PEOPLE Prince

By The Editors of PEOPLE

The editors of PEOPLE Magazine present Prince for PEOPLE Prince.

• Language: English
• Publisher: People
• Release date: Oct 11, 2019
• ISBN: 9781547852437

Book preview

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DIG IF YOU WILL: PRINCE IN PICTURES

The singer dazzled an audience in Inglewood, Calif., in 1985.

Prince with longtime friend bassist André Cymone (left) and Dez Dickerson, who had answered Prince’s 1979 ad for a guitarist on the Dirty Mind Tour, 1981.

‘PEOPLE THAT AREN’T HIP TO IT, I HOPE THEY DO GET HIP TO IT, BECAUSE I’M GOING TO BE AROUND FOR A WHILE’

—PRINCE, ADDRESSING EARLY CRITICS OF HIS OVERT SEXUALITY

When asked if his androgyny was real or an act, Prince (in 1986) replied, I think I was just being who I was.

Lauded as a musical mastermind, Prince (rehearsing onstage during his Lovesexy tour in 1988) played all 27 instruments on his debut album.

Cool means being able to hang with yourself. All you have to ask yourself is, ‘Is there anybody I’m afraid of? Is there anybody who if I walked into a room and saw, I’d get nervous.’ If not, then you’re cool, Prince told Rolling Stone in 1990. He sat for photographer Jeff Katz several times, including in 1986 (below), 1988 (above).

At home in 1991

‘HE WAS SO FUNNY. THERE’S A LOT THAT YOU DIDN’T SEE THAT WAS SO FUNNY’

—SHEILA E.

A strong spirit transcends rules, Prince (performing at the Hollywood Palladium in 2014) once said.

‘IT’S HARD TO IMAGINE THAT SOMEONE ON THIS PLANET ONLY 57 YEARS COULD HAVE THAT KIND OF EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE AND DEPTH’

—PHARRELL WILLIAMS

REMEMBERING MY FRIEND

PRODUCER JAMES SAMUEL ‘JIMMY JAM’ HARRIS III REFLECTS ON HIS CHILDHOOD DAYS WITH PRINCE, A MAN HE RECALLS AS BOTH AN AMAZING MUSICIAN AND A GOOD PAL

SOULMATE Prince is really the one who got us our record deal, says Jimmy Jam. I remember him watching one of our concerts, beaming with pride.

PRINCE AND I met in junior high school. I was in seventh grade, he was in eighth, and we shared a music class. We already knew how to play the keyboards, but we did it to get out of school for an hour. It was a keyboard lab, and the teacher would ask you to play a simple song, like Mary Had a Little Lamb, and then [he would] leave. And then for a full hour we would just jam.

Prince was already an amazing keyboard player. I had no idea at the time that he could also play drums, guitar, all these instruments—but on the keyboards he was unparalleled. Particularly for being that young. He put a demo together where he played all of the instruments on it and sang every single part when he was only 16 or 17. It ended up being Soft and Wet, which was his first single. The thing that was most influential to me about Prince was his work ethic. He would come and rehearse with our band the Time for four hours, then he would go and rehearse with his band the Revolution for four hours and then go into the studio all night.

One of those nights he went in, and the next day he came back with a cassette and popped it in and said, This is what I did at the studio last night. And when he pressed play, it was 1999. Not the demo—the full-blown album version. We were blown away. We said, When did you record this? and he said, Last night. It was amazing. He was so prolific. He’d make 24 hours be like 48 hours for anyone else. It was like sonic perfection.

He wrote in all sorts of different ways, but he loved getting musicians together to groove, and he also liked just sitting at