The Rise of Prince 1958-1988

by Hahn, Alex

  But a basic problem also afflicted their relationship: Prince’s increasing interest in casual sex. Over the course of the Dirty Mind tour, the attention of groupies had boosted his confidence, and these encounters dovetailed perfectly with his exploration of erotic themes in his songwriting. Meanwhile, other girlfriends seemed to be waiting in the wings, including Jill Jones. Amidst all of this, Moonsie was caught between her affection for Prince and her unwillingness to put up with his unfaithfulness. “Moonsie’s boundaries were not negotiable,” observed Leeds. “She wouldn’t jump up and down or holler and scream, but Prince knew she would never tolerate any behavior that even bordered on disrespect.”

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  After months of work at home and in Los Angeles, Prince presented his new material to Warners and his management. Unlike the disputes that developed over Dirty Mind, there was an almost unanimous consensus that it could establish Prince as even more of an underground phenomenon, and one with crossover potential. “I thought it was a brilliant album,” recalled Warners’ Marylou Badeaux. Like Dirty Mind, the album had no obvious hit single, and some of its more ambitious experiments, such as the abstruse spoken-word piece “Annie Christian,” were not successful. But such audacity was exactly what alternative press journalists and cult fans were coming to love about Prince.

  The album, entitled Controversy, was readied for release in October 1981. Visually, the cover carried forth the post-punk vibe of Dirty Mind: Prince in a lavender trench coat, again with the Rude Boy pin attached. Floating behind him and on the back cover were faux tabloid newspaper headlines that mocked society’s fascination with sensationalism.

  Somewhat to the surprise of Prince and Warners, some critics who received pre-release copies were put off by the hodge-podge of styles and his excursions into specific political issues such as disarmament (on “Ronnie, Talk to Russia”) and gun violence (“Annie Christian.”) The concern seemed to be that Prince’s core message of sexual freedom, which rang through so clearly on Dirty Mind, had been diluted.

  “Controversy,” the album’s lead single, had little impact on the Pop Singles Chart after being released in September in advance of the album, reaching only No. 70. Still, airplay was strong in urban markets and on alternative rock stations, and Prince’s managers began planning a tour of mid-sized theaters in the United States.

  The Time, meanwhile, played its first shows in Minneapolis clubs in fall 1981. Day had fully grown into the cartoonish character that Prince had created, and the band had become impeccably tight. But Prince’s initial satisfaction gradually shifted in the direction of jealously over how good the band was; as Bobby Z. put it, Prince had begun to worry that he had created “a Frankenstein’s monster” that he could no longer control.

  Three members of the Time were most threatening to Prince: keyboardist Jimmy “Jam” Harris, bassist Terry Lewis, and guitarist Jesse Johnson. Johnson in particular was a terror on the guitar, playing leads with a ferocity that rivaled Prince’s. “Prince frequently intimated that the only guitarist he’s really afraid of is Jesse Johnson,” recalled Alan Leeds.

  But despite Prince’s conflicted feelings, it was clear that the Time could help sell tickets for the upcoming tour as an opening act. For audiences, this could also offer a kind of entertaining competition between the groups, not unlike that between Prince and Rick James on the Fire It Up! tour. And indeed, right down to the personnel involved, the tour would have echoes of the fierce musical combat of Prince’s teen years on the Northside. But with him this time being the maestro behind the entire pageant, the outcome was seemingly preordained.

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  “Do Me, Baby,” a song that was in significant part Andre Cymone’s creation, would eventually be released as Controversy’s third single. Its provenance would be debated for decades, and it would serve as a rallying point for those who questioned Prince’s fair-mindedness in sharing songwriting credit.

  At the time, the shock of hearing “Do Me, Baby” on the radio proved greater than Andre had expected. Upset, he called Pepe Willie to ask what his legal options were; at this point, however, they were nil. “I told Andre he should have copyrighted it, and that there was nothing I could do,” said Willie.

