The Rise of Prince 1958-1988

by Hahn, Alex

  But while Bob Dylan left Minnesota at a young age and only rarely returned, Prince held tightly to his home state, becoming its favorite son. Touring the world as an international superstar, Prince would over time purchase or rent homes in Marbella, Spain; Toronto, Canada; Los Angeles; and Turks and Caicos, but he never cut ties with his home state. To the contrary, every milestone in Prince’s life took place in a tight geographical radius around Minneapolis. The state played an outsized role in his life, much as the local nightclub First Avenue essentially became a character in his film Purple Rain. Minnesota’s qualities, however contradictory, would over time become Prince’s own: he was guarded, yet authentic; welcoming, yet insular; steady, yet unpredictable. As perplexing as his loyalty to his home state might have seemed to outsiders, fellow Minnesotans saw no such contradiction. He was one of their own.

  Once he had achieved fame and fortune, Prince could have established his base in any major cultural capital. Instead, he used the largesse generated by Purple Rain to create a sprawling studio compound in southwest suburban Chanhassen; he called it Paisley Park, after a song of the same title. Prince had the building’s stark white exterior lit so that it was surrounded by a soft purple aura, stamping the facility with his signature color.

  At first, Paisley was a commercial facility open to other musicians for recording. By the last years of his life, it had become Prince’s home, where he generally spent his evenings in isolation, and where he continued to compose, rehearse, and perform at a frenetic rate that had continued almost unabated for decades.

  “I will always live in Minneapolis,” Prince once said. “It’s so cold, it keeps the bad people out.”

  ***

  To understand what made Prince one of the most original and seminal figures in the history of popular music, however, one must look beyond his home state. In the mid-1990s, Prince would describe himself as a “slave” to the exploitative record companies who owned his master tapes, emblazoning the word on his face in protest. Widely criticized for seeming to equate struggles with Warner Bros. to actual human bondage, he eventually calibrated his claims. But his anger was authentic, and in some measure can be traced to the suffering of ancestors who bore the full brunt of American racism.

  Prince’s roots stretch back to territory discovered in 1682 by the French colonist Robert Cavelier de La Salle, who dubbed it “La Louisiane” to honor France’s absolute monarch, Louis XIV. Over the coming centuries, French cultural, social, and legal traditions were embedded in what became known as Louisiana.

  Colonists like de La Salle also brought with them the noxious institution of slavery, placing thousands of Native Americans in bondage as they arrived. The French brought other slaves from Africa, and it was not uncommon for plantation owners to own a combination of African and Native American slaves.

  In 1803, the United States acquired the state from France in the Louisiana Purchase, expanding the country by some 828,000 square miles. Suddenly, many Louisiana slaves were transferred to American owners. One such slaveholder was John Nelson, who had a substantial plantation in Louisiana’s Lafourche Parish.[84] He would become the great-great grandfather of Prince Rogers Nelson.

  Sometime in the years leading up to the Civil War, Nelson developed a relationship with a Cherokee woman, a freed slave, whose name is unknown to history. She gave birth to a boy named Edward, a rebellious spirit who as an adult emphatically rejected the heritage of his slave-owning father in favor of his dark-skinned mother. For all of his adult life, Edward referred to himself as either mulatto or black.[85] In 1880, he married a black woman named Emma Hardy and then became a traveling minister for the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church, visiting parishes throughout his state and elsewhere, advocating for the rights of African-Americans.

  In January 1882, Emma gave birth to Clarence Allen Nelson, Prince’s grandfather, who would be the first of at least 10 children. The Nelsons made their home base in Louisiana’s Cotton Valley.[86]

  Clarence was just 16 when he wed Carrie Jenkins, who was a year younger. Like Clarence’s parents, the couple settled in Cotton Valley, where they owned and worked on a farm, tilling the same fields that their forebears had worked as slaves.[87] On June 29, 1916, Carrie gave birth to their fourth child, John Louis Nelson, who would become Prince’s father.[88]

  John was only a toddler when Clarence became involved with another woman, prompting his parents’ divorce. Carrie remarried a man named Charles Ikner, bringing her four children with her to Ikner’s home when John was three years old. Soon after, her new husband died; she left Louisiana in search of a fresh start, travelling northward with her children and other members of her extended family.

