaker 3: it was that Prince's engineers and people who worked at
9:35
Speaker 3: Paisley in the early nineties talked about Michael Jackson coming
9:38
Speaker 3: over to Minneapolis and actually asking what kind of console
9:42
Speaker 3: he wanted in Paisley, and they were discussing them working
9:45
Speaker 3: in some material together, which is tantalizing.
9:48
Speaker 1: Oh man, Yeah, that was there was a mutual respect
9:50
Speaker 1: between the two his artists, for sure. It's yeah, there
9:54
Speaker 1: was a competitiveness there though Prince had that competitiveness about him,
9:57
Speaker 1: but they also understood they were both two of the
10:01
Speaker 1: biggest male pop stars at that point. They could relate
10:03
Speaker 1: to that pressure to follow huge albums, so there was
10:06
Speaker 1: certainly there was certainly a mutual respect. He where did
10:10
Speaker 1: he send clips of all positive reviews to Michael? Yeah,
10:14
Speaker 1: he's just a nice, little friendly like, yeah, look what
10:17
Speaker 1: I did.
10:17
Speaker 3: Yeah, he used to send them to ranch. Then he
10:19
Speaker 3: had to fax to his ranch. But I think it
10:21
Speaker 3: was quite warm. So Michael Jackson used to send, you know,
10:25
Speaker 3: clips of and this was the days before the internet,
10:27
Speaker 3: the days before YouTube, but Michael Jackson used to send
10:30
Speaker 3: videos of you know, sly Stone and early seventies shows.
10:33
Speaker 3: Go and check this out, which suggests a kind of
10:36
Speaker 3: warmness and Michael's part. But you know, Michael Jackson, whatever
10:40
Speaker 3: you think of him, whatever headlines he's had, he sort
10:43
Speaker 3: of remains.
10:44
Speaker 2: You know.
10:44
Speaker 3: Thriller was the best selling album of all time, and
10:49
Speaker 3: Prince was competitive, you know, and Michael was competitive too.
10:52
Speaker 3: So when Prince did the dates of the O two
10:54
Speaker 3: in London, Michael Inn announced even more dates of the
10:57
Speaker 3: two before he sadly passed. So that tells me that
11:01
Speaker 3: they both like to and compete with one another.
11:06
Speaker 1: Book on podcasts, we'll be back after this.
11:09
Speaker 2: Surely you can't be serious. I am serious, and don't
11:12
Speaker 2: call me surely.
11:15
Speaker 1: Where that competitiveness comes from is interesting, and you get
11:18
Speaker 1: to that in the book. He was fiercely competitive, and
11:21
Speaker 1: you're right about that coming from maybe the fact that
11:23
Speaker 1: he's from Minneapolis, right the roots there. It's where his
11:27
Speaker 1: work ethic came from, in the sense you get those
11:29
Speaker 1: brutal cold winters. It's like, what else are you going
11:31
Speaker 1: to do? You go in in woodshed work, work work, right,
11:35
Speaker 1: But also the fact that he was on the short
11:38
Speaker 1: end of the height scale and that his friends he
11:43
Speaker 1: could play basketball, he was a really good player, but
11:46
Speaker 1: because of his height, he wasn't going to get into
11:50
Speaker 1: college or NBA whatever. But also his friends that his
11:53
Speaker 1: taller friends were getting the girls. So those things he
11:56
Speaker 1: turns into a.
11:57
Speaker 3: Positive absolutely, absolutely, And I think that's part of his
12:04
Speaker 3: brilliance really is that this was someone that was going
12:07
Speaker 3: to win. You know, when you talk about sports, you know,
12:10
Speaker 3: he decided that he was going to win at music.
12:13
Speaker 3: So then you know, the book covers the fact that
12:16
Speaker 3: it talks about Jimmy Hendrix, and it talks about Prince
12:20
Speaker 3: being a fan with his band of the Jackson five
12:23
Speaker 3: and Dancing Machine and things like that, and playing that
12:25
Speaker 3: in high school and then learning the guitar because he
12:28
Speaker 3: told Albert Margnolli, who's the director of in the Purple
12:31
Speaker 3: Ran movie, he said, if I played the guitar, learned
12:34
Speaker 3: the guitar, it puts me in a place that Michael
12:36
Speaker 3: Jackson can't reach. And he was thinking about that even
12:39
Speaker 3: at an early age, and that's kind of remarkable. And
12:41
Speaker 3: then you think about Prince is always I think, even
12:46
Speaker 3: among fans who are very protective of them and say
12:49
Speaker 3: there was no one like Prince, which is true, but
12:51
Speaker 3: I think because he was from the Midwest and he
12:54
Speaker 3: was born in nineteen fifty eight and he sold a
12:56
Speaker 3: lot of records, particularly in the eighties, I think who
12:59
Speaker 3: else like that? And I think Michael Jackson and Madonna
13:02
Speaker 3: are always going to be part of that conversation. And
13:05
Speaker 3: one of the things I think that's interesting about Prince
13:08
Speaker 3: is that although desperately seeking, Susan was a hit Prince
13:12
Speaker 3: in terms of movies with Purple Ring, and he reached
13:15
Speaker 3: a place that they didn't quite reach in terms of
13:18
Speaker 3: that success. And you know, I think when he told
13:21
Speaker 3: his management team, get me a movie. I have to
13:25
Speaker 3: wonder if Michael Jackson was in his mind because you know,
13:28
Speaker 3: Thriller had happened, and he thought, I don't know if
13:30
Speaker 3: I can sell as many records as Thriller, but if
13:34
Speaker 3: I make a movie, I've got an advantage over him.
13:37
Speaker 3: And I think that's also part of the reason that
13:39
Speaker 3: he maybe didn't do The Way of the World single.
13:42
Speaker 3: And I'm only guessing here, but you know, with that
13:45
Speaker 3: level of competitiveness, you know that he probably didn't want
13:49
Speaker 3: to be bracketed alongside other people.
13:51
Speaker 2: Maybe he was just shy, but you know, you do wonder.
13:54
Speaker 1: James Campion, the author of a great Prince book that
13:57
Speaker 1: just come out, was talking about that because he gets
14:00
Speaker 1: and do it in his book as well, about that
14:02
Speaker 1: Prince just wasn't comfortable recording with other people. Wasn't something
14:06
Speaker 1: he did, just as the way his personality was just
14:10
Speaker 1: wasn't something he would do. And he kind of took
14:13
Speaker 1: some heat for that, but that's who he was.
14:17
Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah, he would absolutely, and I think I tried
14:20
Speaker 3: to compare. One of the things that I think the
14:21
Speaker 3: book does or hopes to do, is compare Prince to
14:25
Speaker 3: other musicians, and some people could say, nothing compares to
14:28
Speaker 3: Prince kind of phrase. But for me, one of the
14:32
Speaker 3: things I wanted to understand is, Okay, well, what was
14:33
Speaker 3: Stevie Wonder like in the studio as opposed to Prince.
