by Hahn, Alex
Fink had previously considered a doctor’s outfit complete with scrubs, and Prince quickly voiced his support for the idea. A wardrobe person was dispatched to a uniform shop and purchased a doctor’s scrub suit and accoutrements such as a surgical mask and stethoscope.
Prince then directed Fink – henceforth to be known as “Dr. Fink” – to don not only the surgical mask but also a large pair of sunglasses, meaning that his entire face would be concealed. When Fink objected, Prince retorted that he should welcome the idea, which Prince insisted would give the keyboardist an air of mystery and intrigue.
After some grumbling, Fink agreed to don what had become an elaborate and cumbersome costume, more suited to the surgical suite than the stage. During sets he found himself sweating into the mask, which in turn caused his sunglasses to steam up. Unable to clearly see his keyboard and struggling even to breathe normally, Fink after several nights appealed to Prince for permission to at least discard the mask. Prince pondered the request for a moment, and then agreed to a point – Fink could remove the mask after one or two songs.[195]
Meanwhile, Prince concocted crueler forms of punishment for Rick James. After weeks of analyzing his rival’s stage moves, Prince began to mimic them during his sets, right down to certain of James’ hand gestures. He also began to lead the audience through some of the same chants that James used to engage his fans.
The goal was not to emulate but to embarrass, and the gambit was successful. Just as Prince had hoped, when James took the stage for his headlining slot, audiences assumed that he was imitating Prince, rather than vice versa. Simply by virtue of going on second, James looked foolish as he led the audiences through the same routines Prince had used an hour earlier.
Meanwhile, Prince continued to perform strongly on the charts, with Fire It Up! proving a commercial and critical disappointment relative to James’ first two albums. Crowd reactions were also becoming more boisterous for Prince by the night, prompting his young band to play with even greater ferocity. “Sometimes I actually felt bad for Rick that he had to go on after us,” Dickerson recalled.
By the time the tour reached his hometown of Buffalo, New York on April 2, 1980, it was clear to James that the tour had been for him a disaster. This night in particular was supposed to have been a triumphant homecoming, and James’ mother and Buffalo’s mayor were in attendance. But when James led the dignitaries to his dressing room, another humiliation ensued. A rendering of James had been drawn on a chalkboard in the room, complete with lengthy braids. Cologne had been sprayed on the image, and “Rick James” had been drawn in block letters at the bottom.[196]
The culprit was Andre Cymone, who later claimed that his intent had only been to draw a caricature of a television character called “Howdy Doody” on the board. Whether the braids and cologne had been added by a roadie – as Andre would later assert – or by the bassist himself, the result was the same: the embarrassment of James at the hands of an upstart band from Minneapolis, one led by a small, skinny man in a pair of black underwear, was now complete.
***
Between concerts, there were brief respites for sleep at roadside hotels, and seemingly little time for reflection. But Prince, who typically needed only several hours of sleep to refresh himself, used these quiet times to ponder his next steps and compose new songs on his guitar.
He had impressively bested James, but this meant little in the great scheme of things. He and James were fighting for a small slice of the overall pop music market; as he had insisted to Warner Bros. from the beginning, Prince wanted to reach a larger and more diverse audience. And he wanted to greatly expand his artistic scope.
Prince began to explore material that was far removed from the R&B conventions that had characterized For You and, to a lesser extent, Prince. Various subcultures were percolating underneath the surface of popular music, and Prince was taking their measure. He had learned of developments in punk and New Wave through long conversations with Matt Fink and Dez Dickerson, both of whom were sophisticated consumers of musical trends. And he now began to incorporate these influences.
After a North Carolina concert, Prince composed a new song, “When You Were Mine,” whose central guitar riff straddled pop and punk, evoking both the Beatles and New Wave artists like Elvis Costello. Lyrically, it described an unfaithful lover who failed even to change her dirty bed sheets before a sexual encounter with Prince.
As the tour arrived in Florida, Prince’s bandmates elected to visit DisneyWorld during a rare day off before the next show. Fink, finding Prince strumming on a guitar on the balcony of his hotel room, invited him on the outing. Prince demurred but affably encouraged the keyboardist and the rest of the group to enjoy the time off. Fink paused for a moment to listen to the song Prince was playing; he would later learn that it had been “When You Were Mine.”
Back in California, Prince’s supporters at Warner Bros. felt a renewed confidence in his career. After the strong performance of Prince and the unqualified success of the tour, it appeared that their instincts in signing Prince – and their patience with his growing pains – had been vindicated, and that they had successfully identified a rising R&B star.
Had they been on the hotel balcony with him that afternoon, they might have realized that they also had on their hands a visionary.
12. Rough Mix
As he returned to Minnesota in late spring 1980 and prepared to embark on his third album, Prince’s greatest challenge remained breaking out of a music industry paradigm that grouped black and white artists into separate categories. For all of his pleas to Warner Bros. that he not be constrained by this construct – and for all of the company’s promises that he would not – the practical realities were far more complicated. The assurances made by Mo Ostin and Lenny Waronker had not been insincere, but Warners continued to operate under practices that had calcified over generations, owing to failures of imagination, unfair stereotyping, and sometimes outright racism. As a result, the task of marketing a young African-American funk artist to a broad, predominantly white audience was one for which no ready template existed.