  The family became part of the largest internal movement of people in the history of the United States. Between 1910 and 1970, in what came to be called the Great Migration, some six million African-Americans would re-locate from the South to urban centers in the Northeast, Midwest and West, seeking to escape segregation, racial violence, and Jim Crow laws, and in search of the good wages and better living conditions promised by encouraging reports in African-American newspapers.

  Some took a circuitous route through the Deep South and ended up in cities such as Washington D.C., Philadelphia, and New York. Others moved in a straight Northerly line up the middle of the United States. For Carrie and her family, this led to Minneapolis, Minnesota.

  The City of Minneapolis had grown up around Saint Anthony Falls, the only waterfall on the Mississippi River. The falls were named by the Franciscan Friar Louis Hennepin, who had been selected by Robert Cavelier de La Salle – the same explorer who named Louisiana – to help bring religion to Native Americans. The county that included Minneapolis eventually bore Hennepin’s name, as did one of city’s most important streets.

  Long favored by Scandinavian immigrants, Minneapolis also had a small but growing black community. And like so many other American cities that became destinations during the Great Migration, it reaped a side benefit from the arrival of African-Americans: the blossoming of jazz and blues. These African-American musical forms had developed in New Orleans and other southern cities, and began to permeate the cities of the East and Midwest during the Migration. And among those who would bring this music to the Midwest was John Nelson.

  John was left without any parent before his 18th birthday when his mother Carrie died at age 49. By about age 20, he landed a job as a doorman at the Andrews Hotel on 4th and Hennepin Avenue in downtown Minneapolis, a large brick building that had opened in 1911. A somewhat drab establishment, the Andrews catered mainly to visiting businessmen, and Nelson’s wages were substandard.[89] But despite his humble existence, there was a confidence, even a brashness, in the young man that helped him move through the world. He was relatively short, about five feet six inches, but spoke with a deep baritone.

  Even as he worked long hours at the hotel, Nelson learned the piano and began to play in local clubs at night. The city’s musical scene was vibrant, with clubs like Peacock Alley, the Blue Note, and Jet Away popping up around town. Soon, using the combined income from his job and his gigs, Nelson purchased a small single-family home on a tree-lined street at 2929 5th Avenue South, less than three miles from the hotel.[90]

  Now 22 years old, he started a romance with 18-year-old Vivian Howard, a light-skinned African-American woman whose family had come to Minneapolis from Missouri. They married in 1938 and settled into a new home at 334 E. 38th Street. Two years later, Vivian gave birth to a daughter, Sharon, followed in the next several years by Lorna and Norrine.[91]

  Nelson’s economic fortunes soon improved as a result of a wartime boom. Following the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, which brought the country into World War II, the United States needed not only combat troops, but also laborers to manufacture war machinery. Nelson went to work at Honeywell, a prominent employer in Minneapolis since the early 20th century. The family’s standard of living rose, and in 1944 they had a fourth child, John Rodgers, Jr.[92]
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  The Nelson home became a festive place where the young patriarch would entertain his family and friends by playing the piano and singing songs. Nieces and nephews, who called him “Uncle Johnny,” remembered his impromptu performances as the highlight of their visits.[93] They also enjoyed a family dog that Nelson named “Prince.”

  Nelson formed a jazz trio that became a fixture of the city’s music scene. Combining the name he had used for his dog with a version of the middle name he had given to his son John Jr., he adopted a stage moniker, Prince Rogers Nelson.[94]

  The band not only played standards but also Nelson’s original compositions, which were abstract, nonlinear pieces that sometimes evoked Thelonious Monk or Duke Ellington. Along with their unconventional structures, the songs utilized odd phrasings and minor-key voicings. In a city full of talented musicians, Nelson’s ingenuity and skill nonetheless stood out.