14:36
Speaker 3: And you know, Stevie Wonder I believe put his drums
14:39
Speaker 3: on last. But also he liked to have people in
14:40
Speaker 3: the studio that could react as singing, so you even
14:42
Speaker 3: know how it's going, how it was going, whereas with
14:45
Speaker 3: Prince he would record, it was a very private, sacred
14:48
Speaker 3: space for him, so he would clear everyone out, including
14:51
Speaker 3: sometimes the engineers. He would figure out, he would work
14:53
Speaker 3: out technically had to record his own vocals, and he
14:55
Speaker 3: would record in his own And I also think that
14:58
Speaker 3: part of that was that Prince did not think of
15:01
Speaker 3: himself as a great singer. There was maybe a lack
15:03
Speaker 3: of comfort in his singing, which I think we all
15:08
Speaker 3: maybe struggle with a sign of our own voice, even
15:11
Speaker 3: even some of his talented his Prince, and so he
15:14
Speaker 3: would record in his own And.
15:18
Speaker 1: I mean he had an amazing range, right.
15:21
Speaker 3: He had a four octive range. And one of the
15:23
Speaker 3: things that I found instructive about reading the book is
15:26
Speaker 3: just the amount of great singers who paid tribute to
15:28
Speaker 3: the Prince, and you know, he might not have liked
15:31
Speaker 3: his own voice, but they certainly did, and you know
15:33
Speaker 3: most of us do obviously.
15:35
Speaker 1: Oh absolutely, And you mentioned Madonna's film, he had a
15:39
Speaker 1: lot in common with her. I mean, they were, they were,
15:42
Speaker 1: they were. They shared commonality in the fact that obviously
15:45
Speaker 1: they were huge pop stars but also skilled work ethic,
15:49
Speaker 1: sexually provocative. Talk about their relationship, friends, competitors, and collaborators.
15:55
Speaker 3: That's right, And I think Prince of Madonna are very interesting.
15:58
Speaker 3: Alan Leads was a great conciliary, if that's the right
16:02
Speaker 3: word of Prince that he also worked with James Brown,
16:04
Speaker 3: and he sort of said, I didn't expect too much
16:05
Speaker 3: to come from that. And I think this possibility that
16:08
Speaker 3: they were too similar in terms of why they didn't
16:10
Speaker 3: work together the long term, why they didn't do an
16:12
Speaker 3: album together, for example, But if you look at both
16:16
Speaker 3: their careers that there are astonishing amounts of similarities there.
16:20
Speaker 3: As you said it that they were both very sexually
16:23
Speaker 3: provocative in the eighties and the early nineties. That was
16:26
Speaker 3: replaced by spirituality later on. They went through a period,
16:30
Speaker 3: you know, in the nineties of the two thousands where
16:32
Speaker 3: it was you know, I'm an artist. I don't have
16:33
Speaker 3: to do all my hits in the show. And then
16:35
Speaker 3: you know they've made peace for the fact that people
16:38
Speaker 3: do want to hear them perform hits. They both got
16:41
Speaker 3: a great year. Michael Bland, who's one of Prince's drummers
16:45
Speaker 3: in the nineties, a lot of people's favorite Prince drummer,
16:48
Speaker 3: he was quite dismissed ful about Madonna two Prince, and
16:52
Speaker 3: Prince corrected him and as he said, Prince traded me
16:54
Speaker 3: out by that. And it is in the book where
16:57
Speaker 3: he said, she knows exactly what she wants to hear,
17:00
Speaker 3: and she knows Prince would hunt for the perfect coord
17:04
Speaker 3: the perfect sound, and she would be relentless until you
17:07
Speaker 3: know he landed it. And if you look at the
17:10
Speaker 3: people she's worked with, she's very very clever at getting
17:13
Speaker 3: the best out of them. So you know, whether that's
17:15
Speaker 3: your Price, whether that's Willie Moore, about, whether that's now Rogers,
17:18
Speaker 3: whether that's jelly Bean, whether that's Timberland, she's very very
17:26
Speaker 3: good at driving them to a place that they will
17:28
Speaker 3: help her be her best. And then I'm probably not
17:31
Speaker 3: giving her enough credit in terms of all the things
17:33
Speaker 3: that she's done on her own again, she's I think
17:37
Speaker 3: very competitive.
17:39
Speaker 1: Our guess is John McKay's, the author of Prince's Sign
17:41
Speaker 1: of the Times, was talking about Prince's influences. Another fascinating
17:46
Speaker 1: aspect of his background. There's the Holy Grail slide, the
17:49
Speaker 1: family Stone, but he also loved Grand Funk Railroad and
17:53
Speaker 1: Joni Mitchell. That is absolutely fascinating to me. If you
17:57
Speaker 1: were to ask me what I thought his three favorite bands,
18:00
Speaker 1: where I would not have guessed those three.
18:02
Speaker 3: That's what somebody said. I mean, lots of people have
18:06
Speaker 3: got different versions of who Prince's favorite band were. And
18:10
Speaker 3: I think if you wanted to make a guest of it,
18:13
Speaker 3: and you know that obviously that that interview or said that,
18:15
Speaker 3: but I think if you want to make a guest
18:17
Speaker 3: of it, there's a few useful pointers. I think one
18:20
Speaker 3: is that Minneapolis radio. I think the Minneapolis spread of
18:24
Speaker 3: people is ninety white audience. So therefore Prince grew up
18:32
Speaker 3: not just listening to James Brown or slanging the Family
18:35
Speaker 3: Stone in the radio. But would hear Fleetwood Mac, would
18:39
Speaker 3: hear Joni Mitchell. So yeah, there was a widespread of
18:43
Speaker 3: influences there. And then if you wanted to stand back
18:46
Speaker 3: and think about it. You know, a lot of people
18:49
Speaker 3: have said Jimi Hendrix is a favorite guitarist, but actually,
18:52
Speaker 3: if you listen to him, and I quite a few
18:54
Speaker 3: interviews said that it's Carlos Santana is the person who comes
18:57
Speaker 3: up again and again and again. I think the fact
19:00
Speaker 3: that he worked with Sheila He certainly around the time
19:02
Speaker 3: of sending at the Times, and she'd already drummed for Santana,
19:05
Speaker 3: I think would have been impressive to him. Prince's influences.
19:10
Speaker 3: I think if you look at him and you listen
19:13
Speaker 3: to him, you can't not hear and see James Brown.
19:17
Speaker 3: You know, you can't not see the way that he
19:18
Speaker 3: would drive a horn section. You can't not see, you know,
19:21
Speaker 3: we're actually like kneeling his get down to his knees
19:25
Speaker 3: and pray sometimes.
19:26
Speaker 1: On stage performance on stage.
19:27
Speaker 3: In Mad House over the jazz band that he worked
19:30
Speaker 3: with in that setting of the Times period in nineteen
19:32
Speaker 3: eighty seven war capes. You know, again, you can'tnot think
19:35
Speaker 3: of James Brown. Listen to hot thing of Setting the
19:39
Speaker 3: Times I think was Atlanta Bliss, Matt Blister and the
19:44
Speaker 3: trumpeters that you worked with at the time and I said,
19:47
Speaker 3: you know, did he admit to the James Brown influence?
19:50
Speaker 3: And he said, you could not admit to it, you know,
19:53
Speaker 3: but you couldn't hide it. So for me, you know,
19:56
Speaker 3: as a band leader, I think James Brown is up there.
19:59
Speaker 3: But you know, Joni Mitchell was very profound for him
20:02
Speaker 3: as a person. Yes, slat In the Family Stone. Absolutely,
20:07
Speaker 3: he loved Fleetwood Mac. That there's so many people, but
20:12
Speaker 3: Larry Graham as well. If you look at his nineties,
20:15
Speaker 3: he seemed to spend most of his time with Larry
20:17
Speaker 3: Graham nineties in the two thousands, and he certainly loves
20:21
Speaker 3: Slidin's Family Stone.
