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Profile: Prince: Purple patch for a living legend(Scotland on Sunday Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) ROYAL fever will sweep London this August when Prince, he of the height-stretching pompadour and stilettos, makes his first appearance in the English capital in more than a decade. In excess of 140,000 tickets for a string of concerts sold out within 20 minutes, causing the internet booking site to crash. Organisers immediately added a further six concerts at the former Millennium Dome, bringing the purple reign up to 21 dates. Say what you like about Prince - including the phrase "although courageous experimentation is to be applauded, meandering fusion instrumentals can make a live show drag somewhat" - but you can't knock his pricing policy for these gigs. While Barbra Streisand is charging GBP 500 to see her perform, The Artist Now Once Again Known As Prince has set briefs at a precise GBP 31.21, plus a free album. This may not bring added value. Prince's last album 3121 (hence the ticket price tag) was a messy affair; a random sampling of 12 tracks from his unedited unconscious that mixed in every superfluous bell, whistle, clap and string at his disposal. Still, at least we are once again paying attention to Prince because of his music, rather than his bizarre behaviour. The trouble began with the infamous public appearances with the word "slave" scrawled on his face. That, plus the decision to abandon his name in favour of an unpronounceable glyph and release questionable albums like Come, were the result of a bullheaded battle to burn off his contract with Warner Bros. But other acts were harder to explain away, such as the annulment of his first marriage, to Mayte Garcia, because he didn't trust contracts. And how could U 4get his groundbreaking use of alpha-numeric shorthand, long before texting? And then there is his most notable cultural contribution of the past decade: Carmen Electra, the Wal-Mart Sheena Easton. Prince Rogers Nelson was born in 1959 to John Nelson, a jazz pianist, and his wife Mattie, a backing singer. He grew up in the black suburbs of North Minneapolis and, although his parents divorced when he was very young, his musical heritage shaped the course of his life. Aged 10 he was taken to a James Brown concert, lifted onstage and carried backstage by a bodyguard. "The reason I liked James Brown so much," he would later say, "is that on my way backstage I saw some of the finest girls I'd ever seen in my life." A prodigy who put out his first album when he was 19, by the early 80s he'd assembled a distinctive combination of screaming guitar, loose-limbed funk and futuristic electronics both on his own records and on those of proteges like Sheila E. He often plays every instrument himself, including the virtuoso guitar solo on 'Purple Rain'. Besides his own hits, such as '1999', 'Little Red Corvette', and 'Kiss', he penned the Bangles' perfect pop hit 'Manic Monday', while Sinead O'Connor turned 'Nothing Compares 2 U' into a raw tour de force the rest of her career could not match. "My name is Prince, and I am funky," he once sang. At 48, despite rumours that Mr Hip is in need of a hip replacement, he's funky still. Yet while his music may get groins grinding, Prince himself has never been sexy. Eye-catching yes, when decked out in eyeliner and displaying a retina-scarring dress sense that would have left the Village People shaking their heads. But could anyone ever fancy someone with an image like Casanova as imagined by a heavy-breathing adolescent? "People say I'm wearing heels because I'm short. I wear heels because the women like 'em," he asserted, inaccurately. Still, it worked on some women, especially those he took under his musical wing. Sheena Easton and Vanity were linked to him professionally and personally, as were Madonna and Kim Basinger. At one point he simultaneously dated bandmembers Susan Moonsie and Jill Jones. And, as one crew member recalled, "the girls all had to ride in one bus". As a performer, his interest in women's underwear and its contents and his songs' overheated imagery shocked the conservatives of the 80s - it was a Prince song that prompted Tipper Gore to found the Parents Music Resource Center. However, since becoming a Jehovah's Witness Prince has checked his own libido. His music has always wrestled with Christian-tinged spirituality, but now he's taken to changing "I'm your messiah and you're the reason why" in 'I Would Die 4 U' to "He's your messiah..." Further dilemmas are avoided by eliminating the likes of 'Head' or 'Jack U Off' from the repertoire. The religious fervour reached a zenith in the 2001 concept album The Rainbow Children, an overblown rock-funk opera about the coming apocalypse and the need to straighten things out with the Creator. It was largely crucified by critics. Nowadays, when not writing and performing, he's offering to pay strippers to put their clothes back on. Last year he offered lapdancers at Hollywood nightspot Xenii double their night's wages to stop performing. The bemused women pointed out that they needed to dance every night, but Prince had probably genuinely not realised that - after all, one night's performance can keep him ticking over for a good few months, even at GBP 31.21 a head. There is also the mindboggling revelation that Prince spends his downtime spreading the Watchtower word door-to-door, once turning up at the Minneapolis home of a Jewish couple and urging them to convert on the evening of Yom Kippur. After August, he says he hopes to spend time on Bible study, a declaration that confused this summer's proposed supporting act, Amy Winehouse. "Prince is gonna study the Bible? Is he going to be a rabbi?" inquired Amy. She may be in for a surprise visit next Yom Kippur. The ultimate control freak, Prince remains obsessively private and rarely gives press interviews. In the past, when he did occasionally grant audiences, tape recorders and even pencils were banned, forcing the reporter to memorise the conversation. Personal setbacks have made him even more reluctant to discuss his life publicly. In 1997, his son by Mayte Garcia died at the age of just one week, of a rare skeletal disorder. His second marriage to Manuela Testolini, who worked for his Paisely Park Studios, ended in divorce last year. It's doubtful Prince can ever reclaim his musical crown, despite the surge of enthusiasm this week. Musically he never recovered from being blindsided by rap and hip-hop which made his virtuosity and melodic skills, though not his funk rhythms, seem slightly antique. It must also be obvious that many of the fans who will turn out in droves in August will be hoping for the old Prince, not the performer he has become. But that was ever the fate of living legends. On the night, let's hope they party like it's 1984. YOU'VE BEEN GOOGLED On doing deals - "You can always renegotiate a record contract. You just go in and say, 'I think my next project will be a country and western album'." On shock tactics -"We were exploring ideas. The song 'Sexuality' was about education and literacy. 'P Control' and 'Sexy MF' were about respect for women. Go and listen to the verses." Prince dated several of his protegees, notably Denise Matthews from Vanity 6. Prince renamed Matthews 'Vanity' after she rejected his first choice... 'Vagina'. "All of my ego gratification took place when I was young. Prince used to call me up at three in the morning and invite me to hear some of his new songs." - Sheena Easton, left "Prince looks like a dwarf who's been dipped in a bucket of pubic hair." - Boy George "Prince wanted to do the show, so we wrote him a script. It didn't work out, because his chauffeur had written a script, too, and Prince wanted to use that one." - Matt Groening, creator of The Simpsons Copyright 2007 Scotland on Sunday. Source: Financial Times Information Limited - Europe Intelligence Wire. |