;;I always learn something when I blog. I didn't start off blogging about showbiz types and in fact if memory serves the first one I did was Bob Geldof and the Boomtown Rats. That one didn't start off being about them it just ended up that way. The genesis of that blog revolved around a shooting in San Diego, California.

I was sitting here on a Monday morning feeling a little blue (nothing new or different in that), and wondering whether or not to blog and if so what about. As I was sitting there I started running things through my head about blue Mondays and the phrase "I don't like Mondays" popped into my head and I immediately started humming the tune. I new a bit about the shooting incident - on January 29th 1972 a 16 year old girl named Brenda Ann Spencer started using a schoolyard across the street from her for a shooting gallery with a rifle her father had given to her for her 16th birthday.. By the time the dust settled and police had taken her into custody two were dead and 9 were injured. While authorities were trying to determine what had driven her to commit murder, she tossed out a few flippant remarks with incredible sangfroid including the now infamous line "I don't like Mondays." I always liked the song.so I just started humming it and blogging about it and drifted from the song to the Rats and Geldof.

When I started on Prince I knew going in he was a good looking African American, singer/songwriter who had done Purple Rain and in the 90s he changed his name from Prince to............well............nothing sort of.

Yeah sure, there was this ritualistic looking bit of arcane nonsense, but......

Anyway that was the some total of my knowledge of Prince 'til I started checkin' him out. Like the Michael Jackson blogs I did a few months ago I learned a lot, and gained a new appreciation for the person and their accomplishments. There'll be a few boos and hisssses out there when I say I had a similar feeling when I did the Sinatra blogs.

Now that I've rambled aimlessly all over the map. I oughta make some effort to put the finishing touches on to Prince. I always figured that for a stage name, so that was about the first new fact I learned about him.

As to his personal life...................

Prince is a vegan who was voted the "world's sexiest vegetarian in 2006 in an annual online pole conducted by PETA.

In 2001 he became an adherent to the Jehovah's Witness faith. He said he didn't consider it a conversion,more a "realization." He said, "It's like Morpheus and Neo in The Matrix." He occasionally goes out knocking on people's doors to discuss his faith and he attends meetings at the local Kingdom Hall. It's been reported he needs double-hip-replacement surgery but refuses to undergo the procedure unless it's bloodless as the Witnesses don't accept transfusions, so for the time being anyway he gets around with the assistance of a diamond studded cane.

He is an avid Minnesota Vikings football fan and is regularly seen in his skybox at the Hubert Humphrey Metrodome for their games.

Over the years he has been romantically involved with celebritries such as Kim Bassinger, Madonna, Carmen Electra and Anna Fantastic.

On Valentines Day, 1996 he married his backup singer/dancer, Mayte Garcia.They had a son they named Boy Gregory who was born with Pfeiffer Syndrome and died shortly after birth. He and Mayte were divorced in 1999.

On December 31, 2101, he and Manuela Testolini were married.They divorced in 2006.

In 1993 negotiations were being conducted between Warner Bros.and Prince over the release of The Gold Experience which quickly escalated into a battle over the artistic and financial control of his output. During the lawsuit he appeared in public with the word "slave" written on his cheek, all of which led to his name change which he explained thus..........

"The first step I have taken towards the ultimate goal of emancipation from the chains that bind me to Warner Bros. was to change my name from Prince to the Love Symbol. Prince is the name that my mother gave me at birth. Warner Bros. took the name, trademarked it, and used it as the main marketing tool to promote all of the music that I wrote. The company owns the name Prince and all related music marketed under Prince. I became merely a pawn used to produce more money for Warner Bros....I was born Prince and did not want to adopt another conventional name. The only acceptable replacement for my name, and my identity, was the Love Symbol, a symbol with no pronunciation, that is the representation of me and what my music is about. This symbol isw present in my work over the years, it is a concept that has evolved from my frustration, it is who I am. It is my name."

Prince has sometimes separated himself from music he has had input in with the use of pseudonyms. "I was just getting tired of seeing my name.If you give away an idea, you still own that idea. In fact giving it away strengthens it. Why do people feel they have to take credit for everything they do? Ego, that's the only reason." The pseudonyms include Jamie Starr and the Starr Company, Joey Coco, Alexander Nevermind, Paisley Park and Christopher.