20:22
Speaker 1: You mentioned Fleetwood Mac. He wanted Stevie Nicks to sing
20:25
Speaker 1: on Purple Rain. Correct, That is a story that Stevie's told.
20:30
Speaker 3: Yeah, Stevie has told that. I didn't go into detail
20:32
Speaker 3: in that book because I think the thing about Prince
20:35
Speaker 3: World is things like that happen and then they disappear
20:37
Speaker 3: very quickly. So I think Stevie said that in an interview,
20:39
Speaker 3: and she said something along the lines of I couldn't
20:41
Speaker 3: do justice to.
20:42
Speaker 1: It, intimidated to the point, I mean, which is mind boggling.
20:46
Speaker 1: It's Stevie Nicks, but.
20:47
Speaker 2: It's Stevie Nicks and Prince loves Stevie Nicks.
20:49
Speaker 3: And I think I mentioned a microphone that you worked
20:51
Speaker 3: used in the studio, and I think that was a
20:53
Speaker 3: direct result of a recommendation from Stevie Nicks. And Stevie
20:57
Speaker 3: Nicks famously, I think got into Prince from Little Red
21:01
Speaker 3: Corvette playing on the Honeymoon when she was in a
21:04
Speaker 3: road trip with her husband. And I think our admiration
21:07
Speaker 3: for Prince lasted longer than a marriage. No offense to Stevie, Yeah.
21:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, and had that influenced stand back.
21:14
Speaker 3: Stand Back is yeah, Steve look at Her. I was
21:16
Speaker 3: lucky enough to speak to him, and what an incredible
21:18
Speaker 3: career he said, absolutely. And I love the story about
21:22
Speaker 3: when Jimmy Ivan and Stephen ex for in the studio
21:25
Speaker 3: and they said, we want the sound that Michael Jackson
21:27
Speaker 3: had for Beat It, and they actually tried to got
21:30
Speaker 3: David will Williams who played on Beat It, and I
21:34
Speaker 3: wasn't the sign they wanted, and so you know, they
21:37
Speaker 3: ended up asking Steve look at Her to do it,
21:39
Speaker 3: and that stuff like that. I love stories like that.
21:41
Speaker 3: In the eighties, So for example, like I really wanted
21:44
Speaker 3: to interview Ja Graden for the book. And part of
21:45
Speaker 3: the reason I wanted to interview J Graden for the
21:47
Speaker 3: book was that, for those who know, Jay Graden was
21:50
Speaker 3: in and out of Sunset Sound Studios in LA at
21:52
Speaker 3: the time, and that's where a lot of signing the
21:55
Speaker 3: Times have made. But for the other reason I wanted
21:57
Speaker 3: to view J.
21:57
Speaker 2: Graden was Graden is famous.
22:01
Speaker 3: In rock and roll history, and this is not really
22:03
Speaker 3: about Prince, but again I just love this stuff. Is
22:05
Speaker 3: that steely Dan when they were making peg and they
22:08
Speaker 3: wanted a certain sound on the guitars, and I think
22:12
Speaker 3: Jay Graden was session guitars number eight who was brought
22:15
Speaker 3: in seven. The first seven didn't work out and it
22:19
Speaker 3: only took Jaden, who was like the eighth at tenth,
22:22
Speaker 3: you know, the eighth guy to step in before they
22:25
Speaker 3: were happy, which tells you a little about Becker and
22:28
Speaker 3: Vegan and you know the way they run a studio.
22:31
Speaker 3: But for those who say I just want to hear
22:33
Speaker 3: about Prince, you know, part of the other reason I
22:36
Speaker 3: once speaks to him was that he was in and
22:39
Speaker 3: around Sunset Sounds when Prince was making these records. So
22:43
Speaker 3: for those who don't know Prince would record it often
22:45
Speaker 3: in Minneapolis, but he would also record in Sunset Sound
22:48
Speaker 3: Studios in la which is where Fluwood Mac finished off Rumors,
22:52
Speaker 3: which is where Boris Pickett did the Monster Mash, which
22:55
Speaker 3: is where Eddie Hillton and Studio One did Eruption, which
22:58
Speaker 3: you know will be.
22:59
Speaker 1: See the rain Halen banner behind.
23:01
Speaker 2: That's why I mentioned it, you know.
23:03
Speaker 3: And obviously Steve Lucaster, who I mentioned a minute ago,
23:06
Speaker 3: was best mates with Eddie and you know Steve look
23:10
Speaker 3: at her and I think Jeff per Carol were playing
23:13
Speaker 3: on Thriller as well. So you had Michael Jackson down.
23:16
Speaker 3: They were to west Lake to go back to him,
23:18
Speaker 3: and he had Prince and Sunset Sound in his own studio.
23:20
Speaker 1: Studio three three was his favorite, and there was a
23:22
Speaker 1: basketball court behind the building that he played at.
23:25
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was about Yeah, he played all the time.
23:27
Speaker 3: And Kenny Rodgers, Richard Marks, and David Foster. I think
23:31
Speaker 3: he's not interviewed in the book, but he did introduce
23:33
Speaker 3: me to Jimmy jam which I was very lucky to
23:36
Speaker 3: speak to him towards the end of the process of writing.
23:40
Speaker 3: But he Yeah, he had studios for Earth Wind and
23:44
Speaker 3: Far in sunset. So he ran a couple of rooms
23:46
Speaker 3: where he was just constantly moving. And you listen to
23:49
Speaker 3: the earth Winding Far records, and you can hear the
23:51
Speaker 3: amount of sonic work that's gone into them, you know,
23:54
Speaker 3: and you can hear the musicianship and the ability that
23:56
Speaker 3: those guys had booked.
23:59
Speaker 1: On rock podcast will be back after this. It's intermation time.
24:04
Speaker 1: Prince could turn a mistake into art. Michael Bland, his
24:08
Speaker 1: drummer Princess Drummer from the nineties, told you there was
24:11
Speaker 1: no such thing as an accident in the studio.
24:14
Speaker 2: Yeah.
24:14
Speaker 3: One of the things the book does is that for
24:16
Speaker 3: those listening who decide that they don't like Prince, and
24:20
Speaker 3: that's okay, I would still encourage you.
24:22
Speaker 2: They out there, well, I don't understand species. I don't
24:26
Speaker 2: really understand, but something wrong with them, what's going on?
24:29
Speaker 2: I can't help them.
24:30
Speaker 3: But what fascinated me was that the other musicians that
24:35
Speaker 3: Prince has got in common with, and Prince was also
24:38
Speaker 3: around that time a Sound of the Times that was
24:40
Speaker 3: mooted to do a record with Miles Davis, and so
24:43
Speaker 3: when I went into research for the book, I became
24:45
Speaker 3: fascinated by Miles Davis as well. And the reason I
24:48
Speaker 3: mentioned Miles Davis here in an answer to your question,
24:50
Speaker 3: which I will come to answer your question, is that
24:53
Speaker 3: Miles Davis didn't talk when he worked with bandmates about mistakes.
