September 22, 2025 • 52 mins
Author John McKie examines the remarkable life and career of one of the most mysterious figures in music, Prince, through the prism of the record most widely considered his masterpiece, 1987's Sign o' the Times.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'll look back at the remarkable life and career of
one of the most mysterious figures in music history, Prince,
through the prism of the record most widely perceived as
his masterpiece, nineteen eighty seven Sign of the Times. That's
next on Booked on Rock. We're totally boomed rock and roll.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
I mean, I'll leave you. You're reading Little Hans this,
it's time to.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Rock and roll. Roll up, I totally booked. Welcome back
to book on Rock. This is the podcast for those
about to read and rock. The podcast today is going
to be about Prince. We've had an episode on Prince recently,
(00:41):
always happy to do another, and this time we have
John McKee. He's the author of Prince A Sign of
the Times. Welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
John, Eric is an honor lovely to meet you.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
You decided to tell the story of Prince's life and
career through the prism of one particular album, nineteen eighty
seven Sign of the Times. To talk about that, there's
a lot.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
If you know about Prince, and most people do know
about Prince, you will understand that as pop music goes,
he's as good as it gets. I think you know,
in terms of the way he played guitar, the way
he played bass, the way played drums, and the way
he sang.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
You know, there's few in line of that.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
You know, Paul McCartney, maybe, Stevie Wonder maybe, but in
terms of you know what he did and you know
his fashion template, you know, David Boye is he's in
a class of very elite company. So if you then
understand about Prince that he's as good as it gets
when it comes to pop music.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
When was he at his very best?
Speaker 3 (01:37):
And a lot of people would say Purple Raine because
that was his the high watermark commercially. Some people would
say the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in two
thousand and four when he did the guitar solo to
pay tribute to George Harrison, or the super Bowl, which
some people would say was the best super Bowl halftime
show ever. But for me, I think nineteen eighty seven,
some of the times you're talking about the best person
(02:00):
and pop music being the best ever was because I
don't know if you've anyone had a chance to see
The Sign of the Times movie on Imax recently, but
that is Prince dancing, singing, playing guitar, playing drums, in
a way that few could. The Signing of the Times
album I think shows the best number of sides to him.
(02:20):
I think, if you want to understand Prince, there's ballads,
there's rocky ones, there's songs that are very much in
a class of their own. In terms of something like
the ballad that's Rothie Parker or if I was your girlfriend,
I don't think anybody else could have done records like those.
So for me, I'd always been fascinated by this record.
Signing at the Times Prince cultivated mystery. So for me
(02:43):
it was the challenge of Okay, well, can I find
out how he actually made this record? Can I find
out it was the same year that he did the
Black album and then he pulled it. It was the same
year he did the movie and then maybe flubbed the
distribution of it. How can I find out how this
remarkable man had this remarkable year, and how he did
it and who he.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
Was, talk about where he's at with his career. When
he begins to create the album sign of the Times,
commercial high with Purple Rain, but then the follow up project,
not received well, under the Cherry Moon Revolution also comes
to an end. So this is a period where he's
coming back from some adversity.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
Yeah, And I mean the story personal if I can
move away from Prince and talking about me, if it's
not indulgent. Is that I wrote a feature for the
BC News in twenty seventeen and it was the thirtieth
anniversar for a cent of the Times, and I didn't
really get close to the subject matter. But part of
the reason I wrote the book was I sort of thought,
I wrote this feature and it was only, you know,
(03:41):
eight hundred words or something, and it was essentially, how
come the guy who gets rid of the band with
whom he had the greatest success he splits up with
a fiance that he thought he was going to marry
and who lived with him, the first serious girlfriend he's
adedly that lived with him, and he's coming off the
flop of under the chair where he's ready killed. How
(04:02):
does he go from that to his best of a record?
And then I thought, and the light bulb in my
head went, there's a book in this. And so fast
forward to twenty twenty when Lockdown happened and I finally
drummed up the courage to write it. And the answer
is that this was someone with incredible drive, with incredible
work ethic, with incredible belief in himself. But he did
(04:24):
also have help, and that was part of the reason
I wanted to find the book. So write the book,
because you know, the Revolution do infuse a lot of
the flavors of Sending the Times, even though the Prince
recorded a lot of it on his own, A lot
of the songs about Susannah who Sonna Melvoyne, which the
woman that he split up with that I just mentioned.
(04:45):
And you know, he did people around him in the
studios sometimes when he made these records, not just engineers.
So it was just figuring out how this singular, talented,
mercurial individual created it when he needed help and when
he didn't need help.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
The opening to Sign of the Times is the title track,
the world was in a different place. It's not by
many as his most socially conscious song to date. What
was going on around Prince at that time when we
hear the song, because this is, as you know, for
pop songs. Usually pop artists do not tread in this territory,
(05:22):
not even rap groups like Public Enemy. You point out
that too.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
Yeah, I think Signing of the Times is a remarkable record.
Sign of The Times was made partly in La whether
We're earthquakes.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
At the time HIV AIDS was becoming an issue.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
I thought what was fascinating was, I don't know if
you've seen the quest Lot movie Summer of Soul where
the Harlem Festival. One of the precurring one of the
recurring issues is people at that festival saying, why is
the US spending all this money on space travel? This
is a big almost you know, social argument in the sixties.
(05:58):
And fast forward to ninety eight six, nineteen eighty seven
when Princes making the record and he's saying, is Sellino
when a rocket ship explodes? So he was, I think
making on the console recording in his new house in
gulp And Boulevard when Challenger happened, which was the explosion
(06:19):
of the.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
The NASA April of eighty six.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
I think that was April of eighty six, and that's
the start of Signing of the Times. You've also got
earthquakes on the West Coast. You've also got the emotional
earthquake of splitting out his girlfriend. You've also got you know,
in the book deals with the were makeup artes where
people around Princess Camp who were living with HIV and
people at that time are going, what is this new
(06:44):
thing that people are talking about. It was also in
the cover of the La Times, which was in this
hotel room when he was checking out one day. So
Prince was if you understand Prince, Prince was a student
of lots of things. He was a student of music, obviously,
and you can hear that he was a student of
the news. He was very clued up, certainly the older
(07:04):
he got, he used to sit for hours in Paisley
and when he went to stay in as Elie rentals
and had parties there, he would have social rights leaders,
he would have intellectuals that he would sit and talk
until the small hours with them about all sorts of issues.
So you hear that in Sign of the Times.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
The lyrics in France, a skinny man died of a
big disease with a little name a chance. His girlfriend
came across a needle and soon she did the same.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
You know, as we said it was I think it
was eighty six. Eighty seven was the first the year
of the first Public Enemy album, and you know Death
Jam tour was eighty seven, so so rap music was
growing at social consciousness. I mean, it was always socially conscious,
wasn't a hip hop but you know, certainly in the
mid eighties and late eighties bands rap acts started becoming
(07:52):
a lot more outspoken or a lot more mainstream.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
I think they were always outspoken, but Prince.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
Prince would talk about politics, but he would do it
in his own terms, just like everything he did. You know,
he'd play guitar, but he would play in his own terms.
He would choose the bandmates on his own terms, and
some of the times the song is definitely a man
doing things in his own terms.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
And it does make sense now after reading that why
he declined the offer to sing on Michael Jackson's Bad.
He didn't like the opening.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
Lyric He's talked about that, doesn't he? You know who's
singing that? Who's singing what to whom? I think was
his phrase to Michael Jackson. And you know, I love
this story. That's I heard Susanna told not the writer
tour he who's written a couple of excellent books, but Prince.
But I believe she told him that Prince Re recorded
a version of Bad and sent it back to Michael Jackson,
that this is how it's meant to sound, And there's
(08:49):
a couple of stories in the book elsewhere of Prince
doing that. There's a story which he was in a
studio and he heard a bass player's rendish of something
and if he's basically going to re record it with
his base on it and a little sense the base,
you should have played on it and send it back
to him, which was very very Prince in terms of
(09:11):
how competitive he was. So I think given how competitive
he was, I don't think there was any ever any
chance of recording.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
He looked your butt is mine now, although.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
I just say that.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
But one of the things the book does disclose, and
I believe it was the first I ever heard of
it was that Prince's engineers and people who worked at
Paisley in the early nineties talked about Michael Jackson coming
over to Minneapolis and actually asking what kind of console
he wanted in Paisley, and they were discussing them working
in some material together, which is tantalizing.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Oh man, Yeah, that was there was a mutual respect
between the two his artists, for sure. It's yeah, there
was a competitiveness there though Prince had that competitiveness about him,
but they also understood they were both two of the
biggest male pop stars at that point. They could relate
to that pressure to follow huge albums, so there was
certainly there was certainly a mutual respect. He where did
(10:10):
he send clips of all positive reviews to Michael? Yeah,
he's just a nice, little friendly like, yeah, look what
I did.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
Yeah, he used to send them to ranch. Then he
had to fax to his ranch. But I think it
was quite warm. So Michael Jackson used to send, you know,
clips of and this was the days before the internet,
the days before YouTube, but Michael Jackson used to send
videos of you know, sly Stone and early seventies shows.
Go and check this out, which suggests a kind of
warmness and Michael's part. But you know, Michael Jackson, whatever
(10:40):
you think of him, whatever headlines he's had, he sort
of remains.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
You know.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
Thriller was the best selling album of all time, and
Prince was competitive, you know, and Michael was competitive too.
So when Prince did the dates of the O two
in London, Michael Inn announced even more dates of the
two before he sadly passed. So that tells me that
they both like to and compete with one another.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
Book on podcasts, we'll be back after this.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Surely you can't be serious. I am serious, and don't
call me surely.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
Where that competitiveness comes from is interesting, and you get
to that in the book. He was fiercely competitive, and
you're right about that coming from maybe the fact that
he's from Minneapolis, right the roots there. It's where his
work ethic came from, in the sense you get those
brutal cold winters. It's like, what else are you going
to do? You go in in woodshed work, work work, right,
But also the fact that he was on the short
(11:38):
end of the height scale and that his friends he
could play basketball, he was a really good player, but
because of his height, he wasn't going to get into
college or NBA whatever. But also his friends that his
taller friends were getting the girls. So those things he
turns into a.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
Positive absolutely, absolutely, And I think that's part of his
brilliance really is that this was someone that was going
to win. You know, when you talk about sports, you know,
he decided that he was going to win at music.
So then you know, the book covers the fact that
it talks about Jimmy Hendrix, and it talks about Prince
(12:20):
being a fan with his band of the Jackson five
and Dancing Machine and things like that, and playing that
in high school and then learning the guitar because he
told Albert Margnolli, who's the director of in the Purple
Ran movie, he said, if I played the guitar, learned
the guitar, it puts me in a place that Michael
Jackson can't reach. And he was thinking about that even
at an early age, and that's kind of remarkable. And
(12:41):
then you think about Prince is always I think, even
among fans who are very protective of them and say
there was no one like Prince, which is true, but
I think because he was from the Midwest and he
was born in nineteen fifty eight and he sold a
lot of records, particularly in the eighties, I think who
else like that? And I think Michael Jackson and Madonna
(13:02):
are always going to be part of that conversation. And
one of the things I think that's interesting about Prince
is that although desperately seeking, Susan was a hit Prince
in terms of movies with Purple Ring, and he reached
a place that they didn't quite reach in terms of
that success. And you know, I think when he told
his management team, get me a movie. I have to
(13:25):
wonder if Michael Jackson was in his mind because you know,
Thriller had happened, and he thought, I don't know if
I can sell as many records as Thriller, but if
I make a movie, I've got an advantage over him.
And I think that's also part of the reason that
he maybe didn't do The Way of the World single.
