Chris Dicker - Prince Biography: How Prince Nelson Shaped the Music Industry Against the Special Interests?: Purple Rain Mysteries

Prince Biography: How Prince Nelson Shaped the Music IndustryAgainst the Special Interests?

[Purple Rain Mysteries]

Chris Dicker

Published By Chris Dicker At Smashwords

Copyright 2016-2017 Chris Dicker

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Table of Contents

Childhood and Family Life

Prince was born as Prince Rogers Nelson on June 7, 1958 inMinneapolis to parents who were both involved in music and fosteredcreativity in Prince from a young age. He wrote his first jam atthe age of seven on his fathers piano, entitled FunkMachine.

Princes father John Lewis and mother Mattie Della hadbackgrounds in music pianist and songwriter. Johns stage namewas Prince during his own music career and he often performed withtwo of his friends in a band called The Prince Rogers Trio. Hismother was a jazz singer. The pair met at a jazz show and shejoined his band as a singer. They were married shortly thereafter.In addition to Prince they had a daughter, Tyka, born in 1960. Sheis also a musician, surviving her parents and olderbrother.

Prince and Tyka had several half siblings as well. BeforeMattie and John were married, John was with a woman named VivianNelson. Together they had daughters Norrine, Sharon and Lorna andsons Duane and John. Duane and Lorna have since passed away but therest of the siblings are still alive today.

Tyka Nelson was Princes younger sister. She is also amusician and recording artist. However, Tyka had problems withdrugs later on, Prince was trying to help her overcome thataddiction.

Sharon Nelson was Princes half sister, from his first father.She was nearly 20 years older than Prince. Sharon is also amusician and collaborated with her father and deceased sisterLorna.

Lorna Nelson was also Princes half sister. She dies in 2006at the age of 63. However, Prince did not get along with Lorna toowell. It was known that Lorna filed a lawsuit against Prince in1989 for claiming that U Got theLook song was taken from her track Whats Cooking in this Book . Her claims were never proved.

Norrine Nelson was Princes half-sister too, from his fathersprevious marriage. She was 11 years older than Prince.

John Nelson was Princes half brother and he was 10 yearsolder than Prince. John and Tyka were very close friends for manyyears.

Prince has alluded to a troubled relationship between himselfand his parents, particularly in childhood. His parents divorcedwhen he was 10. After the divorce he moved a lot, sometimes livingwith his mother and stepfather and sometimes with his father. Hegot along with neither his father or stepfather, and many parallelshave been drawn between John and the father in Purple Rain. Princeand his father seemed to have rectified their relationships inrecent years, however, working together on several of Princessongs, including Fathers Song and Under the CherryMoon.

Prince spoke in an interview about his epilepsy and seizuresin childhood. He says his parents did everything they could to helphim with his illness with their limited means, though doesnt stateultimately how he was fixed, but does sight a discussion with hismother where he told her an angel told him he wasnt going to besick anymore. This kind of search for spirituality in life wouldshow itself again and again, ultimately resulting in his conversionas one of Jehovahs Witnesses.

During his early years, Prince was drawing attention as amulti-instrumentalist for playing guitar, drums, bass and piano. Hewas also a good vocalist. Prince was known as a very shy singer.His first manager was Gary Levinson, where Prince was just 16 yearsold. Gary worked with Prince for two years and eventually thesinger came out of the shell as he was gaining momentum, exploringhis talents.

Education

Prince did well in school, attending Bryant Junior High andCentral High School in Minneapolis where he was born and reared. Heplayed baseball, football and basketball at school, showing aparticular aptitude for the latter. He played on his high schoolsJunior Varsity team.

Hismusical abilities were also an aspect of himself he started tofurther develop as a teen, starting the band Grand Central in highschool with his cousin Charles Smith and friend Andre Anderson.Prince lived with Anderson during his teen years for a time, sothey had plenty of time together to work on musical ideas andproliferate the work of the band. Eventually, Morris Day, bestknown for his work in The Time and currently in band The Original7even, replaced Smith and the band had a name change to Champagne.They started playing their own music and achieved a level ofnotoriety in the club circuit in Minneapolis.

Music Career and Professional Life

In 1975, Prince, PepeWilliams, Marcy Ingvoldstad and Kristie Lazenberry formed the band94 East together. The band was named after the Interstae that runsthrough Minneapolis. They wrote and performed funk music togetherand this was really the group that made Prince come into his own asa musician. They ceased recording together in 1979.

In 1976, Prince had a demo tape at a Minneapplis studio, butdid not have much success, however, it was some kind of progress,because Owen Husney who helped prince to create the demo tape, hadsome connections at Warner Brothers. Owen Husney was shocked,because at first he was quite amused by the Prince work, but Owendid not know that all the instruments, the vocal points he waslistening to were not produced by a group, but by a 17 year oldkid. That was insanely brilliant and Owen was quite impressed. Thatwhy he helped Prince to create a demo tape and later, not thatlong, Prince signed a six figure contract with Warner Brothers atthe age of 18. Prince was a prodigy, the young Stevie Wonder. Thecompany (Warner Bros) agreed to give control over the first threealbums as well as the ownerships rights. Prince was very persistentand he wanted to do his own album himself. This gave birth thePrinces first album ForYou . It was recorded at Record Plantstudio. In order to create that album, Prince wrote, produced,composed and played more than 25 instruments for therecording.

Princes debut album, ForYou , received mixed reviews, and certainlydidnt garner the distinctive praise that his sophomore effort, theself titled Prince did. Prince was praised by critics for it funkiness and reinvention ofmany R&B tropes. Consumers also liked it a lot, evidenced bythe fact that it peaked at number 22 on the US Billboard chart in1979. The record went platinum in the US and silver in the UK. InApril of 2016, as a result of his death, it jumped back onto theBillboard chart at number 52.