Clerc - Prince: All the Songs: The Story Behind Every Track

Select one of the chapters from the and you will be taken straight to that chapter.

Look out for linked text (which is in blue) throughout the ebook that you can select to help you navigate between related sections.

You can double tap images and tables to increase their size. To return to the original view, just tap the cross in the top left-hand corner of the screen.

Its a blessing to be a Prince fan.

Singing along to Kiss as a child, being a teenager falling in love for the first time to Diamonds and Pearls , learning your first guitar chords to Endorphinmachine , dancing the summer away to Push It Up , growing into adulthood with Musicology , and, finally, crying your eyes out listening to Baltimore to be accompanied by Princes songs throughout your life is a blessing. When the possibility of Prince All the Songs was first raised, we had to find a sensible way to pay tribute to this incomparable artist, without neglecting any of his abundant output. Besides his 39 official albums, Princes discography extends like tentacles in all directions. Prince spent his adult life relentlessly recording, committing countless tracks to tape day and night, most completed within a few hours and stored in The Vault in Paisley Park, the place where he lived and worked in the suburbs of Minneapolis. Faced with what is rumored to be an infinite production, a compromise had to be found. In the end, the choice was made quickly: the selection would include all the songs officially released by Prince and subsequently by The Prince Estate, which has managed his musical legacy since his death in 2016.

Prince: All the Songs is a chronological portrait of a man whose whole life was devoted to his work. The secrets of Princes most popular and his least known songs are hidden in his private life, in his successes and failures, in his personal tragedies, and in the happiest moments of his life. Through anecdotes and hitherto unpublished technical details, this book sheds new light on the 684 tracks that make up Princes official discography and takes us on a journey into the life of this much-loved artist who will remain forever immortal.

Notice:

This book only covers songs performed by Prince.

Unless otherwise stated, remixes are not considered songs in their own right and are therefore not included here.

Credits for songwriters and composers follow the official information on the albums, although, in most cases, Prince has sole ownership of the rights. Unless otherwise stated, the recording dates in the technical notes do not include the editing and mixing dates of the songs.

His Royal Badness, the Kid from Minneapolis, or The Artist his nicknames dont really matterit is Prince who has made fans hearts race for more than 40 years.

In the late 1950s, the streets of Minneapolis resembled a picture postcard, in common with much of America in the boom years of the post-war period. The architecture in this city in northeast Minnesota was varied, with Tudor-style residences still standing alongside modern high-rise buildings for a time, until the 1961 urban renewal plan wiped out nearly half of the citys historic buildings. Neon signs lit up the stores, but behind this scenery typical of the American dream lurked a more complex reality.

Minneapolis at that time suffered from major inequalities between the black and white communities, and certain minorities were frequently targeted by the police.

There were few jazz clubs where African-American musicians could perform, and you had to go to the Uptown community centers if you wanted to dance to the swing of John Lewis Nelsons Prince Rogers Trio, for example. Nelson was a talented pianist who married Vivian Howard in 1938, and the couple had four children: Sharon, Lorna, Norrine, and John R. But in 1956, John Nelson suddenly upped and left the marital home, preferring to spend his time playing music, which he alternated with a job as a plastics molder at Honeywell, a heating control systems company. It was at a concert given by his band at the Phyllis Wheatley House, a social center for African-American families in north Minneapolis, that John met Mattie Della Shaw, herself recently divorced from her first husband, Alfred Jackson Sr. The beautiful Della Shaw, who would occasionally sing in the band, also had a child, Alfred Jackson Jr. What started out as a friendly and professional relationship between the two artists soon morphed into a romance and, on 31August 1957, the pianist and the singer were married.

On 7 June 1958, the couples first child was born. He was called Prince Rogers Nelson after his fathers stage name: Prince Rogers. The couple soon nicknamed the boy Skipper to differentiate him from his father. Prince grew up in the family home on 915 Logan Avenue in Minneapolis with his sister Tyka, born in 1960, and his sunny, cheerful mother who was devoted to her children. John, on the contrary, was more standoffish, a man of few words and more absent father than role model to his son. When John abandoned his wife and their two children in 1965, Prince took refuge in music, composing his first song on the piano his father had left behind in the living room. The song was called Funk Machine . When his father was still around, Prince had been forbidden to touch the piano, so he used to wait for him to go out every day before sitting down to teach himself the theme tunes from his favorite television series: The Man From U.N.C.L.E and Batman . With his father gone, Prince, who loved sports and music, became the man of the house and took care of his sister, to whom he remained very close for the rest of his life. When Mattie married her third husband Hayward Baker a few years later, relations within the household became strained. I disliked him immediately [], Prince would admit several years later. He would bring us a lot of presents all the time, rather than sit down and talk with us and give us companionship. I got real bitter because of that, and I would say all the things that I disliked about him, rather than tell him what I really needed. Which was a mistake, and it kind of hurt our relationship.

A young Prince Rogers Nelson, photographed by Robert Whitman in 1977.

A view over Minneapolis in the 1950s. In the center of the picture is the Andrus Building, which was renamed Renaissance Square in 1983 after renovation work by the firm of architects Miller, Hanson, Westerbeck & Bell.

From basketball to guitar

When he was 12 years old, Prince decided to move in with his father, with whom he shared a love of music which began at a Prince Rogers Trio concert he attended as a small boy. It was great, I couldnt believe it, people were screaming. From then on, I think I wanted to be a musician. Back then, Prince was also close to his cousin Charles Smithwith whom he shared a love of musicas well as his half-brother Duane. Duane was Vivians child from an extramarital affair she had just before her husband left home, and John had taken him in after his mothers death. He and Prince became inseparable during their school years, through their shared passion for basketball. While Duane Nelson quickly made his mark with his sporting prowess, when the three friends were together, they were more interested in music and formed their first band when they were just 13 years old. The band was called Phoenix. Prince played guitar, Andr was on bass, and Charles on drums. At the time, the teenagers were discovering Sly and the Family Stone, Stevie Wonder, and the catchy pop/funk of The Jackson 5, with whom they could easily identify because the lead singer, Michael, was the same age as Prince and Andr. The Jackson 5s 1969 hit,