And I'm only guessing here, but you know, with that
(13:45):
level of competitiveness, you know that he probably didn't want
to be bracketed alongside other people.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
Maybe he was just shy, but you know, you do wonder.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
James Campion, the author of a great Prince book that
just come out, was talking about that because he gets
and do it in his book as well, about that
Prince just wasn't comfortable recording with other people. Wasn't something
he did, just as the way his personality was just
wasn't something he would do. And he kind of took
some heat for that, but that's who he was.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
Yeah, Yeah, he would absolutely, and I think I tried
to compare. One of the things that I think the
book does or hopes to do, is compare Prince to
other musicians, and some people could say, nothing compares to
Prince kind of phrase. But for me, one of the
things I wanted to understand is, Okay, well, what was
Stevie Wonder like in the studio as opposed to Prince.
And you know, Stevie Wonder I believe put his drums
(14:39):
on last. But also he liked to have people in
the studio that could react as singing, so you even
know how it's going, how it was going, whereas with
Prince he would record, it was a very private, sacred
space for him, so he would clear everyone out, including
sometimes the engineers. He would figure out, he would work
out technically had to record his own vocals, and he
would record in his own And I also think that
part of that was that Prince did not think of
(15:01):
himself as a great singer. There was maybe a lack
of comfort in his singing, which I think we all
maybe struggle with a sign of our own voice, even
even some of his talented his Prince, and so he
would record in his own And.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
I mean he had an amazing range, right.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
He had a four octive range. And one of the
things that I found instructive about reading the book is
just the amount of great singers who paid tribute to
the Prince, and you know, he might not have liked
his own voice, but they certainly did, and you know
most of us do obviously.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
Oh absolutely, And you mentioned Madonna's film, he had a
lot in common with her. I mean, they were, they were,
they were. They shared commonality in the fact that obviously
they were huge pop stars but also skilled work ethic,
sexually provocative. Talk about their relationship, friends, competitors, and collaborators.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
That's right, And I think Prince of Madonna are very interesting.
Alan Leads was a great conciliary, if that's the right
word of Prince that he also worked with James Brown,
and he sort of said, I didn't expect too much
to come from that. And I think this possibility that
they were too similar in terms of why they didn't
work together the long term, why they didn't do an
album together, for example, But if you look at both
(16:16):
their careers that there are astonishing amounts of similarities there.
As you said it that they were both very sexually
provocative in the eighties and the early nineties. That was
replaced by spirituality later on. They went through a period,
you know, in the nineties of the two thousands where
it was you know, I'm an artist. I don't have
to do all my hits in the show. And then
you know they've made peace for the fact that people
(16:38):
do want to hear them perform hits. They both got
a great year. Michael Bland, who's one of Prince's drummers
in the nineties, a lot of people's favorite Prince drummer,
he was quite dismissed ful about Madonna two Prince, and
Prince corrected him and as he said, Prince traded me
out by that. And it is in the book where
he said, she knows exactly what she wants to hear,
(17:00):
and she knows Prince would hunt for the perfect coord
the perfect sound, and she would be relentless until you
know he landed it. And if you look at the
people she's worked with, she's very very clever at getting
the best out of them. So you know, whether that's
your Price, whether that's Willie Moore, about, whether that's now Rogers,
whether that's jelly Bean, whether that's Timberland, she's very very
(17:26):
good at driving them to a place that they will
help her be her best. And then I'm probably not
giving her enough credit in terms of all the things
that she's done on her own again, she's I think
very competitive.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
Our guess is John McKay's, the author of Prince's Sign
of the Times, was talking about Prince's influences. Another fascinating
aspect of his background. There's the Holy Grail slide, the
family Stone, but he also loved Grand Funk Railroad and
Joni Mitchell. That is absolutely fascinating to me. If you
were to ask me what I thought his three favorite bands,
(18:00):
where I would not have guessed those three.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
That's what somebody said. I mean, lots of people have
got different versions of who Prince's favorite band were. And
I think if you wanted to make a guest of it,
and you know that obviously that that interview or said that,
but I think if you want to make a guest
of it, there's a few useful pointers. I think one
is that Minneapolis radio. I think the Minneapolis spread of
(18:24):
people is ninety white audience. So therefore Prince grew up
not just listening to James Brown or slanging the Family
Stone in the radio. But would hear Fleetwood Mac, would
hear Joni Mitchell. So yeah, there was a widespread of
influences there. And then if you wanted to stand back
(18:46):
and think about it. You know, a lot of people
have said Jimi Hendrix is a favorite guitarist, but actually,
if you listen to him, and I quite a few
interviews said that it's Carlos Santana is the person who comes
up again and again and again. I think the fact
that he worked with Sheila He certainly around the time
of sending at the Times, and she'd already drummed for Santana,
I think would have been impressive to him. Prince's influences.
(19:10):
I think if you look at him and you listen
to him, you can't not hear and see James Brown.
You know, you can't not see the way that he
would drive a horn section. You can't not see, you know,
we're actually like kneeling his get down to his knees
and pray sometimes.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
On stage performance on stage.
Speaker 3 (19:27):
In Mad House over the jazz band that he worked
with in that setting of the Times period in nineteen
eighty seven war capes. You know, again, you can'tnot think
of James Brown. Listen to hot thing of Setting the
Times I think was Atlanta Bliss, Matt Blister and the
trumpeters that you worked with at the time and I said,
you know, did he admit to the James Brown influence?
(19:50):
And he said, you could not admit to it, you know,
but you couldn't hide it. So for me, you know,
as a band leader, I think James Brown is up there.
But you know, Joni Mitchell was very profound for him
as a person. Yes, slat In the Family Stone. Absolutely,
he loved Fleetwood Mac. That there's so many people, but
(20:12):
Larry Graham as well. If you look at his nineties,
he seemed to spend most of his time with Larry
Graham nineties in the two thousands, and he certainly loves
Slidin's Family Stone.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
You mentioned Fleetwood Mac. He wanted Stevie Nicks to sing
on Purple Rain. Correct, That is a story that Stevie's told.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
Yeah, Stevie has told that. I didn't go into detail
in that book because I think the thing about Prince
World is things like that happen and then they disappear
very quickly. So I think Stevie said that in an interview,
and she said something along the lines of I couldn't
do justice to.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
It, intimidated to the point, I mean, which is mind boggling.
It's Stevie Nicks, but.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
It's Stevie Nicks and Prince loves Stevie Nicks.
Speaker 3 (20:49):
And I think I mentioned a microphone that you worked
used in the studio, and I think that was a
direct result of a recommendation from Stevie Nicks. And Stevie
Nicks famously, I think got into Prince from Little Red
Corvette playing on the Honeymoon when she was in a
road trip with her husband. And I think our admiration
for Prince lasted longer than a marriage. No offense to Stevie, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Yeah, and had that influenced stand back.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
Stand Back is yeah, Steve look at Her. I was
lucky enough to speak to him, and what an incredible
career he said, absolutely. And I love the story about
when Jimmy Ivan and Stephen ex for in the studio
and they said, we want the sound that Michael Jackson
had for Beat It, and they actually tried to got
David will Williams who played on Beat It, and I
wasn't the sign they wanted, and so you know, they
(21:37):
ended up asking Steve look at Her to do it,
and that stuff like that. I love stories like that.
In the eighties, So for example, like I really wanted
to interview Ja Graden for the book. And part of
the reason I wanted to interview J Graden for the
book was that, for those who know, Jay Graden was
in and out of Sunset Sound Studios in LA at
the time, and that's where a lot of signing the
Times have made. But for the other reason I wanted
to view J.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
Graden was Graden is famous.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
In rock and roll history, and this is not really
about Prince, but again I just love this stuff. Is
that steely Dan when they were making peg and they
wanted a certain sound on the guitars, and I think
Jay Graden was session guitars number eight who was brought
in seven. The first seven didn't work out and it
only took Jaden, who was like the eighth at tenth,
(22:22):
you know, the eighth guy to step in before they
were happy, which tells you a little about Becker and
Vegan and you know the way they run a studio.
But for those who say I just want to hear
about Prince, you know, part of the other reason I
once speaks to him was that he was in and
around Sunset Sounds when Prince was making these records. So
(22:43):
for those who don't know Prince would record it often
in Minneapolis, but he would also record in Sunset Sound
Studios in la which is where Fluwood Mac finished off Rumors,
which is where Boris Pickett did the Monster Mash, which
is where Eddie Hillton and Studio One did Eruption, which
you know will be.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
See the rain Halen banner behind.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
That's why I mentioned it, you know.
Speaker 3 (23:03):
And obviously Steve Lucaster, who I mentioned a minute ago,
was best mates with Eddie and you know Steve look
at her and I think Jeff per Carol were playing
on Thriller as well. So you had Michael Jackson down.
They were to west Lake to go back to him,
and he had Prince and Sunset Sound in his own studio.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
Studio three three was his favorite, and there was a
basketball court behind the building that he played at.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
Yeah, that was about Yeah, he played all the time.
And Kenny Rodgers, Richard Marks, and David Foster. I think
he's not interviewed in the book, but he did introduce
me to Jimmy jam which I was very lucky to
speak to him towards the end of the process of writing.
But he Yeah, he had studios for Earth Wind and
Far in sunset. So he ran a couple of rooms
(23:46):
where he was just constantly moving. And you listen to
the earth Winding Far records, and you can hear the
amount of sonic work that's gone into them, you know,
and you can hear the musicianship and the ability that
those guys had booked.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
On rock podcast will be back after this. It's intermation time.
Prince could turn a mistake into art. Michael Bland, his
drummer Princess Drummer from the nineties, told you there was
no such thing as an accident in the studio.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
One of the things the book does is that for
those listening who decide that they don't like Prince, and
that's okay, I would still encourage you.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
They out there, well, I don't understand species. I don't
really understand, but something wrong with them, what's going on?
I can't help them.
Speaker 3 (24:30):
But what fascinated me was that the other musicians that
Prince has got in common with, and Prince was also
around that time a Sound of the Times that was
mooted to do a record with Miles Davis, and so
when I went into research for the book, I became
fascinated by Miles Davis as well. And the reason I
mentioned Miles Davis here in an answer to your question,
which I will come to answer your question, is that
(24:53):
Miles Davis didn't talk when he worked with bandmates about mistakes.
He talked about interesting choices and you. He would talk
about if you play a wrong note, make it sound
like you meant to play it the same note in
Jake Graden that I mentioned a minute ago, said that
he would put he played a wrong note or a
mistake note, whatever you want to call it, he would
didn't play it as part of a sequence to make
it sound like that's what he'd meant to do all along,
(25:15):
Isn't It is amazing? And so the happy accident, as
I call it, is something that I became fascinated by,
and just the opportunity to kind of write about how
you know that the several songs on sound at the
times where quote unquote mistakes are turned into making it
(25:36):
sound like it's meant to sound. So the ballad Dorothy
Parker Susan Rogers, who was his engineer at the time,
had installed a new console and this sound was dull
and flat, and Prince just didn't even comment on it.
So she'd kind of made a quote unquote mistake, and
he said, oh, the console sounds you know different. But
(25:58):
again part of the reason of the ballad, Arthie Parker
sounds so weird, maybe to do with that Forever in
My Life, which again is got central stage of the movie.