And there were other concerns. When Prince and his band were travelling across America with Rick James, both his second album and the single “I Wanna Be Your Lover” had enjoyed chart success. But his impact had been limited to the R&B market, and he had not necessarily built a loyal following. And although Prince was a creative improvement over his first album, it broke little stylistic ground. Continuing down these same paths would not achieve Prince’s much grander design.
Prince was now living in a rented home on Lake Minnetonka in the community of Wayzata, Minnesota, where a 16-track studio had been installed. He began developing rough drafts of songs to be re-recorded later in a professional facility. The home studio was a jury-rigged affair, with the drum booth frequently becoming waterlogged as a result of seepage from an abandoned cesspool near the house. The isolated setting minimized distractions; most of the time, the only other person present was an affable, unobtrusive engineer named Don Batts.
As he worked, Prince continued his analysis of new musical trends. “He had stacks and stacks of records in his house that he got free from Warner Bros.,” recalled Matt Fink. “He was listening to just about everything.” Prince quickly came to see that the edginess and minimalism of punk were creeping toward the mainstream. Bands like the Cars and Devo were incorporating elements of electronica, until recently a largely underground phenomenon.
His study of such developments was somewhat superficial – he was not inclined to immerse himself in any particular artist’s work – but he rapidly absorbed ideas that intrigued him. On Prince, he had some success jumping from R&B to rock. Now, he began creating a genuine synthesis of styles, combining elements of rock, funk, punk, and New Wave.
The limited complement of equipment at the home studio left fewer instrumental choices – there was no room for a piano, for example – and he composed primarily on guitar. The new songs were r
awer and more visceral than anything on his first two albums, and the galvanic sexual energy that he had discovered on tour also informed the new material. All told – and in part due to the production values of the home studio – Prince’s new demos would not have sounded out of place on the college radio stations that were starting to play an outsized role in breaking new artists across the United States.
Despite his solitude during most of the sessions, Prince did collaborate actively with Matt Fink on the electronica-tinged “Dirty Mind,” which emerged from a keyboard riff developed by Fink at a rehearsal. Prince added a bridge section during a lengthy session with Fink at the Lake Minnetonka home, and by midnight they had completed the instrumentation.
Prince then told Fink he was free to go, and the keyboardist went home to bed. Prince worked on the song throughout the night, arriving the next day at rehearsal with a rough mix, complete with vocals and other overdubs. He announced to the band that it would be the title track of the next album.
The lyrics of “Dirty Mind,” which recount a carnal encounter in a car, reflected Prince’s growing fascination with erotic themes. Whereas he had frequently sung of romantic heartbreak on his first two albums, this theme now became inverted; instead of being dumped, as on “Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad?,” he reemerged as a sexual aggressor for whom emotional intimacy was at best an afterthought. And the subject matter entered the realm of the perverse; the hard-rocking “Sister,” for example, explored the taboo of incest. “Head,” meanwhile, described Prince’s encounter with a bride on the way to her wedding, one which ends with him ejaculating on her wedding gown.
Musically, the tracks covered a wide range of territory. “Sister,” with its short duration and dissonant chords, was openly punkish. “Head” included New Wave elements but at root was a funk workout anchored by a taut bass-and-synthesizer motif. “When You Were Mine,” the song he had composed in a North Carolina hotel room on tour, combined a strong melody and elements of surf-pop.
The immediacy of the songs was enhanced by the engineering techniques of Prince and Batts, which utilized negligible reverb on the drums and little distortion on guitars. Prince eschewed guitar soloing, and the most flamboyant instrumental flourish on any of the new numbers was provided by Matt Fink during a lengthy, frenetic synth solo on “Head” that sought to simulate a male orgasm.
In addition to his explorations of sexuality, Prince became more conversant in political and social issues, and these topics also found expression in his new songs. In the summer of 1980, the United States was experiencing political ferment, with Ronald Reagan – perceived by many as a reactionary and dangerous militarist – having seized the Republican presidential nomination. Protests against racism and nuclear proliferation were becoming widespread. Reacting in some measure to these developments, Prince recorded “Uptown,” which depicted a utopian environment where members of different races were united by music and a shared ethos. (The song’s title also referenced a hip Minneapolis neighborhood where he frequently visited, an indication of the continuing emotional importance of his hometown.) And Prince started to see himself as leader of such a community, someone who could unite disparate groups through his music.
Between sessions, Prince socialized with his band members, carrying forward the camaraderie that had emerged during the tour. One important change occurred, however: Gayle Chapman announced she was quitting. Her primary grievance was a lack of control; Prince’s dictatorial tendencies, which included his directives concerning her clothing, irritated Chapman. This departure robbed the band of its only woman, a blow to Prince’s desire for an inclusive ensemble.