  Nelson also became prominent in the social life of his neighborhood. Often dressed in a suit and tie, he cut a dapper figure and was known for a sense of humor that was offbeat and not infrequently profane. He joined a lively scene where men would hang out in bars, barbershops, and at barbecues, wisecracking and swapping stories.

  The family continued to do well as a result of Nelson’s employment with Honeywell, and in 1952 they purchased a new home at 3278 5th Avenue South. From outward appearances, the Nelsons’ story was nearly perfect – early adversity had been vanquished and a share of the American dream claimed.

  The reality was somewhat different. As Nelson approached his 40s, his marriage to Vivian became strained. Unbeknownst to his family, Nelson was pursuing a woman who looked much like Vivian – beautiful and light-skinned – but who was considerably younger. She also had a mercurial personality that intrigued Nelson. What’s more, she shared Nelson’s love for music, and could even sing.

  When Nelson left Vivian and his four children in 1956, it came as a shock to his friends and extended family. Sadly, this was almost exactly what Nelson had experienced as a toddler in Louisiana when his own parents separated.

  In March of the following year, Vivian initiated divorce proceedings. A nervous Sharon Nelson, then 16 years old, testified before the court concerning the hardships that had ensued following her father’s departure.

  When the proceeding concluded, a child support order had been entered against Nelson, and Vivian was awarded the family home. Still, Vivian now faced life as a single woman with four children ranging from ages 12-16.

  During the divorce proceedings, one important person was missing from the courtroom: John Nelson himself. After leaving his wife, Nelson had settled into a non-descript, three-level apartment building at 2201 Fifth Avenue South. With his family responsibilities diminished, he could spend time on music, as well as with the new love of his life.

  For Nelson, it was as if life had started over.

  ***

  Whereas John L. Nelson’s parents had lived an agrarian existence in Louisiana’s Cotton Valley, the next generation of African-Americans in the South began to fill urban centers, like New Orleans, that were rapidly industrializing. But as would so often be the case in the United States, an influx of darker-colored persons would be perceived by some whites as a threat. And in late 19th century America, the response far too often was violence.

  A signature event of this kind was the 1895 New Orleans dockworkers riot, in which non-unionized black dockworkers were attacked by a mob of white unionists. By the end of the two-day melee, six of the African-American workers had been murdered.

  The year 1895 also marked the birth of an African-American boy named Frank Shaw in Arcadia, Louisiana, which was about 45 minutes by car from John L. Nelson’s birthplace in Cotton Valley. As an adult, Shaw did what a great many blacks in Louisiana and other states did in the face of such virulent and violent racism: he left, becoming part of the same Great Migration that had led John Nelson’s family to Minneapolis. For Frank Shaw, this relocation led him to Iowa, another Midwestern state with a reputation for racial tolerance. There he married 19-year-old Lucille Barnell, herself a former Louisiana resident. The couple eventually moved north, arriving in Minneapolis in 1930.

  The Shaws lived at 821 Dupont Avenue in predominantly black North Minneapolis, a working-class neighborhood that everyone called “the Northside.” Shaw found work as a car washer. He was 38 years old and his wife 30 when Lucille prematurely gave birth to twin daughters, Mattie Della and Edna Mae, at Minneapolis General Hospital on November 11, 1933. They were believed to have been the first black twins born on the Northside.[95]

  It might have seemed that stability was within the grasp of this young family. Unfortunately, as the Great Depression took hold in the United States after the 1929 stock market crash, Minneapolis was not spared its impact. Shaw was unemployed when the twins were born, and he and Lucille faced the struggle of raising two babies during a national economic meltdown. Being part of the Great Migration had led them to greater safety, but not to prosperity.