There's a refrain that he sings as part of the
chorus and that is an accident and it's turned into
a recurring theme. And again, you know, I enterview that
(26:19):
was lucky enough to interview Patricia Russian, the Great Patricia Russian,
and she talked about Freddie Washington's base playing on Forget
Me Notes and that was actually the start of a mistake. Now,
I don't think anyone could listen to Forgive Me Notes
by PATRICI Russian, which has been sampled to turn into
number one hits by George Michael and by Will Smith,
and go that was a mistake. You know, that's someone
(26:41):
who is an A grade musician, knowing what to do
and knowing how to turn it into gold.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
Now to his personal life, Prince had one child with
his first wife, Miighte Garcia. Their son, Armir, was born
a month premature on October sixteenth, nineteen ninety six died
after six days, diagnosed with a rare genetic disorder of
the skull called Peiffer's syndrome type two. Not surprisingly, that
(27:08):
devastated Prince. He really wanted to raise a family.
Speaker 3 (27:12):
Yeah, the book, as you suggested, the book takes into
Prince's childlike energy. And you know, one of his former
managers was our Zati is wonderful interviewee, and she talks
about the innate creativity of a child, says, look what
I made, And if you think about Prince, that's what
(27:32):
he's all about. And the book is chock full of
stories about employees and colleagues who bring their kids to
concerts and Prince.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
Almost ignores them, illustrates to the children.
Speaker 3 (27:43):
And part of the reason that that was in the
book was not just to pry into his personal life,
and obviously, you know what he went through is devastating.
The reason that's in the book is because if you
listen to Starfish and Coffee, which is the son that
he performed on Muppets Tonight, there's a child like an
energy to it. If you listen to House Quick, which
talks about green eggs and ham, which I believe references dultriesses.
(28:06):
You listen to Playing the Sunshine and where he talks
about Harvey and the big White Rabbit begins to talk.
There's an Edward Lear nursery rhyme and it's going to
be a beautiful night. So this is someone that tapped
into that energy off when he was a child. Prince,
not to talk about something of the times, but Prince
when he was very young played piano in school talent
(28:28):
shows and one of the things he played was the
Batman theme. So when it came to nineteen eighty nine,
nineteen ninety, Tim Burton and give him a ring, he's
not going to be able.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
To resist that.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
Jumped at that chance.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
Yeah, he's jumped at that chance.
Speaker 3 (28:41):
And then you know, you see that with the people
that he worked with, so people at Larry Graham and
people at Shaka Khan. You know, they were a big
part of his childhood growing up. You know that he
played regularly with Stevie Wonder in private occasions for the
White House and parties in la And that wasn't an accident.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
You're right about princes a boss and in business dealings
quote from the book, whether Prince paid you well or
not depended on your expectations.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
Yeah, that was difficult to write about because.
Speaker 3 (29:10):
Everyone has different expectations around Prince and everyone has different
reality if you like, and they all worked with him
at different stages of his career. And for me, the
important thing is because Prince isn't around anymore, I really
wanted to be fair to Prince. So when somebody said
he underpaid me, or somebody else said, you know, I
(29:31):
was happy with what he paid me. I tried to
include all those voices in the book. It's a challenge
because I think if you look at his early part
of his career going on to the time he was
maybe he was pretty rough on them. You know, when
they went on tour with Prince in the Time and
Vanity six the time were kept off the bill in
(29:54):
New York and LA so that Prince could make sure
that he get the most credit.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
The time.
Speaker 3 (29:59):
We're not getting paid a law, as you know, somewhere
between hundred and seventeen one hundred and fifty dollars a week.
When you think about what people get paid for tours
now is mind boggling. But then a lot of people
will worked with you know, engineers and musicians, you know,
in the twenty first century have got no complaints and
are very happy with what they paid them and say.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
That he was very generous. So for me, you know,
he did a huge amount of philanthropic work as well.
Speaker 3 (30:26):
So for me, it was just about reflecting that in
the book as accurately and as fairly as I could.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
His relationship with Warner Brothers. Want to talk about that
before and after Sign of the Times things got tense, contentious,
I guess after this album because Lenny Warnker of Warner
Brothers wanted a double album, Prince wanted a triple album.
He went and cut tracks essentially without Prince's input.
Speaker 3 (30:52):
Yeah, when you see cut tracks, and my understanding of
it is that he had the conversation with him that
it had to be a double rather than that. You know,
he talked Prince down from the ledge of making it
a triple into double, but.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
He yeah, that's right, Prince said, Okay, fine. Prince wanted
to have say in which ones were going to be
cut out and that didn't happen.
Speaker 3 (31:14):
Yeah, I wanted it. Lenny was a fascinating interview and
what I wanted to find out. And it's difficult because
it's hard for him to remember everything that happened, because
it was a long time ago.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
But in the book, it recounts that Prince had.
Speaker 3 (31:27):
A late night conversation with Lenny and Lenny leaned on him,
shall we say to make it a double album?
Speaker 2 (31:33):
Prince was not happy, but that.
Speaker 3 (31:36):
Lenny then got his team together in the morning and said, right,
we've got to get to sequence this record and suggest
Prince how it might how the triple might work as
a double and maybe make suggestions about the sequencing and
the running of the album. He then phoned management, you know,
just before lunch, and said, okay, we're going to get
to work on this, and management said, what do you mean,
(31:57):
Prince has already done it, which I think again was
Prince where Prince had turned it into double himself and
suggested the running order and the track list.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
Did it end up being the one that he wanted
the track list? Then that was?
Speaker 2 (32:09):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (32:10):
I think so, because I think even although Prince, I
think Prince gave not that many interviews, but I think
if he was unhappy with the way Son of the
Times it turned out, I'd like to think we've heard
about it in an interview by now.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
You know, he gave enough interviews that.
Speaker 3 (32:30):
If he says, oh, no, that's not he also didn't
look back Prince, So I think he was very good
at going no, that's the way it should be. And
that's that's one of the things that's very interesting about Prince.
So when Prince went in to record a record, record
a song rather, it was very rare that he wouldn't
finish it in one day and he would say to
the engineer, what it's meant to be that way. So
(32:51):
even when we talked about mistakes earlier, as you might
call him, he didn't see them as mistakes. He just
that's the way the record's meant to be. So my guess,
and it is only a guess, is that you would
probably see side of the time of the double album
is the way it's meant to be.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
How about Prince's female alter ego, Camille. He recorded an
entire album under that pseudonym.
Speaker 3 (33:11):
Yeah, yeah, Well, this fertile period of nineteen eighty seven
was just a fascinating, fascinating period of time.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
You've Got the movie.
Speaker 3 (33:25):
It was the time that Bonnie Rait and George Clinton
were popping into Paisley Park, which was opening You've Got
the mooted album with Miles Davis, which didn't happen. You've
got the Madhouse Jazz Project, and there was going to
be the Flesh Sessions, the Black Album, which was written
for Chile's birthday, and he got Signing the Times, the
(33:47):
double album right in the mix of that, which was meant.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
To be Dream Factory.
Speaker 3 (33:50):
And before that, you've also got Camille, which is, as
you say, an album because he was putting at so
many records, it was an album by a female alter ego,
which wasn't of course Prince.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
Here's where you talk about the vocal range too. This
is where he's getting way up there.
Speaker 3 (34:06):
Way up there, and it's it's just fascinating because some
of those songs like if I Was Your Girlfriend is
a Camille track really when you think about.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
It, so that gives you an idea of what the
album would have sounded like.
Speaker 3 (34:16):
That gives you that gives you a very good idea
of what the album would have sounded like. And I
find If I Was Your Girlfriend a really fascinating case
study of where a Prince was at that time. Fascinating
because sonically it's different from anyone else.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
It's if he's.
Speaker 3 (34:33):
Talking about a relationship where he wants a level of
closeness that only a female wonder would understand. And he's
dating a twin and he's the son of a twin.
You know, sometimes Prince is mysterious, and sometimes it's pretty
easy to figure out what he was talking about. And
I think if I was your girlfriend is one of
the ones where it's easier to figure.
Speaker 2 (34:52):
Out what he was talking about. And as I say
in the book, if you look at.
Speaker 3 (35:01):
If you look at like you know, the early eighties
records like Dirty Minds, you know, Head and Sister, we
are quite shocking.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
And he's been provocative.
Speaker 3 (35:09):
You know, as I said, you Dirty mind he was
looking to shock and you know, by this stage you
wanted to share and you know, so there's an emotional
maturity if you like to that.
Speaker 1 (35:23):
Book on Rock podcasts will be back after this. Hey, guys,
thanks so much for checking out the Booked on Rock podcast.
If you've just found the podcast, welcome. If you've been listening,
thank you so much for your support, and make sure
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(35:45):
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booked on Rock. Thanks again for listening. Now back to
(36:07):
the show, Let's talk about relationships some more. He had
a relationship with Kim Besinger. He was married twice, managed
to keep those private. Kim Besinger a famous person. He
was in a relationship with her, and it seems like
that was a pretty serious relationship.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
Yeah. The book goes into that in some depth.
Speaker 3 (36:25):
I had not planned to work right about Kim Basinger
in any detailed but quite a few interviews intimated that
that relationship was a lot more serious than I was
first reported. And I think part of the reason that
it was not reported as being serious is it was
played out in Minneapolis.
Speaker 2 (36:41):
So Prince I think Saint.
Speaker 3 (36:47):
Sent the Batman soundtrack to Kim Bassinger, Jack Nicholson, Michael Keaton.
Michael Keaton didn't get back. Jack Nicholson asked for money,
which was ignored, and Kim Basinger had a call with them,
and according to his personal assistant at the time, within
fifteen minutes, she'd booked a flight and he'd booked a
(37:07):
hotel in Minneapolis, and they never used a hotel because
she went straight to see him. And I believe that
they we're together for quite a few months, and you know,
my understanding from interviewees is that she moved quite a
lot of her stuff over to Minneapolis. She wants to
work with him, that he went shopping with her, which,
if you know anything about Prince anything, him doing anything
with a girlfriend that didn't involve music is quite rare.
(37:31):
And she was smitten. He was smitten. He used to
play pranks together and employees. It's quite sweet in terms
of some of the stories that people talked about in
the book.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
Yeah, that would have been amazing. What if they got married,
That has been quite a story for the media to follow.
Speaker 3 (37:47):
Yeah, it's funny to think she would get more publicity
than she did when she was married to Alec Baldwin,
but yeah, it would be even more.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:55):
Sure. His performance at the O four Rock and Roll
Hall of Fame ceremonies is legendary. Now, his guitar solo
brought the house down. As for his style of playing
the guitar, Randy Newman had an interesting quote. He says
Prince's prowess and other instruments informed his playing on guitar.
His guitar ideas aren't the kind of ideas that a
guitar player would have necessarily. How much of a fan
(38:18):
of other guitars was Prince because you read quote Prince
enjoyed guitarists sort.
Speaker 3 (38:22):
Of, Yeah, that's in reference to Jimmy Berenger, who's the
very talented local player. When I say local, local to Minneapolis,
who played on The Most Peaceiful Girl in the World.
And you know, some people at the time, I think
Ricky Peterson that worked on it, said that he'd he
sort of made that record is so good. So Prince
(38:44):
knew he didn't want to cut off his nose despite
his face, and so he knew it was good, but
he didn't enjoy the guitarist being good. And Prince was
a big fan of guitarists. I mean, I had to
tread carefully because I don't play the guitar, but I
also knew that this was Guys who love rock and
roll tend to love guitars and guys who love rock
(39:06):
and roll often play the guitar, and they care about gear,
and they care about guitarists. So I worked very hard
in the book to figure out both in terms of gear,
what gear Prince loved, but also what guitarist he loved. Yeah,
and Prince, it was very rare that Prince was outclassed
when he played with all the guitarists. So, you know,
(39:27):
like Scotti, Baldwin points out that he didn't play on
stage with John Mayer too much or somebody like that,
you know, but he did play with some really amazing guitarists,
you know, for Wendy melvoyn to Sonny Thompson, Mike Scott
and he. The thing about Prince and guitar playing is
(39:49):
you can hear Jimi Hendrix, but you can hear Carlos Santana,
and you hear those lead solos. But you can also
hear Tony Maiden who was in Rufins and Shaky kN Band.
