*********************************** AM/FM ***********************************     PRINCE-GOSSIP    Starting out our series of artist/band-gossip with Prince, here's your chance to find out everything you wondered but didn't dare to ask. If YOU have special knowledge of a band or an artist, make us a gossip-column for publishing in the next issue of AM/FM! AM/FM does not guarantee that everything written here is true, but we do guarantee that as far as we know, it is. That's why we called it "Prince-gossip" and not "Prince-facts". I've picked up the information from various music books and books about Prince. For this short gossip-column, I've just picked out the most interesting/surprising parts to give you an idea of what this strange person is like. If you have any additions or corrections worth mentioning, send them to us! Prince's full name is Prince Roger Nelson. There seems to be a common misunderstanding that his name is Roger Nelson or Rogers Nelson, and Prince is something of a nick-name he's taken on, but his real name is in fact >Prince Roger Nelson<. Prince's mom and dad played in a jazz band at that time, called "The Prince Roger Trio", and they named their son after the band. From what I've heard there are also some 20-30 other persons in the US who actually have Prince as first name. Prince learned to play the piano at the age of 7. When he was 12, he played some 20 different instruments. Now everybody's given up counting. Rumours say that when Prince was 11, his father surprised him in bed with a girl from the neighbourhood, who was 15. Prince's first band was called Champagne (or Champain, I'm not sure). Prince was lead singer and guitarist, he was 14-15 years old, and the band played at school parties, small clubs etc. The band also featured Morris Day on drums (!) and Andre Cymone on bass. Even though Prince is extremely short, he was a very talented basketball player and was one of the best in his high school team, before his music career took off for real. When Prince finally got a deal with Warner Bros., the agreement said that Prince could use the studios in the night-time, when no-one else were using them anyway. This was because Prince was so insistent on doing absolutely everything himself, including the engineering and production, of which he had no experience whatsoever, other than from his home equipment. Prince also lied and said he was older than he really was, as he thought the managers would have more confidence in him that way. 19??-1979, Prince had an enormous afro-hairdo. During the years 1980-1985, Prince was so productive that he had to "invent" other bands to let off some of the music he had been writing. He felt he couldn't release an album every 3 months. Some of the "Prince-fabricated" bands are The Time (later to become independent), Vanity Six, Appolonia Six, The Family. Sometimes, on these albums, other musicians were credited for the instruments etc., but in reality it was Prince who did everything except the lead vocal. In addition to this, Prince constantlty wrote a large number of songs for other bands and artists. Prince has written a number of songs for other bands, using pseudonyms. Three of the known pseudonyms are Jamie Starr (J*Starr), Alexander Nevermind and Christopher Tracy. A piece of lyrics on the "1999" album clearly illustrates this, as Prince goes:  - Jamie Starr's a thief - It's Time to fix your clock - Vanity 6 is so sweet - Now you can all take a bite of my purple rock  On one particular tour in 1983, each concert contained a 3-piece act, with Vanity 6 opening, then The Time played, and lastly, Prince and the Revolution. It all lasted about 5 hours. When Vanity 6 and The Time were on stage, Prince himself sat behind the set and added guitar and keyboards to the songs. Michael Jackson's single "Bad" was written with the intention that it was supposed to be a duet between Jackson and Prince. For some reason Prince refused, and M.Jackson had to rearrange the song to use only his own vocals. When Prince recorded The Black Album, it was done as a direct reaction towards some critics who had pointed out that Prince was losing touch with his own roots, the raw, black funk. He wrote and recorded the Black Album with the intention to funk the butt off said critics. The album also contained some VERY controversial, negative, dark lyrics. However, just a few days before the planned release of The Black Album, he changed his mind about the album and cancelled it. As we all know, every Prince fan has the album anyway. Some say that all of this was a planned marketing stunt from Warner Bros. and/or Prince, and that all bootleg-copying and selling of the Black Album has in fact been totally under the control of Warner Bros. Prince's average working day is 16-18 hours long. From 1986-1987, he spent 8 hours every day just practicing on guitar. Even in periods when Prince has had a band, he has insisted on doing almost everything himself on the albums, and used the band mostly for touring. On most of Prince's studio-recorded songs, he plays all instruments and sings all vocals himself. (Up until Diamonds and Pearls anyway, where the band seems to have taken a greater part in forming the album). Prince used to be using an Amiga 2000 and Music-X for composing/pre-production at home, but he's now changed to a MacIntosh. (At least that's what he had in the movie "Graffiti Bridge"). On almost every 12" single from Prince, there's one or more songs that are not available anywhere else. Here are some artists that I can think of at the moment, who Prince has written material for (although I'm sure this is merely a few of them): Chaka Khan, Madonna, Bangles, Martika, Sheena Easton, Tom Jones & Art of Noise, Mavis Staples, Bananarama, George Clinton, Sheila E., Brownmark, St. Paul, Jill Jones. Prince was also writing material for Miles Davies' forthcoming album, when Miles sadly died before the project was finished. Warner Bros insisted that Prince's latest album, "Diamonds & Pearls", should cost more than other albums, because of the hologram on the cover, which is quite expensive to print. Prince however, insisted that it should not cost any more than any other album, and so it went. In fact, buying "Diamonds & Pearls" on CD gets you real value for money, because it is a double-album squeezed onto one CD, and with a hologram too. And it costs the same as any other single CD. A complete discography of Prince's releases would be as good as impossible. The number of singles, 12" singles, remixes, bootlegs, semi-bootlegs, movies, soundtracks, interview-discs, songs written for other artists etc. is almost rediculous. Such a list would not only be incomplete before it was even typed, but it would fill half of this disk. But here's a list of Prince's albums and year of release: Prince - 1978 - "For You" Prince - 1979 - "Prince" Prince - 1980 - "Dirty Mind" Prince - 1981 - "Controversy" # Prince and the Revolution - 1982 - "1999" (DBL) Prince and the Revolution - 1984 - "Purple Rain" Prince and the Revolution - 1985 - "Around the World in a Day" @ Prince and the Revolution - 1986 - "Parade" % Prince - 1987 - "Sign of the Times" (DBL) $ Prince - 1987 - "Black Album" (never officially released) Prince - 1988 - "LoveSexy" Prince - 1989 - "Batman" Prince - 1990 - "Graffiti Bridge" (DBL) Prince and the New Power Generation - 1991 - "Diamonds & Pearls" (DBL) # - This album is available in two different versions - one single-LP and one double-LP version. The song "D.M.S.R." is missing on the single-LP version and on the CD. @ - Another LP called "Charade" was found on the bootleg-market at about the same time. It contained "left-over" material that there wasn't room for on "Parade", as well as a few live-versions of songs from "Parade". % - This album is widely accepted throughout the music business as "Album of the 80's". $ - See separate section about The Black Album above. *********************************** AM/FM ***********************************