Prince has had copyright issues over the years, so many in fact it would take another installment to cover them all and since it's all pretty dry stuff I won't bore you with it.

He is without a doubt the most prolific performer the music biz has had in modern times. While comtemporary artists such as Michael Jackson and Madonna were content to release an album every couple of years or more Prince has been churning them out at the rate of one and sometimes two per year and there's no reason to expect that won't continue. He has made rock, acoustic and country and he has for the most part done so for himself as opposed to his fans. His work has been consistently rich and varied. He has to be seen as perhaps the most singular talent of the rock 'n' roll era and that is saying a lot considering the competition.

Well, I don't know when it is I'll get to them, but my next entertainer blogs are gonna be John Denver and Jim Croce. I'm intending to step away from blogging for a while though and take a few deep breaths.

I'll be back.

Ciao

Can you imagine what I could do if could do all I can?

Prince

This part has been delayed for a while cuz I wasn't in the mood for blogging following the last one. My apologies for the delay and I also want to offer a sincere thanks for the kind comments following the latest blog about my friend's heart breaking loss.

A quick word about Emancipation. I neglected to mention that it was the first record he ever did featuring covers of other people's tunes. It got mixed reviews with some critics saying the 3 CD set was unfocused and would have done better as a double disc or even single disc. It went platinum in any case.

He then came out with Crystal Ball a collection of unreleased material taking up 5CDs. It was a rather screwed up release with some fans having to wait for up to a year for their discs to arrive after having pre-ordered on his website. By that time the set had been available for months at retail outlets. Also the retail edition contained only four discs.

Further releases included Newpower Soul which made virtually no impact despite heavy promotion. He collaborated on Chaka Khan's Come 2 My House, and on Larry Graham's GCS2000 neither of which went anywhere.

Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic was also heavily promoted. He gave more interviews then at any other time in his career in a attempt to ensure the albums success. He appeared on MTV's Total Request Live, Larry King Live and other venues all to little avail as it didn't do well commercially.

He released The New Master which was roundly panned by fans and critics alike as being unimaginative.

In May of 2000 he announced that with his Warner/Chappel contract having expired he was dropping the Love Symbol handle and would resume using the name he was born with. He stated in a press conference that after having been freed from undesirable relationships associated with the name "Prince" he was reverting. The symbol can still be seen from time to time on album artwork and he continues to use a Love Symbol styled guitar.

After the release of Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic, he started releasing new material through his Internet subscription service, NPGOnlineLtd.com later to become NPGMusicClub.com. Two albums that were available commercially were 2001's The Rainbow Children and the 2003 instrumental record N.E.W.S. which was nominated for a Best Pop Instrumental Album Grammy. Also in 2003 the album Xpectation was released via dowload to members of the NPGMusicClub. All three of the albums just referred to are notable for a heavy jazz influence. Rainbow Children was an album that trumpeted his conversion to the Jehovah's Witness religion which left a lot of his longtime fans in the cold. Also by many accounts the instrumental N.E.W.S.was a lot more fun to play than to listen to.

He released his first live album, One Night Alone. The box set (3 CDs) failed to chart.

In an effort to connect more effectively with his core fan base. At his studios (Paisley Park), invitations were given to fans at yearly "celebrations" for tours of the facility, music-listening sessions and discussions. Performances showcasing his talents were staged and some well established artists such as Alicia Keyes, The Time, Erykah Badu, Nikka Costa. George Clinton and Norah Jones would apear for some collabrations.

In 2004 Prince and Beyonce Knowles opened the Grammy Awards Show with a medley of "Purple Rain", "Let's Go Crazy, "Baby I'm A Star" and Knowles' "Crazy In Love." Prince was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in fhe following month (March).