He saw the remaining band members nearly every day at rehearsals. Prince, Matt Fink, and Andre Cymone also spent free time exercising together, lifting weights at Minneapolis gyms, swimming at a YMCA, and roller-skating around Lake Calhoun or Lake Harriet in the heart of Minneapolis. They sometimes visited a roller rink in the inner-ring suburb of St. Louis Park, Fink remembered, “to try to meet girls.”
In such social settings, Prince was generally relaxed and unassuming. In fact, the group’s playful interactions were not unlike those in his high school band Grand Central. Clowning around with band members, Prince enjoyed adopting various personas he had invented; one of his favorites was a bawdy, Richard Pryor-like character that reminded Fink of a stereotypical street-corner hustler. “When Prince was growing up in North Minneapolis, there was a lot of pimping, drug dealing, and underworldly stuff going on, and that’s where this character emerged from,” Matt Fink observed. “He had a fantasy of being someone outside the law.”
But it was indeed a mere fantasy, and Prince never associated with the lowbrow types he caricatured; instead, he consciously chose as his associates people such as Fink, Bobby Z., and Dez Dickerson, who were ethical, low-key, and even a bit square. And the sensationalistic events of his new material were largely invented. The notorious “Sister,” while inspired in part by his older half-sister Sharon Nelson, was an extremely backhanded homage to her sophisticated beauty as opposed to any real depiction of incest.
Prince’s most complicated relationship in the band was with Andre Cymone, his former teenage roommate. Believing himself to be no less talented than Prince, the bassist carried the resentment of having to play a subordinate role to a close friend. This tension increased when Fink was singled out to contribute in the studio; Andre, despite his best efforts to remain cool, became increasingly jealous. “They shared the same bedroom, and then Prince starts becoming this big, huge star,” noted Owen Husney, Prince’s former manager. “That’s got to affect you one way or the other.”
Prince also perceived his friend on some level as a threat, which prompted him to hinder Andre’s progress through various manipulations. When Andre expressed interest in setting up his own studio to work on songs, Prince insisted that this was unnecessary and that the bassist could use his equipment whenever he wished. This seemingly generous gesture, however, allowed Prince to keep physical custody of Andre’s music. On one occasion, Andre came looking for demos, only to be told by Prince that he had “accidentally” erased a tape.
Ultimately, Prince seemed to believe that if Andre were also to succeed, this would somehow be to his detriment.
***
Another old neighborhood pal, former Grand Central drummer Morris Day, made his way back into Prince’s orbit during the summer of 1980, albeit in an unglamorous capacity; he became a “runner” for Prince’s band, picking up sandwiches and drinks during rehearsals.
During high school, Day’s drum skills and knack for self-promotion secured him a place in Grand Central at the expense of Prince’s cousin Chazz Smith. His mother, LaVonne Daugherty, had for a time been the band’s manager. But following Prince’s signing to Warner Bros., Day – like neighborhood friends other than Andre – found himself on the outside looking in.
Now, a potential change in fortunes arrived for Day. Prince, while attending a gig by Day’s band Enterprise, had been enthralled by a saucy funk groove that Day had written. Deciding he wanted to use the riff, Prince offered Day financial compensation in the sum of $10,000. As an alternative, he offered to build a side project around Day at a later date. Day, preferring career advancement over modest financial gain, chose the latter option.
Prince adapted the drummer’s riff by speeding up the tempo and then adding words. The song became “Partyup,” Prince’s most openly political work to date; its lyrics were inspired by opposition to draft registration in the United States, which was re-instituted over the summer of 1980 by President Jimmy Carter.
Prince also took steps to replace Gayle Chapman, and became impressed by a demo tape submitted by a 19-year-old, L.A.-based pianist named Lisa Coleman. Coleman had an ethereal, classical-influenced style that was far removed from that of either Chapman or Matt Fink, offering the possibility for a new dimension in the band’s live sound.
Prince personally greeted Coleman at the airport when she arrived in Minnea
polis, and their personal chemistry was immediate. This extended to their jamming together, resulting in a quick invitation for Lisa to join the band and move to Minneapolis.
Lisa started out by living in Prince’s spare bedroom. Their relationship remained platonic, and Lisa was in fact involved with a young woman named Wendy Melvoin, herself a guitarist, who remained in Los Angeles. Nonetheless, Prince took it upon himself to record a song called “Lisa” that described his new keyboardist as sexually kinky and offering to take her out “to get blasted.” Not unlike “Sister,” the song was a roundabout way of showing affection, albeit in this case with intimations of actual jealousy.
Work continued at the home studio, and Prince eventually accumulated about 10 songs. With demoing now complete, he had a realization: the songs had been enhanced, rather than hindered, by the imperfections of the home studio. Re-recording them in a professional facility would merely dilute their impact.
Prince selected the eight songs he felt were strongest and brought them to Warner Bros., declaring the material ready for release. The response throughout the company was shock and consternation. “He turned the record company into disarray,” recalled Warners official Marylou Badeaux. “The promotions people would call me and say, ‘I can’t take this to radio! Is he crazy?’”
The concerns were many. The graphic lyrics threatened to hinder radio airplay, as did the unpolished sound. Other than “When You Were Mine,” nothing suggested itself as a potential single.