24:57
Speaker 3: He talked about interesting choices and you. He would talk
25:00
Speaker 3: about if you play a wrong note, make it sound
25:02
Speaker 3: like you meant to play it the same note in
25:04
Speaker 3: Jake Graden that I mentioned a minute ago, said that
25:07
Speaker 3: he would put he played a wrong note or a
25:08
Speaker 3: mistake note, whatever you want to call it, he would
25:11
Speaker 3: didn't play it as part of a sequence to make
25:13
Speaker 3: it sound like that's what he'd meant to do all along,
25:15
Speaker 3: Isn't It is amazing? And so the happy accident, as
25:19
Speaker 3: I call it, is something that I became fascinated by,
25:24
Speaker 3: and just the opportunity to kind of write about how
25:29
Speaker 3: you know that the several songs on sound at the
25:31
Speaker 3: times where quote unquote mistakes are turned into making it
25:36
Speaker 3: sound like it's meant to sound. So the ballad Dorothy
25:40
Speaker 3: Parker Susan Rogers, who was his engineer at the time,
25:44
Speaker 3: had installed a new console and this sound was dull
25:47
Speaker 3: and flat, and Prince just didn't even comment on it.
25:51
Speaker 3: So she'd kind of made a quote unquote mistake, and
25:54
Speaker 3: he said, oh, the console sounds you know different. But
25:58
Speaker 3: again part of the reason of the ballad, Arthie Parker
26:00
Speaker 3: sounds so weird, maybe to do with that Forever in
26:04
Speaker 3: My Life, which again is got central stage of the movie.
26:09
Speaker 3: There's a refrain that he sings as part of the
26:12
Speaker 3: chorus and that is an accident and it's turned into
26:16
Speaker 3: a recurring theme. And again, you know, I enterview that
26:19
Speaker 3: was lucky enough to interview Patricia Russian, the Great Patricia Russian,
26:22
Speaker 3: and she talked about Freddie Washington's base playing on Forget
26:25
Speaker 3: Me Notes and that was actually the start of a mistake. Now,
26:29
Speaker 3: I don't think anyone could listen to Forgive Me Notes
26:31
Speaker 3: by PATRICI Russian, which has been sampled to turn into
26:35
Speaker 3: number one hits by George Michael and by Will Smith,
26:37
Speaker 3: and go that was a mistake. You know, that's someone
26:41
Speaker 3: who is an A grade musician, knowing what to do
26:44
Speaker 3: and knowing how to turn it into gold.
26:46
Speaker 1: Now to his personal life, Prince had one child with
26:49
Speaker 1: his first wife, Miighte Garcia. Their son, Armir, was born
26:54
Speaker 1: a month premature on October sixteenth, nineteen ninety six died
26:58
Speaker 1: after six days, diagnosed with a rare genetic disorder of
27:02
Speaker 1: the skull called Peiffer's syndrome type two. Not surprisingly, that
27:08
Speaker 1: devastated Prince. He really wanted to raise a family.
27:12
Speaker 3: Yeah, the book, as you suggested, the book takes into
27:17
Speaker 3: Prince's childlike energy. And you know, one of his former
27:20
Speaker 3: managers was our Zati is wonderful interviewee, and she talks
27:25
Speaker 3: about the innate creativity of a child, says, look what
27:29
Speaker 3: I made, And if you think about Prince, that's what
27:32
Speaker 3: he's all about. And the book is chock full of
27:35
Speaker 3: stories about employees and colleagues who bring their kids to
27:39
Speaker 3: concerts and Prince.
27:41
Speaker 2: Almost ignores them, illustrates to the children.
27:43
Speaker 3: And part of the reason that that was in the
27:45
Speaker 3: book was not just to pry into his personal life,
27:48
Speaker 3: and obviously, you know what he went through is devastating.
27:51
Speaker 3: The reason that's in the book is because if you
27:54
Speaker 3: listen to Starfish and Coffee, which is the son that
27:56
Speaker 3: he performed on Muppets Tonight, there's a child like an
28:00
Speaker 3: energy to it. If you listen to House Quick, which
28:02
Speaker 3: talks about green eggs and ham, which I believe references dultriesses.
28:06
Speaker 3: You listen to Playing the Sunshine and where he talks
28:08
Speaker 3: about Harvey and the big White Rabbit begins to talk.
28:12
Speaker 3: There's an Edward Lear nursery rhyme and it's going to
28:14
Speaker 3: be a beautiful night. So this is someone that tapped
28:17
Speaker 3: into that energy off when he was a child. Prince,
28:22
Speaker 3: not to talk about something of the times, but Prince
28:24
Speaker 3: when he was very young played piano in school talent
28:28
Speaker 3: shows and one of the things he played was the
28:30
Speaker 3: Batman theme. So when it came to nineteen eighty nine,
28:33
Speaker 3: nineteen ninety, Tim Burton and give him a ring, he's
28:37
Speaker 3: not going to be able.
28:38
Speaker 2: To resist that.
28:39
Speaker 1: Jumped at that chance.
28:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's jumped at that chance.
28:41
Speaker 3: And then you know, you see that with the people
28:43
Speaker 3: that he worked with, so people at Larry Graham and
28:45
Speaker 3: people at Shaka Khan. You know, they were a big
28:48
Speaker 3: part of his childhood growing up. You know that he
28:50
Speaker 3: played regularly with Stevie Wonder in private occasions for the
28:53
Speaker 3: White House and parties in la And that wasn't an accident.
28:58
Speaker 1: You're right about princes a boss and in business dealings
29:01
Speaker 1: quote from the book, whether Prince paid you well or
29:03
Speaker 1: not depended on your expectations.
29:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was difficult to write about because.
29:10
Speaker 3: Everyone has different expectations around Prince and everyone has different
29:16
Speaker 3: reality if you like, and they all worked with him
29:18
Speaker 3: at different stages of his career. And for me, the
29:21
Speaker 3: important thing is because Prince isn't around anymore, I really
29:23
Speaker 3: wanted to be fair to Prince. So when somebody said
29:28
Speaker 3: he underpaid me, or somebody else said, you know, I
29:31
Speaker 3: was happy with what he paid me. I tried to
29:33
Speaker 3: include all those voices in the book. It's a challenge
29:38
Speaker 3: because I think if you look at his early part
29:40
Speaker 3: of his career going on to the time he was
29:43
Speaker 3: maybe he was pretty rough on them. You know, when
29:48
Speaker 3: they went on tour with Prince in the Time and
29:51
Speaker 3: Vanity six the time were kept off the bill in
29:54
Speaker 3: New York and LA so that Prince could make sure
29:56
Speaker 3: that he get the most credit.
29:58
Speaker 2: The time.
29:59
Speaker 3: We're not getting paid a law, as you know, somewhere
30:01
Speaker 3: between hundred and seventeen one hundred and fifty dollars a week.
30:04
Speaker 3: When you think about what people get paid for tours
30:06
Speaker 3: now is mind boggling. But then a lot of people
30:11
Speaker 3: will worked with you know, engineers and musicians, you know,
30:14
Speaker 3: in the twenty first century have got no complaints and
30:16
Speaker 3: are very happy with what they paid them and say.
30:18
Speaker 2: That he was very generous. So for me, you know,
30:21
Speaker 2: he did a huge amount of philanthropic work as well.
30:26
Speaker 3: So for me, it was just about reflecting that in
30:29
Speaker 3: the book as accurately and as fairly as I could.
30:32
Speaker 1: His relationship with Warner Brothers. Want to talk about that
30:34
Speaker 1: before and after Sign of the Times things got tense, contentious,
30:39
Speaker 1: I guess after this album because Lenny Warnker of Warner
30:43
Speaker 1: Brothers wanted a double album, Prince wanted a triple album.