  For Andre – as well as certain other Prince associates – this was only the most egregious example of Prince using a friend’s ideas without credit. And various other compositions, not just involving Andre, would work their way into this debate over the years.

  Some associates, however, believed that such controversies were overblown. Bobby Z., for example, noted that while various band members offered up riffs at rehearsals, it was Prince who fashioned this raw clay into finished pieces. “There’s a big misconception between a riff, a lick, and a songwriter,” he argued. “The songwriter is the guy who conceptualizes the words and the music. Ninety-nine percent of the time, when Prince says he wrote the song, he wrote the song.” Owen Husney struck a similar note. “When people are jamming, ideas float around,” he said. “When Prince and Andre would jam, and something cool came out of it, Prince was the outlet to make it happen on record and on radio. Andre wasn’t.”

  Poignantly, but in some respects fittingly as an unexpected farewell to his former best friend, “Do Me, Baby” made an appearance on the last night Prince ever performed, April 14, 2016.

  16. Shock and Satisfaction

  Among those who saw Prince perform at the Ritz in New York City during the Dirty Mind tour had been Rolling Stones front man Mick Jagger. The Stones, long conscious of the debt they owed to black musical forms, often offered opening slots to African-American artists like Stevie Wonder and Billy Preston. Now, as the band prepared for its first U.S. tour in many years in support of its Tattoo You album, Jagger invited Prince to join the Stones at the Los Angeles Coliseum, on Friday, October 9 and Sunday, October 11, 1981, and also at two more shows in Detroit. He and his managers readily accepted what was a tremendous promotional opportunity.

  A sold-out crowd of more than 94,000 people was expected to attend the Los Angeles shows, and most would never have heard of Prince. It would be Mark Brown’s second gig with the band, a staggering transition from the small nightclubs he had been playing during his very short musical career. In the weeks running up to the show, Dez Dickerson warned Prince that the reaction of a large, anonymous crowd of Stones fans would be entirely different from anything he had ever experienced.

  October 9, 1981, turned out to be an unseasonably warm day in Los Angeles, and a capacity crowd packed the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum to witness the greatest pure rock band of its generation. Some had arrived very early in the morning to secure places near the stage; many were inebriated by the time the music was to begin in the late afternoon. Those up close included hundreds of members of the notorious Hell’s Angels Motorcycle Club, which had created violent altercations at the Stones’ famed concert at Altamont in 1969, resulting in the death of an audience member.

  Many fans had expected only two opening acts, the J. Geils Band and George Thorogood and the Destroyers, blues bands very much in the Rolling Stones tradition. But when promoter Bill Graham, a legendary figure who had advanced the careers of many artists, took the stage and announced that Prince would be performing first, many in the audience shouted their displeasure.

  Backstage, Prince and his bandmates felt a wave of dread. The dynamics quickly became clear – an impatient, predominately white crowd, fueled by masculine energy and pumped full of alcohol, was about to witness a small, scantily dressed African-American and his mixed-race, mixed-gender backing band. “We’re set up to die,” drummer Bobby Z. recalled thinking.[208]

  Some attendees did take offense to Prince’s attire, which consisted of a trench coat, leg warmers, and a leather thong. Still, reaction to the distortion-drenched “Bambi” was largely positive. The band segued immediately into “When You Were Mine,” whose jaunty rhythms also produced a generally agreeable response. But the small army of bikers and boozers closer up was losing its
patience; some began tossing trash, and in some cases, lighted cigarettes. An orange thrown at Mark Brown was impaled on the tuning pegs of his bass.[209]

  Bill Graham, disgusted by the reaction and concerned about the band’s safety, came out and stopped the set. As Prince and the members listened from backstage, the promoter grabbed a mic and shouted that anyone not enjoying the show should leave for a beer, prompting one fan to throw something at Graham. “You’ll pay big money to see this guy someday,” a defiant Graham shot back.

  Prince and the band returned and launched into “Uptown.” But the cascade of debris became heavier, forcing them to cut the song short and leave the stage. A wordless Prince immediately left the arena. The band quickly followed; they soon learned that he had gone straight to the airport and left town.