In April 2004, he released Musicology with a one-album agreement with Columbia Records. The album rose to top 5 in several different countries including trhe U.S., Germany, Australia and the U.K. Still in 2004 Rolling Stone named him as the highest-earning musician in the world. His Musicology tour was the top concert draw among U.S. musicians. It received two Grammys: Best Male R&B Vocal Performance or "Call My Name" and Best Traditional R&B Vocal Performance for the title track. The album was his most commercially successful one since Diamonds and Pearls.It must, I'm fairly certain have been a welcome change given the lack of success his recent releases had shown.

In 2004 Rolling Stone ranked him # 28 on their list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time."

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina he recorded two songs, "S.S.T." and the instrumental "Brand New Orleans." The recordings were dispersed quickly using MPG Music Club.

After having signed with Universal Records in 2005 he released his album, 3121 in March 206. There were two singles releases on it, Latin flavoured "Te Amo Corazon" and "Black Sweat." The vid for the first was filmed in Marrakech, Morocco and directed by actress Salma Hayek, featuring Argentine singer/actress Mia Maestro. The vid for "Black Sweat was nominated for Best Cinematography at the MTV VMAs. The album was immediately successful and debuted with his first @ 1 on the Billboard 200.

Promoting the album took him to SNL as a musical guest. It had been seventeen years since his last appearance there. He performed two songs from the album "Fury" and "Beautiful Loved&Blessed."

On June 12, 2006 he received a Webby Award for Lifetime Achievement in recognition of his "visionary" use of the internet. He was the first major artist to release an entire album, Crystal Ball, on the net.

Scant weeks after winning the Webby he abruptly shut down his NPG Miusic Club website after five years of operation. On the very day of the club's shutdown a lawsuit was filed by British company HM Publishing (owners of the Nature Publishing Group NPG).Prince's attormey called it pure coincidence.

He appeared at several awards ceremonies in 2006 including the BRIT Awards, the BET Awards where he was awarded Best Male R&B artist. He was inducted into the UK Music Hall of Fame and he opened a nightclub named 3121 in Las Vegas.

He wrote and performed a song for the animated movie Happy Feet with a song called "The Song of the Heart." The tune won a Golden Globe for Best Original Song.

In 2007 he played at the Super Bowl XLI press conference.and at the haltime show in Miami. He played on a stage shaped like his love symbol to an audience of 140 millionTV viewers, the largest audience of his life. Later in 2007 he performed in three concerts in his hometown, Minneapolis.

He announced that he was going to play 22 concerts in London over the summer called the "Earth Tour." They were supposed to play 7 nights at the 02 Arena, capacity 20,000. All 140,000 tickets for the original 7 gigs sold out in twenty minutes so they extended the concerts to 15 nights and then to 21 nights.

After he cancelled a concert at Dublin's Croke Park with 10 days notice. MCD Productions sued him for 1.6 million Euros. Princes lawyers responded by saying the claim was "greatly inflated."

In October a live album called Indigo Nights and an accompanying book, of poetry, lyrics and photos, 21 Nights were released. The book was in part a chronicle of the record breakimg tenure at 02 Arena in London.

On Los Angeles' Indie 103 radio on December 18, 2008 he premiered 4 songs from his new album "Wall of Berlin", "Colonized Mind", "4ever" and a cover of "Crimson and Clover" originally a hit for Tommy James and the Shondells. On the same day another new composition "(There'll Never B) Another Like Me" was premiered on the website, mplsound.com.

A new website was launched called LotusFlow3r.com. Several of his recently released songs were streamed.The site provided opportunities to listen to the music, buy concert tickets and watch vids. Several other new releases have since been streamed on the site.

Since then he has played two shows at the Montreux Jazz Festival, two surprise concerts at the Grand Palais in Paris, another surprise gig at La Cigale and a concert at his Paisley Park studios.

In January 2010 he penned a song "Purple and Gold" inspired by a football game between the Minnesota Vikings and the Dallas Cowboys. In February in a bid to support independent radio he let Minneapolis-area radio station 89.3 The Current premiere his new song "Cause and Effect.

This wraps up Part 5. The final installment will include a bit on his personal life, stage names, and ongoing copyright issues, of which there are several.

Ciao

When one finds himself, one finds God. You find God, and you find yourself.

