Alan Light - Lets Go Crazy: Prince and the Making of Purple Rain

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For Suzanne and Adam, always

ONE

We Are Gathered Here Today

The stage is dark. A chord rings out.

Its an unusual chorda B flat suspended 2 with a D in the bass. A year from this night, the sound of that chord will be enough to drive audiences into hysteria. But right now, in this club, the crowd of 1,500 or so people listen quietly, because its the first time they are hearing the song that the chord introduces.

A spotlight comes up, revealing a young woman playing a purple guitar. She is dressed simply, in a white V-neck tank top, patterned miniskirt, and white, metal-studded, purple-trimmed high-top sneakers. Her asymmetrical haircut is very much on trend for 1983, the year this show is taking place. Wendy Melvoin, the girl holding the guitar, is just nineteen years old, and this is not only the first time she is performing this song in public, it is also her first appearance as the new guitarist in Princes band, the Revolution. So far tonight, they have played nine songs; this one is kicking off the encore.

She plays through a chord progression once, and the rest of the five-piece band falls in behind her. They go through the cycle again, and then again. The fifth time around, you can hear a second guitar coming from somewhere offstage. On the ninth instrumental go-round, Prince strides out, wrapped tightly in a purple trench coat. He plays a few fills, moves his head to the microphone as if hes about to start singing, then pulls back again. Finally, three and a half minutes into the song, he begins his vocal, reciting more than singing the first lineI never meant to cause you any sorrow... The performance would yield what would soon become his signature recording and one of popular musics greatest landmarks.

When he reaches the chorus, repeating the phrase purple rain six times, the crowd does not sing along. They have no idea how familiar those two words will soon become, or what impact they will turn out to have for the twenty-five-year-old man onstage in front of them. But its almost surreal to listen to this performance now, because while this thirteen-minute version of Purple Rain will later be edited, with some subtle overdubs and effects added, this very recordingthe maiden voyage of the songis clearly recognizable as the actual Purple Rain, in the final form that will be burned into a generations brain, from the vocal asides to the blistering, high-speed guitar solo to the final, shimmering piano coda. As the performance winds down, Prince says quietly to the audience, We love you very, very much.

In the audience, up in the clubs balcony, Albert Magnoli listens to Prince and the Revolution play the song. Magnoli, a recent graduate of the University of Southern Californias film school, has just arrived in Minneapolis to begin work on Princes next project, a feature film based on the musicians life, which will start shooting in a few months. He thinks that this grand, epic ballad might provide the climactic, anthemic moment for the movie, an element that he hadnt yet found in the batch of new recordings and work tapes Prince had given him. After the set, Magnoli joins the singer backstage and asks about the song.

You mean Purple Rain? Prince says. Its really not done yet. Magnoli tells him that he thinks this might be the key song they are missing for the film. Prince, the director recalls, considers that for a minute, and then says, If thats the song, can Purple Rain also be the title of the movie?

This launch and christening of Purple Rain occurred on August 3, 1983, at the First Avenue club in downtown Minneapolis. The showwith tickets priced at $25was a benefit for the Minnesota Dance Theatre, where Prince has already started his band taking lessons in movement and rehearsing in preparation for the film. The sold-out concert, which raised $23,000 for the company, was his first appearance in his hometown since the tour that followed his breakthrough album, 1999 , ended in April, during the course of which he reached the Top Ten on the album and singles charts for the first time, and made the hard-won leap to becoming an A-list pop star.

The event was significant enough that Rolling Stone covered the show in its Random Notes section. Noting that the mini-skirted Wendy had replaced guitarist Dez Dickerson, the item said that Prince and the band swung into a ten-song [actually eleven] act, including new tracks entitled Computer Blue, Lets Get Crazy, [ sic ] I Will Die For U, [ sic ] Electric Intercourse, and a cover of Joni Mitchells A Case of You. Then he encored with an anthemicand longnew one called Purple Rain.... Prince looked toned up from workouts with Minneapolis choreographer John Command, whos plotting the dance numbers for the film Prince has dreamed up. The new songs, which may appear on Princes next LP, are to be part of the movies sound track.... Filming is slated to start November 1st.

The location for this concert was no accident. First Avenue, a former bus station that reopened as a discotheque in 1970, was familiar, comfortable territory for Prince. It was his venue of choice to try material out, Revolution drummer Bobby Z (Bobby Rivkin; his stage moniker was derived from Butzie, a family nickname) has said. Grammy-winning megaproducer James Jimmy Jam Harris, whose career began as a member of Princes protg band, the Time, noted how the venue was an exception to the de facto segregation of live music: A lot of clubs wouldnt let us play because we were a black band, and they were one of the first to really give us a shot. Indeed, First Avenue would practically function as a full-fledged character in the Purple Rain movie, and on this night, its hospitable confines served as the perfect place to introduce not only new material but a new configuration of the band.

Looking back, Wendy Melvoin claims that she didnt feel nervous about her first show with the Revolution. From eating and drinking to singing and playing and choreography, everything had a desperate importance, and nothing took priority over the other, she says. Every moment that you were in Prince and the Revolution had to be like your last day on earth. So when we were doing that show, it seemed just as important as making it to rehearsal on time the day before.

The crucial decision to record the benefit was made in a bit of a scramble. Alan Leeds, who had worked as a longtime employee in the James Brown organization, had recently been brought on board as a tour manager for Prince. After the 1999 dates ended, Princes managers asked Leeds to stay on as plans for the film developed. By default, I ended up as the production manager, he recalls. Honestly, I was in over my head... so I was nervous from a technical standpoint.... I had to find a [remote recording] truck, and I finally got a guy named David Hewitt, who had access to trucks, and he found the right truck and we had David Z [engineer David Rivkin, Bobbys brother] in it. So there was a lot of last-minute running around to pull that show off. It was also ridiculously hot and humid.

The place was just absolutely packed to the rafters, Leeds continues. Steve McClellan, who ran First Avenue, was afraid that the fire marshals were going to come and close us down. Half the problem was the last-minute guest lists from Prince and Warner Brothers; we had, like, two hundred people we hadnt anticipated, and no one knew where to put them in a small venue. All of a sudden, my friends in the industry were like, Yo, can you hook me up? USA Today was there. Its like, Oh, shit! I guess were doing something.