  ***

  Mattie Shaw, after growing up poor in a Minneapolis project, lived for a time in Missouri, where she married a man named Alfred Jackson, Sr. Shortly after Mattie gave birth to a son named Alfred Jr., the couple separated and Mattie returned to Minneapolis. By her early 20s she was working as a clothing inspector at a local coat manufacturer and living at 1031 Bryant Avenue North.[96]

  Mattie and many other local residents socialized frequently at the Phyllis Wheatley Settlement House, the cornerstone of North Minneapolis’ cultural and social life, an all-purpose recreation center where people played sports, took music lessons, and attended concerts. While the center served a diverse ethnic population, it was in particular a sanctuary for African-Americans, and a site of frequent musical performances. During the 1950s, a notable local jazz bassist, Oscar Pettiford, gigged there on a regular basis, and national artists like Duke Ellington also passed through.

  Mattie was a woman of striking beauty, immaculately groomed and stylishly dressed despite her limited means. Both of “the Shaw twins,” as Mattie and her sister were called, were gifted athletes and known in particular as talented basketball players. And Mattie’s Southern roots, like those of John Nelson, showed up in the form of musical talent. She became an amateur jazz singer, with a voice that reminded listeners of Billie Holiday, and would sometimes perform with other musicians at the Phyllis Wheatley. And it was here where she met a handsome, dashing jazz musician named John Nelson, with whom she quickly fell in love.

  John and Vivian’s divorce became final on March 15, 1957. By Minnesota law, he could not remarry for at least six months, but John and Mattie were unwilling to wait. They sidestepped the problem by travelling to the neighboring state of Iowa, which lacked a similar law. In the town of Northwood, no more than 10 minutes from Minnesota’s border, they were married on August 31, 1957 before a Justice of the Peace, with the Justice’s family serving as witnesses. Within weeks of this date, they conceived their first child.

  ***

  John Nelson, the great-grandson of a slave owner, had made it through a chaotic childhood marked by loss, geographical relocation, and economic struggle. He now had a new wife, steady employment, and a sideline musical career that seemed full of promise.[97]

  On June 7, 1958, some ten months into her marriage with Nelson, Mattie Shaw gave birth to a son. They bestowed on him the same name that Nelson used as his stage name, calling him Prince Rogers Nelson.

  2. Dandelions

  From the start, family, friends, and neighbors all called Prince “Skipper.” The Northside of Minneapolis, where he grew up, was a place of contradictions and inconsistencies. With its tree-lined streets and quaint houses, it almost felt more like a suburb than a city. But blight, crime, and drugs were obvious on gritty boulevards like Hennepin Avenue.

  John Nelson’s substantial income at Honeywell allowed the family to live in one of the nicer parts of the neighborhood. About six months after Prince’s birth, John and Mattie left thei
r apartment on 5th Avenue and purchased a home on quiet and pleasant Logan Avenue.

  All told, the marriage of John L. Nelson and Mattie Shaw seemed to fulfill the passionate promise that had prompted their elopement to Iowa. A second child, Tyka, was born in 1960. Music was central to the Nelson household, as it had been in his previous family. Although childcare responsibilities kept Mattie from joining her husband in the clubs, she helped him rehearse in the living room. The children looked on as their parents made music, a joyful ritual that bonded the family.[98]

  From an early age young Prince warily eyed his father’s piano and eventually felt emboldened enough to clamber up and explore the keys. But Nelson zealously kept the piano off limits, and Prince soon learned better than to touch it.

  Nelson was a strict disciplinarian in all respects, and physical punishment was not unheard of, any more than it was in most other households throughout Minneapolis and the country at that time. But Nelson’s approach was not extreme when measured against those norms, and Prince did not experience it as traumatizing; instead, he largely revered his father.

  John Nelson himself began to feel urges of rebelliousness as the 1960s got under way, specifically against the constraints of his job at Honeywell. Seeking to move towards a professional music career, he frequently gigged out of town on weekends. His absence from his family was also felt on weekday nights, when he played in clubs until the early morning hours. This placed a strain on Mattie, who had to watch over the children without assistance.[99]

  Despite all of the work he put into it, Nelson could not help but feel the prospects of a musical career fade. Pop and rock gradually changed the texture of the city’s musical community and made jazz less central. The audience for quirky musicians like Nelson shrank; some of the places he played were now literally nothing more than strip clubs, where his skills were ignored as he played behind women in lingerie.