30:47
Speaker 1: He went and cut tracks essentially without Prince's input.
30:52
Speaker 3: Yeah, when you see cut tracks, and my understanding of
30:54
Speaker 3: it is that he had the conversation with him that
30:58
Speaker 3: it had to be a double rather than that. You know,
31:00
Speaker 3: he talked Prince down from the ledge of making it
31:02
Speaker 3: a triple into double, but.
31:05
Speaker 1: He yeah, that's right, Prince said, Okay, fine. Prince wanted
31:09
Speaker 1: to have say in which ones were going to be
31:11
Speaker 1: cut out and that didn't happen.
31:14
Speaker 3: Yeah, I wanted it. Lenny was a fascinating interview and
31:17
Speaker 3: what I wanted to find out. And it's difficult because
31:19
Speaker 3: it's hard for him to remember everything that happened, because
31:23
Speaker 3: it was a long time ago.
31:24
Speaker 2: But in the book, it recounts that Prince had.
31:27
Speaker 3: A late night conversation with Lenny and Lenny leaned on him,
31:32
Speaker 3: shall we say to make it a double album?
31:33
Speaker 2: Prince was not happy, but that.
31:36
Speaker 3: Lenny then got his team together in the morning and said, right,
31:39
Speaker 3: we've got to get to sequence this record and suggest
31:42
Speaker 3: Prince how it might how the triple might work as
31:45
Speaker 3: a double and maybe make suggestions about the sequencing and
31:49
Speaker 3: the running of the album. He then phoned management, you know,
31:52
Speaker 3: just before lunch, and said, okay, we're going to get
31:55
Speaker 3: to work on this, and management said, what do you mean,
31:57
Speaker 3: Prince has already done it, which I think again was
32:00
Speaker 3: Prince where Prince had turned it into double himself and
32:03
Speaker 3: suggested the running order and the track list.
32:06
Speaker 1: Did it end up being the one that he wanted
32:08
Speaker 1: the track list? Then that was?
32:09
Speaker 2: Yeah?
32:10
Speaker 3: I think so, because I think even although Prince, I
32:15
Speaker 3: think Prince gave not that many interviews, but I think
32:19
Speaker 3: if he was unhappy with the way Son of the
32:22
Speaker 3: Times it turned out, I'd like to think we've heard
32:25
Speaker 3: about it in an interview by now.
32:27
Speaker 2: You know, he gave enough interviews that.
32:30
Speaker 3: If he says, oh, no, that's not he also didn't
32:32
Speaker 3: look back Prince, So I think he was very good
32:34
Speaker 3: at going no, that's the way it should be. And
32:36
Speaker 3: that's that's one of the things that's very interesting about Prince.
32:39
Speaker 3: So when Prince went in to record a record, record
32:42
Speaker 3: a song rather, it was very rare that he wouldn't
32:45
Speaker 3: finish it in one day and he would say to
32:48
Speaker 3: the engineer, what it's meant to be that way. So
32:51
Speaker 3: even when we talked about mistakes earlier, as you might
32:53
Speaker 3: call him, he didn't see them as mistakes. He just
32:55
Speaker 3: that's the way the record's meant to be. So my guess,
32:58
Speaker 3: and it is only a guess, is that you would
33:00
Speaker 3: probably see side of the time of the double album
33:02
Speaker 3: is the way it's meant to be.
33:04
Speaker 1: How about Prince's female alter ego, Camille. He recorded an
33:08
Speaker 1: entire album under that pseudonym.
33:11
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, Well, this fertile period of nineteen eighty seven
33:16
Speaker 3: was just a fascinating, fascinating period of time.
33:23
Speaker 2: You've Got the movie.
33:25
Speaker 3: It was the time that Bonnie Rait and George Clinton
33:27
Speaker 3: were popping into Paisley Park, which was opening You've Got
33:31
Speaker 3: the mooted album with Miles Davis, which didn't happen. You've
33:36
Speaker 3: got the Madhouse Jazz Project, and there was going to
33:40
Speaker 3: be the Flesh Sessions, the Black Album, which was written
33:44
Speaker 3: for Chile's birthday, and he got Signing the Times, the
33:47
Speaker 3: double album right in the mix of that, which was meant.
33:49
Speaker 2: To be Dream Factory.
33:50
Speaker 3: And before that, you've also got Camille, which is, as
33:54
Speaker 3: you say, an album because he was putting at so
33:56
Speaker 3: many records, it was an album by a female alter ego,
33:59
Speaker 3: which wasn't of course Prince.
34:01
Speaker 1: Here's where you talk about the vocal range too. This
34:04
Speaker 1: is where he's getting way up there.
34:06
Speaker 3: Way up there, and it's it's just fascinating because some
34:09
Speaker 3: of those songs like if I Was Your Girlfriend is
34:10
Speaker 3: a Camille track really when you think about.
34:12
Speaker 1: It, so that gives you an idea of what the
34:15
Speaker 1: album would have sounded like.
34:16
Speaker 3: That gives you that gives you a very good idea
34:18
Speaker 3: of what the album would have sounded like. And I
34:20
Speaker 3: find If I Was Your Girlfriend a really fascinating case
34:22
Speaker 3: study of where a Prince was at that time. Fascinating
34:26
Speaker 3: because sonically it's different from anyone else.
34:30
Speaker 2: It's if he's.
34:33
Speaker 3: Talking about a relationship where he wants a level of
34:35
Speaker 3: closeness that only a female wonder would understand. And he's
34:38
Speaker 3: dating a twin and he's the son of a twin.
34:43
Speaker 3: You know, sometimes Prince is mysterious, and sometimes it's pretty
34:46
Speaker 3: easy to figure out what he was talking about. And
34:48
Speaker 3: I think if I was your girlfriend is one of
34:50
Speaker 3: the ones where it's easier to figure.
34:52
Speaker 2: Out what he was talking about. And as I say
34:55
Speaker 2: in the book, if you look at.
35:01
Speaker 3: If you look at like you know, the early eighties
35:03
Speaker 3: records like Dirty Minds, you know, Head and Sister, we
35:06
Speaker 3: are quite shocking.
35:07
Speaker 2: And he's been provocative.
35:09
Speaker 3: You know, as I said, you Dirty mind he was
35:11
Speaker 3: looking to shock and you know, by this stage you
35:15
Speaker 3: wanted to share and you know, so there's an emotional
35:19
Speaker 3: maturity if you like to that.
35:23
Speaker 1: Book on Rock podcasts will be back after this. Hey, guys,
35:30
Speaker 1: thanks so much for checking out the Booked on Rock podcast.
35:33
Speaker 1: If you've just found the podcast, welcome. If you've been listening,
35:37
Speaker 1: thank you so much for your support, and make sure
35:39
Speaker 1: you tell a friend, a family member, share on social
35:41
Speaker 1: media and let people know about Booked on Rock. And
35:45
Speaker 1: if you do like the podcast, make sure you subscribe,
35:48
Speaker 1: give a five star review. Wherever you listen to the
35:50
Speaker 1: bookd on Rock, podcast, Run, Amazon, Apple, iHeart, Spotify, Spreaker,
35:55
Speaker 1: tune in, and on YouTube music. You can check out
35:57
Speaker 1: the full episodes on video, along with video highlights from
36:00
Speaker 1: episodes on the bookdown Rock YouTube channel. Find it at
36:04
Speaker 1: booked on Rock. Thanks again for listening. Now back to
36:07
Speaker 1: the show, Let's talk about relationships some more. He had
36:11
Speaker 1: a relationship with Kim Besinger. He was married twice, managed
36:14
Speaker 1: to keep those private. Kim Besinger a famous person. He
36:18
Speaker 1: was in a relationship with her, and it seems like
36:21
Speaker 1: that was a pretty serious relationship.