  The next performance at the Coliseum was scheduled for two days later, but word quickly arrived that Prince did not intend to come back. Manager Steve Fargnoli, not ready to relinquish the opportunity that the concerts represented, urged him to return. The band leader emphatically refused.

  Fargnoli turned to Mick Jagger for help. The Stones’ leader, reaching Prince by phone, told stories of abuse heaped on the Stones during their early days, describing this as simply a hazard of being an uncompromising artist. Prince listened politely but refused to budge.

  With the band members still hunkered down in Los Angeles, Fargnoli turned to Dez Dickerson as a last resort. Over the course of a nearly 45-minute call with Prince, Dickerson insisted that they could not allow themselves to be intimidated, particularly where racism was a factor. “I told Prince about playing in biker bars, where no black man had ever set foot before,” Dickerson recalled. “I told him that you can’t let them run you out of town.”

  Finally, the band leader relented and got on a plane for Los Angeles. When he arrived, his misgivings remained clear. “It was one of the only times I saw Prince visibly, physically have to do something against his will,” Bobby Z. recalled.[210]

  Still, by the time the band took the stage in the late afternoon, Prince had steeled himself. The band again launched into “Bambi,” and before the song was a minute old Prince burst into a searing guitar solo. Mark Brown, showing immense resiliency under trying circumstances, stayed fully in sync with Bobby Z.’s drumming.

  As had been the case on the first night, reaction from crowd members further from the stage was enthusiastic. But the events of Friday night had spread through word-of-mouth and newspaper reports; hundreds of people, intent on one-upsmanship, had come loaded for bear with rotting fruits and vegetables. One person brought a cooked ham to throw; another had soaked raw chicken in a bag of hot water, rendering it fetid and gray. By the second song, “When U Were Mine,” these items were hurled at the band, along with racist and homophobic jeers.[211]

  The band members dodged projectiles and sidestepped debris as it crash-landed. The noise in the stadium was deafening, adding to their disorientation. Still, no one missed a note or a beat. Matt Fink’s high keyboard notes rang out above the din, Prince soloed, and Mark Brown defiantly shouted his back-up lines during the chorus.

  Bobby Z. then kicked the band into the rockabilly-tinged “Jack U Off.” As Prince began singing the explicit lyrics, the cascade of trash resumed. At the song’s crescendo, all of the instruments dropped away, leaving Prince’s voice naked and echoing across the cavernous arena.

  “As a matter of fact,” he snarled, “You can jack me off!”

  And with that, the floodgates opened. Even more dangerous items were thrown, including an empty bottle of Jack Daniels. A bottle of orange juice narrowly missed Prince, smashing against the drum riser and cascading the liquid across the stage.

  Bobby Z., refusing to give up, tore into “Uptown” as soon as “Jack U Off” ended. But Prince, now fearing for his safety, left the stage. Unaware, the band continued playing what became an instrumental version of the song. Mark Brown soon also retreated backstage, but Dickerson remained, insistently taking one guitar solo after another. But the keyboards soon dropped out, leaving only Dickerson and Bobby Z. playing, and the song seemed about to peter out.

  Then, without warning, Brown’s warm bass tone kicked back in, signaling his return. The distorted roar of Prince’s guitar then also re-appeared. Reunited at full strength, the band pushed gamely through the end of “Uptown.” They then completed “Why U Wanna Treat Me So Bad?” and left the stage.

  Backstage, the band members felt a mixture of shock and satisfaction. Just as Dickerson had hoped in speaking to Prince the night before, they had refused to be intimidated. This was justly recognized by some as a victory. “He played the full 20 minutes, exactly what his contract permitted him to do,” recalled Ken Tucker, a Rolling Stone critic who witnessed the concert. “And he played magnificently, his small body leaning into the abuse and turning it into a triumph.”