Prince the Artist himself

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In 1985 he announced that once he was finished with the release of his next album, he intended diiscontinuing live performances and videos.

By the time Purple Rain was released the guy already had the next album in the can. It was Around The World In A Day, and did very well, Staying at #1 on Billboard's Top 200 for three weeks. The single "Kiss", reached #2 on Billboarfd's Top 100.That made two back to back #1 albums'. It was also the first one to be released on his own label Paisley Park a subsidiary of Warner Bros

The next album, Parade also did double duty as the Soundtrack for his second movie Under The Cherry Moon. He directed and starred in the kmovie whidh also featured Kristen Scott Thomas. In that same year The Bangels had a pretty good run with a song called "Manic Monday", written by Prince. Cherry Moon wasn't a very good flick and sank into oblivion. He didn't very often miss the mark on any of his projects and it didn't slow him down or put him off in the least.

As he prepared for the dismantling of Revolution I alluded earlier to, he had two separate events happening: An album entitled Dream Factory and a solo effort, Camille. Dream Factory was a Revolution album. It included a lot of input from band members and featured solos with lead vocals provided by Wendy and Lisa. As to Camille, he was trying to give birth to a new persona using a sped up female sounding voice. Both The Revolution and Camille were shelved by Warner Bros.

In response he put together a 3 disc album called Crystal Ball which consisted of material from the two rejected albums and some new stuff. With the sales of his previous two albums in the tank, WB insisted he trim it down to a double disc effort and Sign o' the Times was released in March 1987.

Four singles were released, "Sign o' the Times" charting at #3 on the Hot 100, "If I Was your Girlfriend" charted at #67 on the Hot 100, "U Got The Look", a duet with Sheena Easton, which charted at #2 on the Hot 100 and #11 on R&B.The final single was "I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man" which went to #10 on the Hot 100 and #14 R&B.

The album got the greatest critical acclaim of any of his albums to date but sales were sluggish although eventually it sold 3,2 million copies. It's European reception was a lot stronger, so he ermbarked on a lengthy tour to promote it. For the tour he put together a new band from the Revolution remnants, adding bassist Levi Seacer Jr., Boni Boyer on keyboards, dancer choreographer Cat Glover, new drummer Sheila E. Revolution holdovers Miko Weaver, Doctor Fink. Eric Leeds, Atlanta Bliss and the Bodyguards (Jerome, Wally Safford and Greg Brooks.) The overseas tour was a huge success. His managers and WB wanted to continue the tour in the U.S. to boost sagging sales, but Prince didn't want to do a full tour as he was ready to produce another album. They reached a compromse whereby he filmed the last two nights of the tour in order to release it to the theatres as a concert release, but the quality of the film wasn't good enough requiring a lot of in-studio reshoots. The film Sign o' the Times was released but didn't stay long because, like the album before it, although it was critically acclaimed, box office receipts were minimal.

In the same year (1987, Paisley Park opened for business. It was a 65,000 sq-ft multimedia production facility, with three studios and a soundstage.

It was 'long about then that he began talking of dueling identities within. He spoke of characters representing his good side (Camille) and dark side (Spooky Electric.)

His next album was intended .to be a controversial, hardcore set entitled The Black Album. He was prepared to release the album with a complete monochromatic black cover. They had already pressed 500,000 copies when Prince had a spiritual epiphany that it (the album) was evil and at the last minuter pulled the pin on it. Warner Bros eventually released it as a limited edition album in1994. Prince meawhile was back in the studio for eight weeks, recording Lovesexy.

Released in May 1988 it apparenty served as a spiritual opposite to the darkness of the Black Album. With one exception every song on Lovesexy was a solo. The exception was "Eye No" having been recorded with his backup band which was dubbed the "Lovesexy Band" by fans. Lovesexy reached #11 on the Billboard 200 and #5 R&B. The lead single "Alphabet St." reached # 8 on the Hot 100 and # 3 R&B. In the end it only sold 750,000 copies.

He went on a Lovesexy World Tour, which will be covered in Part 4.

Ciao

In the early years when I toured, I was never a tourist. I was always so focused on the show. I just wanted to tear it up and get out of town.

Prince