36:24
Speaker 2: Yeah. The book goes into that in some depth.
36:25
Speaker 3: I had not planned to work right about Kim Basinger
36:28
Speaker 3: in any detailed but quite a few interviews intimated that
36:32
Speaker 3: that relationship was a lot more serious than I was
36:34
Speaker 3: first reported. And I think part of the reason that
36:36
Speaker 3: it was not reported as being serious is it was
36:40
Speaker 3: played out in Minneapolis.
36:41
Speaker 2: So Prince I think Saint.
36:47
Speaker 3: Sent the Batman soundtrack to Kim Bassinger, Jack Nicholson, Michael Keaton.
36:53
Speaker 3: Michael Keaton didn't get back. Jack Nicholson asked for money,
36:56
Speaker 3: which was ignored, and Kim Basinger had a call with them,
37:01
Speaker 3: and according to his personal assistant at the time, within
37:04
Speaker 3: fifteen minutes, she'd booked a flight and he'd booked a
37:07
Speaker 3: hotel in Minneapolis, and they never used a hotel because
37:10
Speaker 3: she went straight to see him. And I believe that
37:13
Speaker 3: they we're together for quite a few months, and you know,
37:16
Speaker 3: my understanding from interviewees is that she moved quite a
37:18
Speaker 3: lot of her stuff over to Minneapolis. She wants to
37:20
Speaker 3: work with him, that he went shopping with her, which,
37:24
Speaker 3: if you know anything about Prince anything, him doing anything
37:27
Speaker 3: with a girlfriend that didn't involve music is quite rare.
37:31
Speaker 3: And she was smitten. He was smitten. He used to
37:33
Speaker 3: play pranks together and employees. It's quite sweet in terms
37:37
Speaker 3: of some of the stories that people talked about in
37:38
Speaker 3: the book.
37:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, that would have been amazing. What if they got married,
37:42
Speaker 1: That has been quite a story for the media to follow.
37:47
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's funny to think she would get more publicity
37:50
Speaker 3: than she did when she was married to Alec Baldwin,
37:52
Speaker 3: but yeah, it would be even more.
37:54
Speaker 2: Yeah.
37:55
Speaker 1: Sure. His performance at the O four Rock and Roll
37:57
Speaker 1: Hall of Fame ceremonies is legendary. Now, his guitar solo
38:01
Speaker 1: brought the house down. As for his style of playing
38:04
Speaker 1: the guitar, Randy Newman had an interesting quote. He says
38:08
Speaker 1: Prince's prowess and other instruments informed his playing on guitar.
38:12
Speaker 1: His guitar ideas aren't the kind of ideas that a
38:14
Speaker 1: guitar player would have necessarily. How much of a fan
38:18
Speaker 1: of other guitars was Prince because you read quote Prince
38:20
Speaker 1: enjoyed guitarists sort.
38:22
Speaker 3: Of, Yeah, that's in reference to Jimmy Berenger, who's the
38:26
Speaker 3: very talented local player. When I say local, local to Minneapolis,
38:30
Speaker 3: who played on The Most Peaceiful Girl in the World.
38:33
Speaker 3: And you know, some people at the time, I think
38:35
Speaker 3: Ricky Peterson that worked on it, said that he'd he
38:40
Speaker 3: sort of made that record is so good. So Prince
38:44
Speaker 3: knew he didn't want to cut off his nose despite
38:46
Speaker 3: his face, and so he knew it was good, but
38:49
Speaker 3: he didn't enjoy the guitarist being good. And Prince was
38:54
Speaker 3: a big fan of guitarists. I mean, I had to
38:57
Speaker 3: tread carefully because I don't play the guitar, but I
39:00
Speaker 3: also knew that this was Guys who love rock and
39:03
Speaker 3: roll tend to love guitars and guys who love rock
39:06
Speaker 3: and roll often play the guitar, and they care about gear,
39:10
Speaker 3: and they care about guitarists. So I worked very hard
39:13
Speaker 3: in the book to figure out both in terms of gear,
39:16
Speaker 3: what gear Prince loved, but also what guitarist he loved. Yeah,
39:21
Speaker 3: and Prince, it was very rare that Prince was outclassed
39:24
Speaker 3: when he played with all the guitarists. So, you know,
39:27
Speaker 3: like Scotti, Baldwin points out that he didn't play on
39:29
Speaker 3: stage with John Mayer too much or somebody like that,
39:33
Speaker 3: you know, but he did play with some really amazing guitarists,
39:36
Speaker 3: you know, for Wendy melvoyn to Sonny Thompson, Mike Scott
39:42
Speaker 3: and he. The thing about Prince and guitar playing is
39:49
Speaker 3: you can hear Jimi Hendrix, but you can hear Carlos Santana,
39:54
Speaker 3: and you hear those lead solos. But you can also
39:56
Speaker 3: hear Tony Maiden who was in Rufins and Shaky kN Band.
40:01
Speaker 3: You can also hear Jimmy Nolan who played the funk
40:04
Speaker 3: stuff with James Brown and Hans Martin. Buff was one
40:08
Speaker 3: of the engineers. Said something very interesting that's also in
40:11
Speaker 3: the book where he said, Prince doesn't just write for
40:14
Speaker 3: his instruments. So if you were a guitarist as good
40:16
Speaker 3: as Prince, right, and you played this killer solo, if
40:20
Speaker 3: it didn't work for the record, he was talented enough
40:23
Speaker 3: that he could chuck it out. You imagine Prince in
40:26
Speaker 3: a band that could play guitar like that and the
40:28
Speaker 3: lead singer or the producer goes, oh, we don't need
40:30
Speaker 3: that solo. You'd imagine they go nuts. They'd be like, no,
40:33
Speaker 3: you're not allowed to do that. This is brilliant. Prince
40:35
Speaker 3: was so gifted that he could play this amazing solo.
40:37
Speaker 3: We presume he could play a solo and go, well
40:40
Speaker 3: it doesn't work for the record, I won't use it.
40:43
Speaker 3: So that's next level talent, really, isn't it.
40:46
Speaker 1: We have to address the name change. Your comment on
40:49
Speaker 1: this is interesting and I want to ask you about it.
40:52
Speaker 1: Why did he change the name? First? Well, why do
40:55
Speaker 1: you say it was both a pivotal moment in his
40:57
Speaker 1: career and in other regards of footnote?
40:59
Speaker 2: Well, if you.
41:00
Speaker 3: Think about Prince, and this is sort of my opinion,
41:02
Speaker 3: the great thing about Ryano because you get to sneak
41:04
Speaker 3: in little snippets of your own opinion, but I hope
41:06
Speaker 3: it's mainly, you know, the opinions of the people that
41:09
Speaker 3: I interviewed as much as it as me, if not more.
41:12
Speaker 3: But the artist formerly known as Prince, he was, you know,
41:16
Speaker 3: the butt of all sorts of talk show host jokes
41:19
Speaker 3: during that period, and you know, the squiggle or symbol
41:22
Speaker 3: or whatever you.