  Nonetheless, Prince and his management agreed that the remaining shows with the Stones would be scrapped. And while the band’s perseverance had been remarkable, the experience brought certain uncomfortable truths into focus. Prince remained largely an underground phenomenon, a critic’s darling whose reputation far exceeded his record sales or concert receipts, and whose androgynous image suddenly seemed more of a liability than selling point. A mass audience – one composed not of intellectuals, urbanites, and journalists, but of everyday Americans, some with ingrained prejudices – might not be ready for Prince, now or perhaps ever. “I never thought we’d cross over after that,” Bobby Z. said. “I just thought that this was it.”

  After the show, Prince consoled 19-year-old Mark Brown, fearing the bassist might quit the band after experiencing such trauma so early in his tenure. He assured Brown that the band had plenty of fans on their side, even if it was not the vast sea of people that had attended the Stones concerts. “Mark,” he said, looking earnestly at the bassist, “this isn’t our audience.”

  And indeed, as the band headed home, the notion that Prince and his band could ever reach an audience like that in Los Angeles Coliseum seemed as remote as the spring at the beginning of a long Minnesota winter.

  17. Battle II

  After returning home, Prince and his band, as well as the Time, resumed rehearsals for the upcoming Controversy tour, to start in November 1981 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The acts were booked into venues with capacities of about 2,000 to 8,000 people and were joined in some cities by the popular funk group Zapp (also on the Warner Bros. label), led by Roger Troutman. Sales were strong, fueled by the strong performance of both Controversy and The Time.

  The second date of the tour, a two-set night at the Warner Theatre in Washington, D.C., drew a large and diverse audience. Opening with “Sexuality” from Controversy, the band ripped through a powerful set, demonstrating that the new unit had jelled. Mark Brown’s bass playing, although far more workmanlike than spectacular, fit more comfortably in the band’s sound than had Andre Cymone’s busier work. The set also carried forth the sexualized energy of the Dirty Mind tour, including the lengthy guitar masturbation sequence on “Head.” But this centerpiece became more musical and less sensationalistic as Prince took solos that combined elements of jazz, rock, and funk. Despite the relative absence of lead guitar on his two most recent albums, it was apparent that Prince had the potential to be a virtuoso on the instrument.

  Offstage, Prince and his band at first continued to enjoy the camaraderie that had characterized the Dirty Mind tour. The entire group travelled on a single bus, where they socialized and watched videos of the previous shows.

  For the African-American members of the band – Brown and Dickerson – life on the road was not without its awkward moments of being stared down by whites, particularly in southern cities. One morning before a show in Tampa, Florida, Dickerson was getting a cup of coffee in the hotel restaurant when he experienced a moment of terror: a huge man who looked like the quintessential redneck biker – long hair, muscles, tattoos – was striding toward him. “I thought I was
about to die,” the guitarist remembered. Fortunately, the hulking figure passed right by, and may have even grunted a hello.

  About an hour later, Dickerson received a phone call summoning him to Prince’s room for a band meeting. As he entered, he was shocked to see the same hulking figure from the restaurant. Seeking to quickly put the aghast guitarist at ease, Prince introduced Dickerson to Chick Huntsberry, his new bodyguard.

  The next day, Huntsberry’s presence proved intimidating to all, and the bodyguard spent most of the ride to Jacksonville surrounded by empty seats. Finally, Dickerson approached him and found the bodyguard to be a warm, friendly person who had lived a rough but fascinating life that had included working security at biker bars.

  At six feet six inches and over 300 pounds, the bearded, tattooed Huntsberry really did look like a refugee from a motorcycle gang, and the contrast between him and Prince was stark to the point of absurdity. At first, Prince thought so too; although he agreed with his managers that more security was needed, he couldn’t imagine having Huntsberry shadow him. A couple of days later, Prince mentioned to Dickerson that he was going to send the bodyguard home.

  “Why?” Dickerson asked.

  “He’s just too big, he scares me,” Prince responded. Dickerson related the conversation he had had with Huntsberry on the bus and urged Prince to keep him. “I think he’s a good guy – you should give him a chance,” Dickerson said.