You can also hear Jimmy Nolan who played the funk
stuff with James Brown and Hans Martin. Buff was one
of the engineers. Said something very interesting that's also in
(40:11):
the book where he said, Prince doesn't just write for
his instruments. So if you were a guitarist as good
as Prince, right, and you played this killer solo, if
it didn't work for the record, he was talented enough
that he could chuck it out. You imagine Prince in
a band that could play guitar like that and the
lead singer or the producer goes, oh, we don't need
that solo. You'd imagine they go nuts. They'd be like, no,
(40:33):
you're not allowed to do that. This is brilliant. Prince
was so gifted that he could play this amazing solo.
We presume he could play a solo and go, well
it doesn't work for the record, I won't use it.
So that's next level talent, really, isn't it.
Speaker 1 (40:46):
We have to address the name change. Your comment on
this is interesting and I want to ask you about it.
Why did he change the name? First? Well, why do
you say it was both a pivotal moment in his
career and in other regards of footnote?
Speaker 2 (40:59):
Well, if you.
Speaker 3 (41:00):
Think about Prince, and this is sort of my opinion,
the great thing about Ryano because you get to sneak
in little snippets of your own opinion, but I hope
it's mainly, you know, the opinions of the people that
I interviewed as much as it as me, if not more.
But the artist formerly known as Prince, he was, you know,
the butt of all sorts of talk show host jokes
during that period, and you know, the squiggle or symbol
(41:22):
or whatever you.
Speaker 2 (41:22):
Want to call them.
Speaker 3 (41:24):
People would sort of decry if you look at that.
It's very brave move, it's very bold. It's going to
war with the record company feels like it owns anything
was the name Prince written on it. So he just goes,
do you know what, I'm going to shut that down,
And you know, it almost moved to a different territory
so that he can stake out his own claim for
himself and his own work. So in some ways it's
(41:46):
incredibly brave and in some ways is incredibly bold, but
in other ways it's it's just something he did, you know,
and it shows a lot, It displays fearlessness, it displaces canny,
but it doesn't define him.
Speaker 1 (42:03):
Yeah, I agree. I've said in the past maybe I'm
incorrect about this, but I also thought he did it
for other artists who are being taken advantage.
Speaker 3 (42:13):
Of One of the things that I took in different
parts of his career outside of sending the Times was
because I couldn't, as I said to you, when I
wrote that feature in twenty seventeen, I was like, but
who is this guy? And you know, I interviewed something
like you know, there was a lot of people I interviewed,
but I was about thirty interviews in and I sort
(42:36):
of paused and I thought, I still don't know who
this guy is that made this record. And that's why
I kept interviewing people. And so part of understanding Prince,
I think, is that you know, when he wrote slave
in his face and people around him said, he didn't
do that a lot in the studio, So it was
it was a moment in time where it was he
(42:56):
was making a point. You know, at the brit Awards
in ninety five, I think when he had in his
face that he was making a point. But it wasn't
something he did all the time. The interesting thing about
the Prince, you know, taff cap, period symbol, whatever you
want to call it, is that he would privately people
would call him Prince and he would snap at them
and say, don't call me that. If you're talking about
(43:18):
Prince and other artists, you only need to look at
what he did, you know, owning his own masters. This
is something that Anita Baker's talked about recently, that Taylor
Swift has fought to control her own music. You know,
the fact that she's the first billionaire through music alone.
I think something like that would have not escaped Prince's notice.
And Prince sold music on the internet when it wasn't
(43:39):
fashionable to do so. Prince went to war with big
record companies long before other major artists felt the courage
to be able to do that. Prince just you would
turn down the obvious opportunity. And that's part of what
makes his music career so interesting.
Speaker 1 (43:58):
He had all those songs like nothing compared to you
for Shinead O'Connor. I mean, it's just it's amazing how
much he wrote and then he just shared them with
other artists.
Speaker 3 (44:07):
Here you go, what's really amazing. And nobody, I think
will do this again, and I can't think of anyone
who's done it before his Prince was making and recording
so many records that he invented the time. And you know,
as the book suggests, some of the Time the Time
were kept out of the studio so the Prince could
(44:27):
make Time records, which is kind of funny. So he
created the Time, and his fingerprints are all over those records.
He created Vanity six, and his fingerprints again or all
over those records. And so he actually and the Time
and Prince were in a degree of competition when they
went and toured together. So Prince actually created his own competition.
And there's two things to note of that. One is
(44:50):
that you know how prolifically he was able to do that,
But also he was shining a spotlight in Minneapolis, so
people would then people would talk about the Minneapolis scene.
So the Minneapolis scene was effectively with all due to
respect to the other musicians around at the time, one
guy who was just making it feel like the most
happening place in music.
Speaker 1 (45:10):
Booked on Rock Podcasts. We'll be back after this.
Speaker 3 (45:14):
Okay, I mean you know where we are.
Speaker 2 (45:17):
Tell your Brad.
Speaker 1 (45:20):
Find the Bookdo on Rock website at booked on rock
dot com. There you can find all the back episodes
of the show, the latest episode in video and audio
links to all of the platforms where you can listen
to the podcast, plus all the social media platforms were
on Blue Sky, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and x. Also check
out the booked on rock blog. Find your local independent bookstore,
(45:42):
find out all the latest hot rock book releases, and
before you go, check out the booked on rock online store.
Pick up some booked on rock merch. It's all at
booked on rock dot com. His death in twenty sixteen
was a shock. He was only fifty seven. At one
point in the book you read quote Prince left the
earth with unanswered questions about him. This was not accidental.
(46:04):
Do you feel after writing the book maybe you were
able to get a little bit closer to who Prince
was as a person.
Speaker 2 (46:10):
Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (46:11):
I feel like it was funny when you know, towards
the later stage of interviewing, people would tell me stories
and I never met Prince, but they will tell me
stories about things they'd said in front of him, and
I was thinking, Oh, he's not going to like that,
Oh he's going to like that, and you know, but
towards the end again of reading about him and finding
(46:32):
out about him, I would read interviews from people that
people had done later in his career, and they would
say certain things that they knew he was going to
like and it would carry favor with him. So there
were certain things that Prince would respond well to, certain
musical references that he would respond well to. I felt
(46:53):
like I got to know him a bit better. But
I also wanted to respect the mystery. You know, he
cultivated the mystery around them, and I think there are
things about Prince that none of us will ever know.
I'm that's okay, But this book is I think as
close as I could get to for the neutral, you know,
the observer of the music fan to be able to
(47:14):
find out about them. And I wanted to do as
much of a three sixty on Prince as I could.
Speaker 1 (47:19):
Yeah, they just did an episode on ric Ocassik of
the Cars, who was a mysterious guy, and I think
I prefer it that way. That's something that's lost on
this era now where we can find out so much
about people because of social media and everybody's got a
phone and you could you could film them, you know,
video them at any time. And I like the mystery.
(47:43):
I like not knowing everything, and let us try to
find out from the music, and let us try to
find out maybe from the people that worked with that
person or knew them and come up with our own
conclusion as to who they are.
Speaker 3 (47:56):
Roy Bennett, Princess lighting director, said something fascinating to me
where he talked about and Prince and he had a
really symbiotic relationship where Roy Bennett, I think, is the
only person who's actually suggested changing a sett list of
Princess to Prince's face and Princes receptive to it. I
think anyone else that had done that would have been,
(48:16):
you know, headed for the door very quickly. But Roy
Bennett told me that he was told by Prince went
to put the lights on him in a concert and
went not to so because Prince understood being a rock star.
Of that sense of anticipation, princeview went to disappear and
went to appear. And there's a brilliant book. Another example
(48:40):
of that is there's a brilliant book written about James
Brown called Kill Him and Leave, and it talked about
the advice that I think James Brown talked about with
All Sharpton, where.
Speaker 2 (48:52):
James would do.
Speaker 3 (48:53):
An amazing show and then leaving the daughter. He would
come in with an amazing anecdote and then leave.
Speaker 2 (48:58):
So by the time people turn and I went, oh,
who was that what happened. He was gone on to
the next thing.
Speaker 3 (49:03):
And Prince was an absolute master at appearing dropping in
a comment, you know, and you see that in the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Speaker 2 (49:12):
You know, he's like a ghost the way he disappears
at the end of it.
Speaker 1 (49:15):
Yep, that's the way he wanted it.
Speaker 2 (49:17):
Yeah, that whole kill him and lead thing.
Speaker 3 (49:19):
I think it's very Prince even though it was originally
referred to James Brown.
Speaker 1 (49:24):
Prince sign at the Times. It's out now wherever books
are sold, John.
Speaker 3 (49:29):
I hope so it's in the UK, and I hope
that you can have it transported to your home wherever
that is. But it's like the UK at the moment.
Speaker 1 (49:36):
And look forward at your nearest bookstore. You can also
go to book down rock dot com to find it
at your nearest independent bookstore. And can people find you online? John,
reach out to you.
Speaker 3 (49:45):
Yeah, Yeah, I'm John McKee on Twitter. I'm Johnny eighteen
which is the Scottish spelling hwn i E eighteen on
Instagram and I'm on LinkedIn. And in fact social media
helped me write the book because I found interview He's
on Facebook. I found them on Twitter, I found them
on Instagram, and I find them on LinkedIn. So not
(50:06):
TikTok as yet, but all the other, all the other
social media outlets were very useful for helping me track
down people.
Speaker 1 (50:12):
Yeah, that's the great part of social media. I know
people tend to focus on the downside of it, but
social media does have those benefits. So go out and
get this book, and go out and listen to a
Sign of the Times. Like I told you before we
started recording. As I'm reading your book, I'm playing it
from start to finish and just amazed at how brilliant
the album is. And I would say that I could
(50:33):
never take the place of Your Man is my favorite
from the album and one of my favorite Prince songs period.
Speaker 2 (50:39):
That's a good call.
Speaker 3 (50:40):
I mean, it's it's great, and it's you know, you
can hear a bit of everyone and that you can
hear Carlos Santana, you can hear a little bit of
James Brian United, most of all, you can hear Prince
and that's that's a wonderful thing.
Speaker 1 (50:50):
Yep, that's a call back to his Purple Rain days.
I think, right, wasn't that written back?
Speaker 3 (50:54):
Yeah, it was a song that was kicking about for
for quite a while before I think I could never
take the place of your man. Is strange really ship
date back to the early eighties, maybe in the late
seventies in one case.
Speaker 1 (51:04):
Well, out of fairness, I should before I let you go,
what's your favorite track from Sign of the Times?
Speaker 3 (51:11):
One of the reasons I wanted to write the book.
And you'll see with the book it's sixteen chapters. In
each sixteen chapter is the song that showcases Prince's personality.
So I know he wants the short answer to this, probably,
but sometimes.
Speaker 1 (51:23):
It's time as long as it needs to be.
Speaker 3 (51:26):
Sometimes it's Sunning the Times, and that speaks to social acticism,
so that's why that's covered in that part of the book.
Sometimes it's Ballad of Dorothy Parker, which speaks to his
idiosyncratic nature. Sometimes it's starfishing Coffee, which speaks to how
he was that childlike capacity they had. And sometimes it's
you go to look because he knews we are an
a good pop song. So it depends what day.
Speaker 2 (51:47):
You ask me.
Speaker 1 (51:47):
All right, perfectly answered, perfectly answered, John, Thank you so
much for being here, Congrats on a great book, and
hopefully we'll have you back on again in the future.
Speaker 2 (51:56):
Absolute pleasure, Eric, all the best.