41:22
Speaker 2: Want to call them.
41:24
Speaker 3: People would sort of decry if you look at that.
41:28
Speaker 3: It's very brave move, it's very bold. It's going to
41:31
Speaker 3: war with the record company feels like it owns anything
41:35
Speaker 3: was the name Prince written on it. So he just goes,
41:37
Speaker 3: do you know what, I'm going to shut that down,
41:38
Speaker 3: And you know, it almost moved to a different territory
41:41
Speaker 3: so that he can stake out his own claim for
41:43
Speaker 3: himself and his own work. So in some ways it's
41:46
Speaker 3: incredibly brave and in some ways is incredibly bold, but
41:49
Speaker 3: in other ways it's it's just something he did, you know,
41:54
Speaker 3: and it shows a lot, It displays fearlessness, it displaces canny,
42:01
Speaker 3: but it doesn't define him.
42:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree. I've said in the past maybe I'm
42:07
Speaker 1: incorrect about this, but I also thought he did it
42:10
Speaker 1: for other artists who are being taken advantage.
42:13
Speaker 3: Of One of the things that I took in different
42:16
Speaker 3: parts of his career outside of sending the Times was
42:21
Speaker 3: because I couldn't, as I said to you, when I
42:24
Speaker 3: wrote that feature in twenty seventeen, I was like, but
42:28
Speaker 3: who is this guy? And you know, I interviewed something
42:31
Speaker 3: like you know, there was a lot of people I interviewed,
42:33
Speaker 3: but I was about thirty interviews in and I sort
42:36
Speaker 3: of paused and I thought, I still don't know who
42:38
Speaker 3: this guy is that made this record. And that's why
42:40
Speaker 3: I kept interviewing people. And so part of understanding Prince,
42:45
Speaker 3: I think, is that you know, when he wrote slave
42:48
Speaker 3: in his face and people around him said, he didn't
42:50
Speaker 3: do that a lot in the studio, So it was
42:54
Speaker 3: it was a moment in time where it was he
42:56
Speaker 3: was making a point. You know, at the brit Awards
42:58
Speaker 3: in ninety five, I think when he had in his
43:00
Speaker 3: face that he was making a point. But it wasn't
43:03
Speaker 3: something he did all the time. The interesting thing about
43:06
Speaker 3: the Prince, you know, taff cap, period symbol, whatever you
43:09
Speaker 3: want to call it, is that he would privately people
43:12
Speaker 3: would call him Prince and he would snap at them
43:14
Speaker 3: and say, don't call me that. If you're talking about
43:18
Speaker 3: Prince and other artists, you only need to look at
43:22
Speaker 3: what he did, you know, owning his own masters. This
43:24
Speaker 3: is something that Anita Baker's talked about recently, that Taylor
43:27
Speaker 3: Swift has fought to control her own music. You know,
43:31
Speaker 3: the fact that she's the first billionaire through music alone.
43:34
Speaker 3: I think something like that would have not escaped Prince's notice.
43:37
Speaker 3: And Prince sold music on the internet when it wasn't
43:39
Speaker 3: fashionable to do so. Prince went to war with big
43:43
Speaker 3: record companies long before other major artists felt the courage
43:49
Speaker 3: to be able to do that. Prince just you would
43:53
Speaker 3: turn down the obvious opportunity. And that's part of what
43:56
Speaker 3: makes his music career so interesting.
43:58
Speaker 1: He had all those songs like nothing compared to you
44:01
Speaker 1: for Shinead O'Connor. I mean, it's just it's amazing how
44:04
Speaker 1: much he wrote and then he just shared them with
44:06
Speaker 1: other artists.
44:07
Speaker 3: Here you go, what's really amazing. And nobody, I think
44:12
Speaker 3: will do this again, and I can't think of anyone
44:14
Speaker 3: who's done it before his Prince was making and recording
44:18
Speaker 3: so many records that he invented the time. And you know,
44:23
Speaker 3: as the book suggests, some of the Time the Time
44:26
Speaker 3: were kept out of the studio so the Prince could
44:27
Speaker 3: make Time records, which is kind of funny. So he
44:30
Speaker 3: created the Time, and his fingerprints are all over those records.
44:33
Speaker 3: He created Vanity six, and his fingerprints again or all
44:36
Speaker 3: over those records. And so he actually and the Time
44:40
Speaker 3: and Prince were in a degree of competition when they
44:42
Speaker 3: went and toured together. So Prince actually created his own competition.
44:47
Speaker 3: And there's two things to note of that. One is
44:50
Speaker 3: that you know how prolifically he was able to do that,
44:52
Speaker 3: But also he was shining a spotlight in Minneapolis, so
44:55
Speaker 3: people would then people would talk about the Minneapolis scene.
45:00
Speaker 3: So the Minneapolis scene was effectively with all due to
45:02
Speaker 3: respect to the other musicians around at the time, one
45:04
Speaker 3: guy who was just making it feel like the most
45:07
Speaker 3: happening place in music.
45:10
Speaker 1: Booked on Rock Podcasts. We'll be back after this.
45:14
Speaker 3: Okay, I mean you know where we are.
45:17
Speaker 2: Tell your Brad.
45:20
Speaker 1: Find the Bookdo on Rock website at booked on rock
45:22
Speaker 1: dot com. There you can find all the back episodes
45:25
Speaker 1: of the show, the latest episode in video and audio
45:28
Speaker 1: links to all of the platforms where you can listen
45:30
Speaker 1: to the podcast, plus all the social media platforms were
45:33
Speaker 1: on Blue Sky, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and x. Also check
45:38
Speaker 1: out the booked on rock blog. Find your local independent bookstore,
45:42
Speaker 1: find out all the latest hot rock book releases, and
45:45
Speaker 1: before you go, check out the booked on rock online store.
45:47
Speaker 1: Pick up some booked on rock merch. It's all at
45:50
Speaker 1: booked on rock dot com. His death in twenty sixteen
45:55
Speaker 1: was a shock. He was only fifty seven. At one
45:57
Speaker 1: point in the book you read quote Prince left the
46:00
Speaker 1: earth with unanswered questions about him. This was not accidental.
46:04
Speaker 1: Do you feel after writing the book maybe you were
46:07
Speaker 1: able to get a little bit closer to who Prince
46:09
Speaker 1: was as a person.
46:10
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
46:11
Speaker 3: I feel like it was funny when you know, towards
46:14
Speaker 3: the later stage of interviewing, people would tell me stories
46:18
Speaker 3: and I never met Prince, but they will tell me
46:20
Speaker 3: stories about things they'd said in front of him, and
46:22
Speaker 3: I was thinking, Oh, he's not going to like that,
46:25
Speaker 3: Oh he's going to like that, and you know, but
46:28
Speaker 3: towards the end again of reading about him and finding
46:32
Speaker 3: out about him, I would read interviews from people that
46:35
Speaker 3: people had done later in his career, and they would
46:39
Speaker 3: say certain things that they knew he was going to
46:41
Speaker 3: like and it would carry favor with him. So there
46:43
Speaker 3: were certain things that Prince would respond well to, certain
46:46
Speaker 3: musical references that he would respond well to. I felt
46:53
Speaker 3: like I got to know him a bit better. But
46:55
Speaker 3: I also wanted to respect the mystery. You know, he
46:58
Speaker 3: cultivated the mystery around them, and I think there are
47:01
Speaker 3: things about Prince that none of us will ever know.
