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He has so many names but Mattie Shaw and John L. Nelson named their first child born on June 7th, 1958 in Minneapolis, Minnesota as Prince Roger after the group the "Prince Rogers Band" in which John was the cool-tempered pianist and that had brought them together. Unfortunately, they divorced when Prince was only 7 years old. It was probably faith that he started playing the piano then. Currently he plays over 28 instruments and is a virtuoso musician.
In 1972 Prince formed his first band, Grand Central when he was only 14. In 1977 Prince signed a record contract with Warner Bros. Records. As part of the deal Warner Bros. agreed to let Prince produce his own work. In 1978 Prince released his first album, 'For You'. Prince's first single 'Soft and Wet' came out of this album. To the disappointment of his record company, Prince decided to go back to the recording studio and not tour. The band rehearsed tirelessly, but Prince was not quite ready for fame. "I find it extremely hard to perform for people," he confessed to the Minneapolis Tribune. In June 1979, Prince recorded in only six weeks his second album, 'Prince'. Since January he had written more than 20 songs, including an early version of 'Purple Rain'. 'I Wanna Be Your Lover' became his first hit. With its breathy, high-pitched vocal and provocative lyrics, it stayed just the right side of wholesome entertainment to gain significant radio play, reaching Number 1 on the black chart and Number 11 on the national chart.
On October 8th, 1980 Prince released his third solo album, 'Dirty Mind'. The album was not to be a chart success, but it began Prince's journey out of the R&B chart ghetto into worldwide acceptance as a rock singer. In autumn, he put together a band called The Time. His old friend and ex-Grand Central drummer Morris Day was to be the frontman. The sound of The Time was what Morris Day described as "funk and roll", but their image was all-important to their success-the band dressed cool and acted macho, and Prince gave them slick, funky pop songs to match. 'Dirty Mind', released as a single in November, had been a failure. On October 14, 1981, Prince's forth album, Controversy, was released.
'1999' (September, 1982), truly brought Prince irreversibly into the star system. Acknowledging his band for the first time, the album was credited to Prince and The Revolution. 1999 sold over four million copies and had three Top 10 hits. The titel track was destined to be filling the dancefloors when the end of the millenium comes-and it did! Prince followed the album with the highly successful Triple Threat Tour. His reputation as a dancer began to be the envy of even Micheal Jackson. Throughout the tour Prince had been writing notes in a small purple book, and he and screenwriter William Blinn began to work out a script for a movie. prince wanted the word "purple" to be in the title, and the result was 'Purple Rain'.
It was a semi-biographical film about a young musician growing up in Minneapolis and the album reached a 15 million sales worldwide. Besides the songs Let's Go Crazy, When Doves Cry and of course Purple Rain, I really like the solo guitar part in Computer Blue:).
Then Prince recorded 'Around The World In a Day' in April 1985, in the summer of 1985 his eighth album, 'Parade'-accompanied by Prince's second movie, 'Under The Cherry Moon', and then worked on a 3-record set that was to be called the "Crystal Ball" but due to conflicts it was cut down to a 16 song double album called 'Sign'O' The Times'. Check out especially the song 'The Cross' here!
Endless speculation occured when he pulled back 'Black Album' just days before its original release date. The album was finally released in 1994-seven (!) years after the original release date. Until then, he realeased 'Lovesexy' (1988), recorded the soundtrack for 'Batman' (1989)-for which Damon Wise pointed out in Sounds, that the album "Batman takes place in a one-seat auditorium. And Prince takes all the parts."-and on July 1990 the sequel to Purple Rain, 'Graffiti Bridge', came out. In this album there is another song which makes my flesh creep; 'Joy in Repetition'.
After the release of 'Diamonds and Pearls' (1991), where-in my points of view-you have to listen to the ultimate tragidrama song 'Money Don't Matter 2 Night', the 'O(+>' (Symbol) album was released (1992). His name here was "Victor". For the Symbol album, I recommend to listen to especially three songs, as 'The Morning Papers', 'And God created Woman', and '3 Chains O' Gold'.
In September of 1993 Warner Bros. released 'The Hits / The B-Sides' which contains two previously unreleased songs: 'The Pope' and 'Nothing Compares 2 U'.
For his wife Mayte, he released 'The Beautiful Experience' on his own NPG Records (1994) having seven different versions of 'The Most Beautiful Girl In The World'.
Later that year Prince released 'Come', his album which contained music he recorded before the mysterious name change. Under his own label-NPG records- he released 'Exodus' in Europe, where Prince appears under the guise of "Tora Tora". 'The Gold Experience' was released in September, 1995.
Afterwards, the albums 'Girl 6', 'Chaos and Disorder', two triple CDs 'Emancipation' and 'Crystal Ball', 'New-Power Soul' (1998) with the NPG, 'The Vault...Old Friends 4 Sale' (1999)-which I think is a very different album, close to jazz:)-and finally 'Rave Un2 The Joy Fantastic' (1999) were released, respectively.
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