Speaker 1 (52:05):
That's it. It's in the box.
Speaker 3 (52:08):
H
I'll look back at the remarkable life and career of
one of the most mysterious figures in music history, Prince,
through the prism of the record most widely perceived as
his masterpiece, nineteen eighty seven Sign of the Times. That's
next on Booked on Rock. We're totally boomed rock and roll.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
I mean, I'll leave you. You're reading Little Hans this,
it's time to.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Rock and roll. Roll up, I totally booked. Welcome back
to book on Rock. This is the podcast for those
about to read and rock. The podcast today is going
to be about Prince. We've had an episode on Prince recently,
(00:41):
always happy to do another, and this time we have
John McKee. He's the author of Prince A Sign of
the Times. Welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
John, Eric is an honor lovely to meet you.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
You decided to tell the story of Prince's life and
career through the prism of one particular album, nineteen eighty
seven Sign of the Times. To talk about that, there's
a lot.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
If you know about Prince, and most people do know
about Prince, you will understand that as pop music goes,
he's as good as it gets. I think you know,
in terms of the way he played guitar, the way
he played bass, the way played drums, and the way
he sang.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
You know, there's few in line of that.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
You know, Paul McCartney, maybe, Stevie Wonder maybe, but in
terms of you know what he did and you know
his fashion template, you know, David Boye is he's in
a class of very elite company. So if you then
understand about Prince that he's as good as it gets
when it comes to pop music.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
When was he at his very best?
Speaker 3 (01:37):
And a lot of people would say Purple Raine because
that was his the high watermark commercially. Some people would
say the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in two
thousand and four when he did the guitar solo to
pay tribute to George Harrison, or the super Bowl, which
some people would say was the best super Bowl halftime
show ever. But for me, I think nineteen eighty seven,
some of the times you're talking about the best person
(02:00):
and pop music being the best ever was because I
don't know if you've anyone had a chance to see
The Sign of the Times movie on Imax recently, but
that is Prince dancing, singing, playing guitar, playing drums, in
a way that few could. The Signing of the Times
album I think shows the best number of sides to him.
(02:20):
I think, if you want to understand Prince, there's ballads,
there's rocky ones, there's songs that are very much in
a class of their own. In terms of something like
the ballad that's Rothie Parker or if I was your girlfriend,
I don't think anybody else could have done records like those.
So for me, I'd always been fascinated by this record.
Signing at the Times Prince cultivated mystery. So for me
(02:43):
it was the challenge of Okay, well, can I find
out how he actually made this record? Can I find
out it was the same year that he did the
Black album and then he pulled it. It was the same
year he did the movie and then maybe flubbed the
distribution of it. How can I find out how this
remarkable man had this remarkable year, and how he did
it and who he.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
Was, talk about where he's at with his career. When
he begins to create the album sign of the Times,
commercial high with Purple Rain, but then the follow up project,
not received well, under the Cherry Moon Revolution also comes
to an end. So this is a period where he's
coming back from some adversity.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
Yeah, And I mean the story personal if I can
move away from Prince and talking about me, if it's
not indulgent. Is that I wrote a feature for the
BC News in twenty seventeen and it was the thirtieth
anniversar for a cent of the Times, and I didn't
really get close to the subject matter. But part of
the reason I wrote the book was I sort of thought,
I wrote this feature and it was only, you know,
(03:41):
eight hundred words or something, and it was essentially, how
come the guy who gets rid of the band with
whom he had the greatest success he splits up with
a fiance that he thought he was going to marry
and who lived with him, the first serious girlfriend he's
adedly that lived with him, and he's coming off the
flop of under the chair where he's ready killed. How
(04:02):
does he go from that to his best of a record?
And then I thought, and the light bulb in my
head went, there's a book in this. And so fast
forward to twenty twenty when Lockdown happened and I finally
drummed up the courage to write it. And the answer
is that this was someone with incredible drive, with incredible
work ethic, with incredible belief in himself. But he did
(04:24):
also have help, and that was part of the reason
I wanted to find the book. So write the book,
because you know, the Revolution do infuse a lot of
the flavors of Sending the Times, even though the Prince
recorded a lot of it on his own, A lot
of the songs about Susannah who Sonna Melvoyne, which the
woman that he split up with that I just mentioned.
(04:45):
And you know, he did people around him in the
studios sometimes when he made these records, not just engineers.
So it was just figuring out how this singular, talented,
mercurial individual created it when he needed help and when
he didn't need help.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
The opening to Sign of the Times is the title track,
the world was in a different place. It's not by
many as his most socially conscious song to date. What
was going on around Prince at that time when we
hear the song, because this is, as you know, for
pop songs. Usually pop artists do not tread in this territory,
(05:22):
not even rap groups like Public Enemy. You point out
that too.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
Yeah, I think Signing of the Times is a remarkable record.
Sign of The Times was made partly in La whether
We're earthquakes.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
At the time HIV AIDS was becoming an issue.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
I thought what was fascinating was, I don't know if
you've seen the quest Lot movie Summer of Soul where
the Harlem Festival. One of the precurring one of the
recurring issues is people at that festival saying, why is
the US spending all this money on space travel? This
is a big almost you know, social argument in the sixties.
(05:58):
And fast forward to ninety eight six, nineteen eighty seven
when Princes making the record and he's saying, is Sellino
when a rocket ship explodes? So he was, I think
making on the console recording in his new house in
gulp And Boulevard when Challenger happened, which was the explosion
(06:19):
of the.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
The NASA April of eighty six.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
I think that was April of eighty six, and that's
the start of Signing of the Times. You've also got
earthquakes on the West Coast. You've also got the emotional
earthquake of splitting out his girlfriend. You've also got you know,
in the book deals with the were makeup artes where
people around Princess Camp who were living with HIV and
people at that time are going, what is this new
(06:44):
thing that people are talking about. It was also in
the cover of the La Times, which was in this
hotel room when he was checking out one day. So
Prince was if you understand Prince, Prince was a student
of lots of things. He was a student of music, obviously,
and you can hear that he was a student of
the news. He was very clued up, certainly the older
(07:04):
he got, he used to sit for hours in Paisley
and when he went to stay in as Elie rentals
and had parties there, he would have social rights leaders,
he would have intellectuals that he would sit and talk
until the small hours with them about all sorts of issues.
So you hear that in Sign of the Times.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
The lyrics in France, a skinny man died of a
big disease with a little name a chance. His girlfriend
came across a needle and soon she did the same.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
You know, as we said it was I think it
was eighty six. Eighty seven was the first the year
of the first Public Enemy album, and you know Death
Jam tour was eighty seven, so so rap music was
growing at social consciousness. I mean, it was always socially conscious,
wasn't a hip hop but you know, certainly in the
mid eighties and late eighties bands rap acts started becoming
(07:52):
a lot more outspoken or a lot more mainstream.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
I think they were always outspoken, but Prince.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
Prince would talk about politics, but he would do it
in his own terms, just like everything he did. You know,
he'd play guitar, but he would play in his own terms.
He would choose the bandmates on his own terms, and
some of the times the song is definitely a man
doing things in his own terms.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
And it does make sense now after reading that why
he declined the offer to sing on Michael Jackson's Bad.
He didn't like the opening.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
Lyric He's talked about that, doesn't he? You know who's
singing that? Who's singing what to whom? I think was
his phrase to Michael Jackson. And you know, I love
this story. That's I heard Susanna told not the writer
tour he who's written a couple of excellent books, but Prince.
But I believe she told him that Prince Re recorded
a version of Bad and sent it back to Michael Jackson,
that this is how it's meant to sound, And there's
(08:49):
a couple of stories in the book elsewhere of Prince
doing that. There's a story which he was in a
studio and he heard a bass player's rendish of something
and if he's basically going to re record it with
his base on it and a little sense the base,
you should have played on it and send it back
to him, which was very very Prince in terms of
(09:11):
how competitive he was. So I think given how competitive
he was, I don't think there was any ever any
chance of recording.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
He looked your butt is mine now, although.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
I just say that.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
But one of the things the book does disclose, and
I believe it was the first I ever heard of
it was that Prince's engineers and people who worked at
Paisley in the early nineties talked about Michael Jackson coming
over to Minneapolis and actually asking what kind of console
he wanted in Paisley, and they were discussing them working
in some material together, which is tantalizing.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Oh man, Yeah, that was there was a mutual respect
between the two his artists, for sure. It's yeah, there
was a competitiveness there though Prince had that competitiveness about him,
but they also understood they were both two of the
biggest male pop stars at that point. They could relate
to that pressure to follow huge albums, so there was
certainly there was certainly a mutual respect. He where did
(10:10):
he send clips of all positive reviews to Michael? Yeah,
he's just a nice, little friendly like, yeah, look what
I did.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
Yeah, he used to send them to ranch. Then he
had to fax to his ranch. But I think it
was quite warm. So Michael Jackson used to send, you know,
clips of and this was the days before the internet,
the days before YouTube, but Michael Jackson used to send
videos of you know, sly Stone and early seventies shows.
Go and check this out, which suggests a kind of
warmness and Michael's part. But you know, Michael Jackson, whatever
(10:40):
you think of him, whatever headlines he's had, he sort
of remains.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
You know.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
Thriller was the best selling album of all time, and
Prince was competitive, you know, and Michael was competitive too.
So when Prince did the dates of the O two
in London, Michael Inn announced even more dates of the
two before he sadly passed. So that tells me that
they both like to and compete with one another.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
Book on podcasts, we'll be back after this.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Surely you can't be serious. I am serious, and don't
call me surely.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
Where that competitiveness comes from is interesting, and you get
to that in the book. He was fiercely competitive, and
you're right about that coming from maybe the fact that
he's from Minneapolis, right the roots there. It's where his
work ethic came from, in the sense you get those
brutal cold winters. It's like, what else are you going
to do? You go in in woodshed work, work work, right,
But also the fact that he was on the short
(11:38):
end of the height scale and that his friends he
could play basketball, he was a really good player, but
because of his height, he wasn't going to get into
college or NBA whatever. But also his friends that his
taller friends were getting the girls. So those things he
turns into a.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
Positive absolutely, absolutely, And I think that's part of his
brilliance really is that this was someone that was going
to win. You know, when you talk about sports, you know,
he decided that he was going to win at music.
So then you know, the book covers the fact that
it talks about Jimmy Hendrix, and it talks about Prince
(12:20):
being a fan with his band of the Jackson five
and Dancing Machine and things like that, and playing that
in high school and then learning the guitar because he
told Albert Margnolli, who's the director of in the Purple
Ran movie, he said, if I played the guitar, learned
the guitar, it puts me in a place that Michael
Jackson can't reach. And he was thinking about that even
at an early age, and that's kind of remarkable. And
(12:41):
then you think about Prince is always I think, even
among fans who are very protective of them and say
there was no one like Prince, which is true, but
I think because he was from the Midwest and he
was born in nineteen fifty eight and he sold a
lot of records, particularly in the eighties, I think who
else like that? And I think Michael Jackson and Madonna
(13:02):
are always going to be part of that conversation. And
one of the things I think that's interesting about Prince
is that although desperately seeking, Susan was a hit Prince
in terms of movies with Purple Ring, and he reached
a place that they didn't quite reach in terms of
that success. And you know, I think when he told
his management team, get me a movie. I have to
(13:25):
wonder if Michael Jackson was in his mind because you know,
Thriller had happened, and he thought, I don't know if
I can sell as many records as Thriller, but if
I make a movie, I've got an advantage over him.
And I think that's also part of the reason that
he maybe didn't do The Way of the World single.