47:04
Speaker 3: I'm that's okay, But this book is I think as
47:08
Speaker 3: close as I could get to for the neutral, you know,
47:12
Speaker 3: the observer of the music fan to be able to
47:14
Speaker 3: find out about them. And I wanted to do as
47:17
Speaker 3: much of a three sixty on Prince as I could.
47:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, they just did an episode on ric Ocassik of
47:22
Speaker 1: the Cars, who was a mysterious guy, and I think
47:25
Speaker 1: I prefer it that way. That's something that's lost on
47:28
Speaker 1: this era now where we can find out so much
47:30
Speaker 1: about people because of social media and everybody's got a
47:33
Speaker 1: phone and you could you could film them, you know,
47:37
Speaker 1: video them at any time. And I like the mystery.
47:43
Speaker 1: I like not knowing everything, and let us try to
47:46
Speaker 1: find out from the music, and let us try to
47:48
Speaker 1: find out maybe from the people that worked with that
47:50
Speaker 1: person or knew them and come up with our own
47:54
Speaker 1: conclusion as to who they are.
47:56
Speaker 3: Roy Bennett, Princess lighting director, said something fascinating to me
48:00
Speaker 3: where he talked about and Prince and he had a
48:03
Speaker 3: really symbiotic relationship where Roy Bennett, I think, is the
48:08
Speaker 3: only person who's actually suggested changing a sett list of
48:11
Speaker 3: Princess to Prince's face and Princes receptive to it. I
48:14
Speaker 3: think anyone else that had done that would have been,
48:16
Speaker 3: you know, headed for the door very quickly. But Roy
48:22
Speaker 3: Bennett told me that he was told by Prince went
48:26
Speaker 3: to put the lights on him in a concert and
48:27
Speaker 3: went not to so because Prince understood being a rock star.
48:33
Speaker 3: Of that sense of anticipation, princeview went to disappear and
48:36
Speaker 3: went to appear. And there's a brilliant book. Another example
48:40
Speaker 3: of that is there's a brilliant book written about James
48:43
Speaker 3: Brown called Kill Him and Leave, and it talked about
48:47
Speaker 3: the advice that I think James Brown talked about with
48:50
Speaker 3: All Sharpton, where.
48:52
Speaker 2: James would do.
48:53
Speaker 3: An amazing show and then leaving the daughter. He would
48:55
Speaker 3: come in with an amazing anecdote and then leave.
48:58
Speaker 2: So by the time people turn and I went, oh,
48:59
Speaker 2: who was that what happened. He was gone on to
49:02
Speaker 2: the next thing.
49:03
Speaker 3: And Prince was an absolute master at appearing dropping in
49:08
Speaker 3: a comment, you know, and you see that in the
49:11
Speaker 3: Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
49:12
Speaker 2: You know, he's like a ghost the way he disappears
49:14
Speaker 2: at the end of it.
49:15
Speaker 1: Yep, that's the way he wanted it.
49:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, that whole kill him and lead thing.
49:19
Speaker 3: I think it's very Prince even though it was originally
49:22
Speaker 3: referred to James Brown.
49:24
Speaker 1: Prince sign at the Times. It's out now wherever books
49:27
Speaker 1: are sold, John.
49:29
Speaker 3: I hope so it's in the UK, and I hope
49:32
Speaker 3: that you can have it transported to your home wherever
49:34
Speaker 3: that is. But it's like the UK at the moment.
49:36
Speaker 1: And look forward at your nearest bookstore. You can also
49:39
Speaker 1: go to book down rock dot com to find it
49:41
Speaker 1: at your nearest independent bookstore. And can people find you online? John,
49:44
Speaker 1: reach out to you.
49:45
Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah, I'm John McKee on Twitter. I'm Johnny eighteen
49:49
Speaker 3: which is the Scottish spelling hwn i E eighteen on
49:53
Speaker 3: Instagram and I'm on LinkedIn. And in fact social media
49:57
Speaker 3: helped me write the book because I found interview He's
50:00
Speaker 3: on Facebook. I found them on Twitter, I found them
50:03
Speaker 3: on Instagram, and I find them on LinkedIn. So not
50:06
Speaker 3: TikTok as yet, but all the other, all the other
50:08
Speaker 3: social media outlets were very useful for helping me track
50:11
Speaker 3: down people.
50:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the great part of social media. I know
50:14
Speaker 1: people tend to focus on the downside of it, but
50:17
Speaker 1: social media does have those benefits. So go out and
50:20
Speaker 1: get this book, and go out and listen to a
50:22
Speaker 1: Sign of the Times. Like I told you before we
50:23
Speaker 1: started recording. As I'm reading your book, I'm playing it
50:26
Speaker 1: from start to finish and just amazed at how brilliant
50:30
Speaker 1: the album is. And I would say that I could
50:33
Speaker 1: never take the place of Your Man is my favorite
50:35
Speaker 1: from the album and one of my favorite Prince songs period.
50:39
Speaker 2: That's a good call.
50:40
Speaker 3: I mean, it's it's great, and it's you know, you
50:42
Speaker 3: can hear a bit of everyone and that you can
50:43
Speaker 3: hear Carlos Santana, you can hear a little bit of
50:45
Speaker 3: James Brian United, most of all, you can hear Prince
50:49
Speaker 3: and that's that's a wonderful thing.
50:50
Speaker 1: Yep, that's a call back to his Purple Rain days.
50:52
Speaker 1: I think, right, wasn't that written back?
50:54
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was a song that was kicking about for
50:56
Speaker 3: for quite a while before I think I could never
50:58
Speaker 3: take the place of your man. Is strange really ship
51:00
Speaker 3: date back to the early eighties, maybe in the late
51:02
Speaker 3: seventies in one case.
51:04
Speaker 1: Well, out of fairness, I should before I let you go,
51:06
Speaker 1: what's your favorite track from Sign of the Times?
51:11
Speaker 3: One of the reasons I wanted to write the book.
51:13
Speaker 3: And you'll see with the book it's sixteen chapters. In
51:15
Speaker 3: each sixteen chapter is the song that showcases Prince's personality.
51:20
Speaker 3: So I know he wants the short answer to this, probably,
51:22
Speaker 3: but sometimes.
51:23
Speaker 1: It's time as long as it needs to be.
51:26
Speaker 3: Sometimes it's Sunning the Times, and that speaks to social acticism,
51:29
Speaker 3: so that's why that's covered in that part of the book.
51:31
Speaker 3: Sometimes it's Ballad of Dorothy Parker, which speaks to his
51:34
Speaker 3: idiosyncratic nature. Sometimes it's starfishing Coffee, which speaks to how
51:38
Speaker 3: he was that childlike capacity they had. And sometimes it's
51:43
Speaker 3: you go to look because he knews we are an
51:44
Speaker 3: a good pop song. So it depends what day.
51:47
Speaker 2: You ask me.
51:47
Speaker 1: All right, perfectly answered, perfectly answered, John, Thank you so
51:51
Speaker 1: much for being here, Congrats on a great book, and
51:54
Speaker 1: hopefully we'll have you back on again in the future.
51:56
Speaker 2: Absolute pleasure, Eric, all the best.
52:05
Speaker 1: That's it. It's in the box.
52:08
Speaker 3: H