And I'm only guessing here, but you know, with that
(13:45):
level of competitiveness, you know that he probably didn't want
to be bracketed alongside other people.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
Maybe he was just shy, but you know, you do wonder.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
James Campion, the author of a great Prince book that
just come out, was talking about that because he gets
and do it in his book as well, about that
Prince just wasn't comfortable recording with other people. Wasn't something
he did, just as the way his personality was just
wasn't something he would do. And he kind of took
some heat for that, but that's who he was.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
Yeah, Yeah, he would absolutely, and I think I tried
to compare. One of the things that I think the
book does or hopes to do, is compare Prince to
other musicians, and some people could say, nothing compares to
Prince kind of phrase. But for me, one of the
things I wanted to understand is, Okay, well, what was
Stevie Wonder like in the studio as opposed to Prince.
And you know, Stevie Wonder I believe put his drums
(14:39):
on last. But also he liked to have people in
the studio that could react as singing, so you even
know how it's going, how it was going, whereas with
Prince he would record, it was a very private, sacred
space for him, so he would clear everyone out, including
sometimes the engineers. He would figure out, he would work
out technically had to record his own vocals, and he
would record in his own And I also think that
part of that was that Prince did not think of
(15:01):
himself as a great singer. There was maybe a lack
of comfort in his singing, which I think we all
maybe struggle with a sign of our own voice, even
even some of his talented his Prince, and so he
would record in his own And.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
I mean he had an amazing range, right.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
He had a four octive range. And one of the
things that I found instructive about reading the book is
just the amount of great singers who paid tribute to
the Prince, and you know, he might not have liked
his own voice, but they certainly did, and you know
most of us do obviously.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
Oh absolutely, And you mentioned Madonna's film, he had a
lot in common with her. I mean, they were, they were,
they were. They shared commonality in the fact that obviously
they were huge pop stars but also skilled work ethic,
sexually provocative. Talk about their relationship, friends, competitors, and collaborators.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
That's right, And I think Prince of Madonna are very interesting.
Alan Leads was a great conciliary, if that's the right
word of Prince that he also worked with James Brown,
and he sort of said, I didn't expect too much
to come from that. And I think this possibility that
they were too similar in terms of why they didn't
work together the long term, why they didn't do an
album together, for example, But if you look at both
(16:16):
their careers that there are astonishing amounts of similarities there.
As you said it that they were both very sexually
provocative in the eighties and the early nineties. That was
replaced by spirituality later on. They went through a period,
you know, in the nineties of the two thousands where
it was you know, I'm an artist. I don't have
to do all my hits in the show. And then
you know they've made peace for the fact that people
(16:38):
do want to hear them perform hits. They both got
a great year. Michael Bland, who's one of Prince's drummers
in the nineties, a lot of people's favorite Prince drummer,
he was quite dismissed ful about Madonna two Prince, and
Prince corrected him and as he said, Prince traded me
out by that. And it is in the book where
he said, she knows exactly what she wants to hear,
(17:00):
and she knows Prince would hunt for the perfect coord
the perfect sound, and she would be relentless until you
know he landed it. And if you look at the
people she's worked with, she's very very clever at getting
the best out of them. So you know, whether that's
your Price, whether that's Willie Moore, about, whether that's now Rogers,
whether that's jelly Bean, whether that's Timberland, she's very very
(17:26):
good at driving them to a place that they will
help her be her best. And then I'm probably not
giving her enough credit in terms of all the things
that she's done on her own again, she's I think
very competitive.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
Our guess is John McKay's, the author of Prince's Sign
of the Times, was talking about Prince's influences. Another fascinating
aspect of his background. There's the Holy Grail slide, the
family Stone, but he also loved Grand Funk Railroad and
Joni Mitchell. That is absolutely fascinating to me. If you
were to ask me what I thought his three favorite bands,
(18:00):
where I would not have guessed those three.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
That's what somebody said. I mean, lots of people have
got different versions of who Prince's favorite band were. And
I think if you wanted to make a guest of it,
and you know that obviously that that interview or said that,
but I think if you want to make a guest
of it, there's a few useful pointers. I think one
is that Minneapolis radio. I think the Minneapolis spread of
(18:24):
people is ninety white audience. So therefore Prince grew up
not just listening to James Brown or slanging the Family
Stone in the radio. But would hear Fleetwood Mac, would
hear Joni Mitchell. So yeah, there was a widespread of
influences there. And then if you wanted to stand back
(18:46):
and think about it. You know, a lot of people
have said Jimi Hendrix is a favorite guitarist, but actually,
if you listen to him, and I quite a few
interviews said that it's Carlos Santana is the person who comes
up again and again and again. I think the fact
that he worked with Sheila He certainly around the time
of sending at the Times, and she'd already drummed for Santana,
I think would have been impressive to him. Prince's influences.
(19:10):
I think if you look at him and you listen
to him, you can't not hear and see James Brown.
You know, you can't not see the way that he
would drive a horn section. You can't not see, you know,
we're actually like kneeling his get down to his knees
and pray sometimes.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
On stage performance on stage.
Speaker 3 (19:27):
In Mad House over the jazz band that he worked
with in that setting of the Times period in nineteen
eighty seven war capes. You know, again, you can'tnot think
of James Brown. Listen to hot thing of Setting the
Times I think was Atlanta Bliss, Matt Blister and the
trumpeters that you worked with at the time and I said,
you know, did he admit to the James Brown influence?
(19:50):
And he said, you could not admit to it, you know,
but you couldn't hide it. So for me, you know,
as a band leader, I think James Brown is up there.
But you know, Joni Mitchell was very profound for him
as a person. Yes, slat In the Family Stone. Absolutely,
he loved Fleetwood Mac. That there's so many people, but
(20:12):
Larry Graham as well. If you look at his nineties,
he seemed to spend most of his time with Larry
Graham nineties in the two thousands, and he certainly loves
Slidin's Family Stone.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
You mentioned Fleetwood Mac. He wanted Stevie Nicks to sing
on Purple Rain. Correct, That is a story that Stevie's told.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
Yeah, Stevie has told that. I didn't go into detail
in that book because I think the thing about Prince
World is things like that happen and then they disappear
very quickly. So I think Stevie said that in an interview,
and she said something along the lines of I couldn't
do justice to.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
It, intimidated to the point, I mean, which is mind boggling.
It's Stevie Nicks, but.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
It's Stevie Nicks and Prince loves Stevie Nicks.
Speaker 3 (20:49):
And I think I mentioned a microphone that you worked
used in the studio, and I think that was a
direct result of a recommendation from Stevie Nicks. And Stevie
Nicks famously, I think got into Prince from Little Red
Corvette playing on the Honeymoon when she was in a
road trip with her husband. And I think our admiration
for Prince lasted longer than a marriage. No offense to Stevie, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Yeah, and had that influenced stand back.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
Stand Back is yeah, Steve look at Her. I was
lucky enough to speak to him, and what an incredible
career he said, absolutely. And I love the story about
when Jimmy Ivan and Stephen ex for in the studio
and they said, we want the sound that Michael Jackson
had for Beat It, and they actually tried to got
David will Williams who played on Beat It, and I
wasn't the sign they wanted, and so you know, they
(21:37):
ended up asking Steve look at Her to do it,
and that stuff like that. I love stories like that.
In the eighties, So for example, like I really wanted
to interview Ja Graden for the book. And part of
the reason I wanted to interview J Graden for the
book was that, for those who know, Jay Graden was
in and out of Sunset Sound Studios in LA at
the time, and that's where a lot of signing the
Times have made. But for the other reason I wanted
to view J.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
Graden was Graden is famous.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
In rock and roll history, and this is not really
about Prince, but again I just love this stuff. Is
that steely Dan when they were making peg and they
wanted a certain sound on the guitars, and I think
Jay Graden was session guitars number eight who was brought
in seven. The first seven didn't work out and it
only took Jaden, who was like the eighth at tenth,
(22:22):
you know, the eighth guy to step in before they
were happy, which tells you a little about Becker and
Vegan and you know the way they run a studio.
But for those who say I just want to hear
about Prince, you know, part of the other reason I
once speaks to him was that he was in and
around Sunset Sounds when Prince was making these records. So
(22:43):
for those who don't know Prince would record it often
in Minneapolis, but he would also record in Sunset Sound
Studios in la which is where Fluwood Mac finished off Rumors,
which is where Boris Pickett did the Monster Mash, which
is where Eddie Hillton and Studio One did Eruption, which
you know will be.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
See the rain Halen banner behind.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
That's why I mentioned it, you know.
Speaker 3 (23:03):
And obviously Steve Lucaster, who I mentioned a minute ago,
was best mates with Eddie and you know Steve look
at her and I think Jeff per Carol were playing
on Thriller as well. So you had Michael Jackson down.
They were to west Lake to go back to him,
and he had Prince and Sunset Sound in his own studio.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
Studio three three was his favorite, and there was a
basketball court behind the building that he played at.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
Yeah, that was about Yeah, he played all the time.
And Kenny Rodgers, Richard Marks, and David Foster. I think
he's not interviewed in the book, but he did introduce
me to Jimmy jam which I was very lucky to
speak to him towards the end of the process of writing.
But he Yeah, he had studios for Earth Wind and
Far in sunset. So he ran a couple of rooms
(23:46):
where he was just constantly moving. And you listen to
the earth Winding Far records, and you can hear the
amount of sonic work that's gone into them, you know,
and you can hear the musicianship and the ability that
those guys had booked.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
On rock podcast will be back after this. It's intermation time.
Prince could turn a mistake into art. Michael Bland, his
drummer Princess Drummer from the nineties, told you there was
no such thing as an accident in the studio.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
One of the things the book does is that for
those listening who decide that they don't like Prince, and
that's okay, I would still encourage you.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
They out there, well, I don't understand species. I don't
really understand, but something wrong with them, what's going on?
I can't help them.
Speaker 3 (24:30):
But what fascinated me was that the other musicians that
Prince has got in common with, and Prince was also
around that time a Sound of the Times that was
mooted to do a record with Miles Davis, and so
when I went into research for the book, I became
fascinated by Miles Davis as well. And the reason I
mentioned Miles Davis here in an answer to your question,
which I will come to answer your question, is that
(24:53):
Miles Davis didn't talk when he worked with bandmates about mistakes.
He talked about interesting choices and you. He would talk
about if you play a wrong note, make it sound
like you meant to play it the same note in
Jake Graden that I mentioned a minute ago, said that
he would put he played a wrong note or a
mistake note, whatever you want to call it, he would
didn't play it as part of a sequence to make
it sound like that's what he'd meant to do all along,
(25:15):
Isn't It is amazing? And so the happy accident, as
I call it, is something that I became fascinated by,
and just the opportunity to kind of write about how
you know that the several songs on sound at the
times where quote unquote mistakes are turned into making it
(25:36):
sound like it's meant to sound. So the ballad Dorothy
Parker Susan Rogers, who was his engineer at the time,
had installed a new console and this sound was dull
and flat, and Prince just didn't even comment on it.
So she'd kind of made a quote unquote mistake, and
he said, oh, the console sounds you know different. But
(25:58):
again part of the reason of the ballad, Arthie Parker
sounds so weird, maybe to do with that Forever in
My Life, which again is got central stage of the movie.
There's a refrain that he sings as part of the
chorus and that is an accident and it's turned into
a recurring theme. And again, you know, I enterview that
(26:19):
was lucky enough to interview Patricia Russian, the Great Patricia Russian,
and she talked about Freddie Washington's base playing on Forget
Me Notes and that was actually the start of a mistake. Now,
I don't think anyone could listen to Forgive Me Notes
by PATRICI Russian, which has been sampled to turn into
number one hits by George Michael and by Will Smith,
and go that was a mistake. You know, that's someone
(26:41):
who is an A grade musician, knowing what to do
and knowing how to turn it into gold.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
Now to his personal life, Prince had one child with
his first wife, Miighte Garcia. Their son, Armir, was born
a month premature on October sixteenth, nineteen ninety six died
after six days, diagnosed with a rare genetic disorder of
the skull called Peiffer's syndrome type two. Not surprisingly, that
(27:08):
devastated Prince. He really wanted to raise a family.
Speaker 3 (27:12):
Yeah, the book, as you suggested, the book takes into
Prince's childlike energy. And you know, one of his former
managers was our Zati is wonderful interviewee, and she talks
about the innate creativity of a child, says, look what
I made, And if you think about Prince, that's what
(27:32):
he's all about. And the book is chock full of
stories about employees and colleagues who bring their kids to
concerts and Prince.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
Almost ignores them, illustrates to the children.
Speaker 3 (27:43):
And part of the reason that that was in the
book was not just to pry into his personal life,
and obviously, you know what he went through is devastating.
The reason that's in the book is because if you
listen to Starfish and Coffee, which is the son that
he performed on Muppets Tonight, there's a child like an
energy to it. If you listen to House Quick, which
talks about green eggs and ham, which I believe references dultriesses.
(28:06):
You listen to Playing the Sunshine and where he talks
about Harvey and the big White Rabbit begins to talk.
There's an Edward Lear nursery rhyme and it's going to
be a beautiful night. So this is someone that tapped
into that energy off when he was a child. Prince,
not to talk about something of the times, but Prince
when he was very young played piano in school talent
(28:28):
shows and one of the things he played was the
Batman theme. So when it came to nineteen eighty nine,
nineteen ninety, Tim Burton and give him a ring, he's
not going to be able.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
To resist that.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
Jumped at that chance.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
Yeah, he's jumped at that chance.
Speaker 3 (28:41):
And then you know, you see that with the people
that he worked with, so people at Larry Graham and
people at Shaka Khan. You know, they were a big
part of his childhood growing up. You know that he
played regularly with Stevie Wonder in private occasions for the
White House and parties in la And that wasn't an accident.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
You're right about princes a boss and in business dealings
quote from the book, whether Prince paid you well or
not depended on your expectations.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
Yeah, that was difficult to write about because.
Speaker 3 (29:10):
Everyone has different expectations around Prince and everyone has different
reality if you like, and they all worked with him
at different stages of his career. And for me, the
important thing is because Prince isn't around anymore, I really
wanted to be fair to Prince. So when somebody said
he underpaid me, or somebody else said, you know, I
(29:31):
was happy with what he paid me. I tried to
include all those voices in the book. It's a challenge
because I think if you look at his early part
of his career going on to the time he was
maybe he was pretty rough on them. You know, when
they went on tour with Prince in the Time and
Vanity six the time were kept off the bill in
(29:54):
New York and LA so that Prince could make sure
that he get the most credit.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
The time.
Speaker 3 (29:59):
We're not getting paid a law, as you know, somewhere
between hundred and seventeen one hundred and fifty dollars a week.
When you think about what people get paid for tours
now is mind boggling. But then a lot of people
will worked with you know, engineers and musicians, you know,
in the twenty first century have got no complaints and
are very happy with what they paid them and say.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
That he was very generous. So for me, you know,
he did a huge amount of philanthropic work as well.
Speaker 3 (30:26):
So for me, it was just about reflecting that in
the book as accurately and as fairly as I could.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
His relationship with Warner Brothers. Want to talk about that
before and after Sign of the Times things got tense, contentious,
I guess after this album because Lenny Warnker of Warner
Brothers wanted a double album, Prince wanted a triple album.
He went and cut tracks essentially without Prince's input.
Speaker 3 (30:52):
Yeah, when you see cut tracks, and my understanding of
it is that he had the conversation with him that
it had to be a double rather than that. You know,
he talked Prince down from the ledge of making it
a triple into double, but.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
He yeah, that's right, Prince said, Okay, fine. Prince wanted
to have say in which ones were going to be
cut out and that didn't happen.
Speaker 3 (31:14):
Yeah, I wanted it. Lenny was a fascinating interview and
what I wanted to find out. And it's difficult because
it's hard for him to remember everything that happened, because
it was a long time ago.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
But in the book, it recounts that Prince had.
Speaker 3 (31:27):
A late night conversation with Lenny and Lenny leaned on him,
shall we say to make it a double album?
Speaker 2 (31:33):
Prince was not happy, but that.
Speaker 3 (31:36):
Lenny then got his team together in the morning and said, right,
we've got to get to sequence this record and suggest
Prince how it might how the triple might work as
a double and maybe make suggestions about the sequencing and
the running of the album. He then phoned management, you know,
just before lunch, and said, okay, we're going to get
to work on this, and management said, what do you mean,
(31:57):
Prince has already done it, which I think again was
Prince where Prince had turned it into double himself and
suggested the running order and the track list.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
Did it end up being the one that he wanted
the track list? Then that was?
Speaker 2 (32:09):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (32:10):
I think so, because I think even although Prince, I
think Prince gave not that many interviews, but I think
if he was unhappy with the way Son of the
Times it turned out, I'd like to think we've heard
about it in an interview by now.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
You know, he gave enough interviews that.
Speaker 3 (32:30):
If he says, oh, no, that's not he also didn't
look back Prince, So I think he was very good
at going no, that's the way it should be. And
that's that's one of the things that's very interesting about Prince.
So when Prince went in to record a record, record
a song rather, it was very rare that he wouldn't
finish it in one day and he would say to
the engineer, what it's meant to be that way. So
(32:51):
even when we talked about mistakes earlier, as you might
call him, he didn't see them as mistakes. He just
that's the way the record's meant to be. So my guess,
and it is only a guess, is that you would
probably see side of the time of the double album
is the way it's meant to be.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
How about Prince's female alter ego, Camille. He recorded an
entire album under that pseudonym.
Speaker 3 (33:11):
Yeah, yeah, Well, this fertile period of nineteen eighty seven
was just a fascinating, fascinating period of time.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
You've Got the movie.
Speaker 3 (33:25):
It was the time that Bonnie Rait and George Clinton
were popping into Paisley Park, which was opening You've Got
the mooted album with Miles Davis, which didn't happen. You've
got the Madhouse Jazz Project, and there was going to
be the Flesh Sessions, the Black Album, which was written
for Chile's birthday, and he got Signing the Times, the
(33:47):
double album right in the mix of that, which was meant.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
To be Dream Factory.
Speaker 3 (33:50):
And before that, you've also got Camille, which is, as
you say, an album because he was putting at so
many records, it was an album by a female alter ego,
which wasn't of course Prince.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
Here's where you talk about the vocal range too. This
is where he's getting way up there.
Speaker 3 (34:06):
Way up there, and it's it's just fascinating because some
of those songs like if I Was Your Girlfriend is
a Camille track really when you think about.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
It, so that gives you an idea of what the
album would have sounded like.
Speaker 3 (34:16):
That gives you that gives you a very good idea
of what the album would have sounded like. And I
find If I Was Your Girlfriend a really fascinating case
study of where a Prince was at that time. Fascinating
because sonically it's different from anyone else.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
It's if he's.
Speaker 3 (34:33):
Talking about a relationship where he wants a level of
closeness that only a female wonder would understand. And he's
dating a twin and he's the son of a twin.
You know, sometimes Prince is mysterious, and sometimes it's pretty
easy to figure out what he was talking about. And
I think if I was your girlfriend is one of
the ones where it's easier to figure.
Speaker 2 (34:52):
Out what he was talking about. And as I say
in the book, if you look at.
Speaker 3 (35:01):
If you look at like you know, the early eighties
records like Dirty Minds, you know, Head and Sister, we
are quite shocking.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
And he's been provocative.
Speaker 3 (35:09):
You know, as I said, you Dirty mind he was
looking to shock and you know, by this stage you
wanted to share and you know, so there's an emotional
maturity if you like to that.
Speaker 1 (35:23):
Book on Rock podcasts will be back after this. Hey, guys,
thanks so much for checking out the Booked on Rock podcast.
If you've just found the podcast, welcome. If you've been listening,
thank you so much for your support, and make sure
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(35:45):
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booked on Rock. Thanks again for listening. Now back to
(36:07):
the show, Let's talk about relationships some more. He had
a relationship with Kim Besinger. He was married twice, managed
to keep those private. Kim Besinger a famous person. He
was in a relationship with her, and it seems like
that was a pretty serious relationship.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
Yeah. The book goes into that in some depth.
Speaker 3 (36:25):
I had not planned to work right about Kim Basinger
in any detailed but quite a few interviews intimated that
that relationship was a lot more serious than I was
first reported. And I think part of the reason that
it was not reported as being serious is it was
played out in Minneapolis.
Speaker 2 (36:41):
So Prince I think Saint.
Speaker 3 (36:47):
Sent the Batman soundtrack to Kim Bassinger, Jack Nicholson, Michael Keaton.
Michael Keaton didn't get back. Jack Nicholson asked for money,
which was ignored, and Kim Basinger had a call with them,
and according to his personal assistant at the time, within
fifteen minutes, she'd booked a flight and he'd booked a
(37:07):
hotel in Minneapolis, and they never used a hotel because
she went straight to see him. And I believe that
they we're together for quite a few months, and you know,
my understanding from interviewees is that she moved quite a
lot of her stuff over to Minneapolis. She wants to
work with him, that he went shopping with her, which,
if you know anything about Prince anything, him doing anything
with a girlfriend that didn't involve music is quite rare.
(37:31):
And she was smitten. He was smitten. He used to
play pranks together and employees. It's quite sweet in terms
of some of the stories that people talked about in
the book.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
Yeah, that would have been amazing. What if they got married,
That has been quite a story for the media to follow.
Speaker 3 (37:47):
Yeah, it's funny to think she would get more publicity
than she did when she was married to Alec Baldwin,
but yeah, it would be even more.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:55):
Sure. His performance at the O four Rock and Roll
Hall of Fame ceremonies is legendary. Now, his guitar solo
brought the house down. As for his style of playing
the guitar, Randy Newman had an interesting quote. He says
Prince's prowess and other instruments informed his playing on guitar.
His guitar ideas aren't the kind of ideas that a
guitar player would have necessarily. How much of a fan
(38:18):
of other guitars was Prince because you read quote Prince
enjoyed guitarists sort.
Speaker 3 (38:22):
Of, Yeah, that's in reference to Jimmy Berenger, who's the
very talented local player. When I say local, local to Minneapolis,
who played on The Most Peaceiful Girl in the World.
And you know, some people at the time, I think
Ricky Peterson that worked on it, said that he'd he
sort of made that record is so good. So Prince
(38:44):
knew he didn't want to cut off his nose despite
his face, and so he knew it was good, but
he didn't enjoy the guitarist being good. And Prince was
a big fan of guitarists. I mean, I had to
tread carefully because I don't play the guitar, but I
also knew that this was Guys who love rock and
roll tend to love guitars and guys who love rock
(39:06):
and roll often play the guitar, and they care about gear,
and they care about guitarists. So I worked very hard
in the book to figure out both in terms of gear,
what gear Prince loved, but also what guitarist he loved. Yeah,
and Prince, it was very rare that Prince was outclassed
when he played with all the guitarists. So, you know,
(39:27):
like Scotti, Baldwin points out that he didn't play on
stage with John Mayer too much or somebody like that,
you know, but he did play with some really amazing guitarists,
you know, for Wendy melvoyn to Sonny Thompson, Mike Scott
and he. The thing about Prince and guitar playing is
(39:49):
you can hear Jimi Hendrix, but you can hear Carlos Santana,
and you hear those lead solos. But you can also
hear Tony Maiden who was in Rufins and Shaky kN Band.
You can also hear Jimmy Nolan who played the funk
stuff with James Brown and Hans Martin. Buff was one
of the engineers. Said something very interesting that's also in
(40:11):
the book where he said, Prince doesn't just write for
his instruments. So if you were a guitarist as good
as Prince, right, and you played this killer solo, if
it didn't work for the record, he was talented enough
that he could chuck it out. You imagine Prince in
a band that could play guitar like that and the
lead singer or the producer goes, oh, we don't need
that solo. You'd imagine they go nuts. They'd be like, no,
(40:33):
you're not allowed to do that. This is brilliant. Prince
was so gifted that he could play this amazing solo.
We presume he could play a solo and go, well
it doesn't work for the record, I won't use it.
So that's next level talent, really, isn't it.
Speaker 1 (40:46):
We have to address the name change. Your comment on
this is interesting and I want to ask you about it.
Why did he change the name? First? Well, why do
you say it was both a pivotal moment in his
career and in other regards of footnote?
Speaker 2 (40:59):
Well, if you.
Speaker 3 (41:00):
Think about Prince, and this is sort of my opinion,
the great thing about Ryano because you get to sneak
in little snippets of your own opinion, but I hope
it's mainly, you know, the opinions of the people that
I interviewed as much as it as me, if not more.
But the artist formerly known as Prince, he was, you know,
the butt of all sorts of talk show host jokes
during that period, and you know, the squiggle or symbol
(41:22):
or whatever you.
Speaker 2 (41:22):
Want to call them.
Speaker 3 (41:24):
People would sort of decry if you look at that.
It's very brave move, it's very bold. It's going to
war with the record company feels like it owns anything
was the name Prince written on it. So he just goes,
do you know what, I'm going to shut that down,
And you know, it almost moved to a different territory
so that he can stake out his own claim for
himself and his own work. So in some ways it's
(41:46):
incredibly brave and in some ways is incredibly bold, but
in other ways it's it's just something he did, you know,
and it shows a lot, It displays fearlessness, it displaces canny,
but it doesn't define him.
Speaker 1 (42:03):
Yeah, I agree. I've said in the past maybe I'm
incorrect about this, but I also thought he did it
for other artists who are being taken advantage.
Speaker 3 (42:13):
Of One of the things that I took in different
parts of his career outside of sending the Times was
because I couldn't, as I said to you, when I
wrote that feature in twenty seventeen, I was like, but
who is this guy? And you know, I interviewed something
like you know, there was a lot of people I interviewed,
but I was about thirty interviews in and I sort
(42:36):
of paused and I thought, I still don't know who
this guy is that made this record. And that's why
I kept interviewing people. And so part of understanding Prince,
I think, is that you know, when he wrote slave
in his face and people around him said, he didn't
do that a lot in the studio, So it was
it was a moment in time where it was he
(42:56):
was making a point. You know, at the brit Awards
in ninety five, I think when he had in his
face that he was making a point. But it wasn't
something he did all the time. The interesting thing about
the Prince, you know, taff cap, period symbol, whatever you
want to call it, is that he would privately people
would call him Prince and he would snap at them
and say, don't call me that. If you're talking about
(43:18):
Prince and other artists, you only need to look at
what he did, you know, owning his own masters. This
is something that Anita Baker's talked about recently, that Taylor
Swift has fought to control her own music. You know,
the fact that she's the first billionaire through music alone.
I think something like that would have not escaped Prince's notice.
And Prince sold music on the internet when it wasn't
(43:39):
fashionable to do so. Prince went to war with big
record companies long before other major artists felt the courage
to be able to do that. Prince just you would
turn down the obvious opportunity. And that's part of what
makes his music career so interesting.
Speaker 1 (43:58):
He had all those songs like nothing compared to you
for Shinead O'Connor. I mean, it's just it's amazing how
much he wrote and then he just shared them with
other artists.
Speaker 3 (44:07):
Here you go, what's really amazing. And nobody, I think
will do this again, and I can't think of anyone
who's done it before his Prince was making and recording
so many records that he invented the time. And you know,
as the book suggests, some of the Time the Time
were kept out of the studio so the Prince could
(44:27):
make Time records, which is kind of funny. So he
created the Time, and his fingerprints are all over those records.
He created Vanity six, and his fingerprints again or all
over those records. And so he actually and the Time
and Prince were in a degree of competition when they
went and toured together. So Prince actually created his own competition.
And there's two things to note of that. One is
(44:50):
that you know how prolifically he was able to do that,
But also he was shining a spotlight in Minneapolis, so
people would then people would talk about the Minneapolis scene.
So the Minneapolis scene was effectively with all due to
respect to the other musicians around at the time, one
guy who was just making it feel like the most
happening place in music.
Speaker 1 (45:10):
Booked on Rock Podcasts. We'll be back after this.
Speaker 3 (45:14):
Okay, I mean you know where we are.
Speaker 2 (45:17):
Tell your Brad.
Speaker 1 (45:20):
Find the Bookdo on Rock website at booked on rock
dot com. There you can find all the back episodes
of the show, the latest episode in video and audio
links to all of the platforms where you can listen
to the podcast, plus all the social media platforms were
on Blue Sky, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and x. Also check
out the booked on rock blog. Find your local independent bookstore,
(45:42):
find out all the latest hot rock book releases, and
before you go, check out the booked on rock online store.
Pick up some booked on rock merch. It's all at
booked on rock dot com. His death in twenty sixteen
was a shock. He was only fifty seven. At one
point in the book you read quote Prince left the
earth with unanswered questions about him. This was not accidental.
(46:04):
Do you feel after writing the book maybe you were
able to get a little bit closer to who Prince
was as a person.
Speaker 2 (46:10):
Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (46:11):
I feel like it was funny when you know, towards
the later stage of interviewing, people would tell me stories
and I never met Prince, but they will tell me
stories about things they'd said in front of him, and
I was thinking, Oh, he's not going to like that,
Oh he's going to like that, and you know, but
towards the end again of reading about him and finding
(46:32):
out about him, I would read interviews from people that
people had done later in his career, and they would
say certain things that they knew he was going to
like and it would carry favor with him. So there
were certain things that Prince would respond well to, certain
musical references that he would respond well to. I felt
(46:53):
like I got to know him a bit better. But
I also wanted to respect the mystery. You know, he
cultivated the mystery around them, and I think there are
things about Prince that none of us will ever know.
I'm that's okay, But this book is I think as
close as I could get to for the neutral, you know,
the observer of the music fan to be able to
(47:14):
find out about them. And I wanted to do as
much of a three sixty on Prince as I could.
Speaker 1 (47:19):
Yeah, they just did an episode on ric Ocassik of
the Cars, who was a mysterious guy, and I think
I prefer it that way. That's something that's lost on
this era now where we can find out so much
about people because of social media and everybody's got a
phone and you could you could film them, you know,
video them at any time. And I like the mystery.
(47:43):
I like not knowing everything, and let us try to
find out from the music, and let us try to
find out maybe from the people that worked with that
person or knew them and come up with our own
conclusion as to who they are.
Speaker 3 (47:56):
Roy Bennett, Princess lighting director, said something fascinating to me
where he talked about and Prince and he had a
really symbiotic relationship where Roy Bennett, I think, is the
only person who's actually suggested changing a sett list of
Princess to Prince's face and Princes receptive to it. I
think anyone else that had done that would have been,
(48:16):
you know, headed for the door very quickly. But Roy
Bennett told me that he was told by Prince went
to put the lights on him in a concert and
went not to so because Prince understood being a rock star.
Of that sense of anticipation, princeview went to disappear and
went to appear. And there's a brilliant book. Another example
(48:40):
of that is there's a brilliant book written about James
Brown called Kill Him and Leave, and it talked about
the advice that I think James Brown talked about with
All Sharpton, where.
Speaker 2 (48:52):
James would do.
Speaker 3 (48:53):
An amazing show and then leaving the daughter. He would
come in with an amazing anecdote and then leave.
Speaker 2 (48:58):
So by the time people turn and I went, oh,
who was that what happened. He was gone on to
the next thing.
Speaker 3 (49:03):
And Prince was an absolute master at appearing dropping in
a comment, you know, and you see that in the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Speaker 2 (49:12):
You know, he's like a ghost the way he disappears
at the end of it.
Speaker 1 (49:15):
Yep, that's the way he wanted it.
Speaker 2 (49:17):
Yeah, that whole kill him and lead thing.
Speaker 3 (49:19):
I think it's very Prince even though it was originally
referred to James Brown.
Speaker 1 (49:24):
Prince sign at the Times. It's out now wherever books
are sold, John.
Speaker 3 (49:29):
I hope so it's in the UK, and I hope
that you can have it transported to your home wherever
that is. But it's like the UK at the moment.
Speaker 1 (49:36):
And look forward at your nearest bookstore. You can also
go to book down rock dot com to find it
at your nearest independent bookstore. And can people find you online? John,
reach out to you.
Speaker 3 (49:45):
Yeah, Yeah, I'm John McKee on Twitter. I'm Johnny eighteen
which is the Scottish spelling hwn i E eighteen on
Instagram and I'm on LinkedIn. And in fact social media
helped me write the book because I found interview He's
on Facebook. I found them on Twitter, I found them
on Instagram, and I find them on LinkedIn. So not
(50:06):
TikTok as yet, but all the other, all the other
social media outlets were very useful for helping me track
down people.
Speaker 1 (50:12):
Yeah, that's the great part of social media. I know
people tend to focus on the downside of it, but
social media does have those benefits. So go out and
get this book, and go out and listen to a
Sign of the Times. Like I told you before we
started recording. As I'm reading your book, I'm playing it
from start to finish and just amazed at how brilliant
the album is. And I would say that I could
(50:33):
never take the place of Your Man is my favorite
from the album and one of my favorite Prince songs period.
Speaker 2 (50:39):
That's a good call.
Speaker 3 (50:40):
I mean, it's it's great, and it's you know, you
can hear a bit of everyone and that you can
hear Carlos Santana, you can hear a little bit of
James Brian United, most of all, you can hear Prince
and that's that's a wonderful thing.
Speaker 1 (50:50):
Yep, that's a call back to his Purple Rain days.
I think, right, wasn't that written back?
Speaker 3 (50:54):
Yeah, it was a song that was kicking about for
for quite a while before I think I could never
take the place of your man. Is strange really ship
date back to the early eighties, maybe in the late
seventies in one case.
Speaker 1 (51:04):
Well, out of fairness, I should before I let you go,
what's your favorite track from Sign of the Times?
Speaker 3 (51:11):
One of the reasons I wanted to write the book.
And you'll see with the book it's sixteen chapters. In
each sixteen chapter is the song that showcases Prince's personality.
So I know he wants the short answer to this, probably,
but sometimes.
Speaker 1 (51:23):
It's time as long as it needs to be.
Speaker 3 (51:26):
Sometimes it's Sunning the Times, and that speaks to social acticism,
so that's why that's covered in that part of the book.
Sometimes it's Ballad of Dorothy Parker, which speaks to his
idiosyncratic nature. Sometimes it's starfishing Coffee, which speaks to how
he was that childlike capacity they had. And sometimes it's
you go to look because he knews we are an
a good pop song. So it depends what day.
Speaker 2 (51:47):
You ask me.
Speaker 1 (51:47):
All right, perfectly answered, perfectly answered, John, Thank you so
much for being here, Congrats on a great book, and
hopefully we'll have you back on again in the future.
Speaker 2 (51:56):
Absolute pleasure, Eric, all the best.
Speaker 1 (52:05):
That's it. It's in the box.
Speaker 3 (52:08):
H
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