Tag: first avenue

Purple Rain, 1984

Purple Rain (Verse 3)

Note: This is my third and last post on “Purple Rain”: a song of such monumental importance to Prince’s creative arc that I’ve opted to split my analysis into parts. If you haven’t already, please read Parts 1 and 2 first.

Tags 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1993, 1997, 2002, 2007, 2016, albert magnoli, amanda palmer, american music awards, anil dash, atlanta, baby i'm a star, beautiful ones, billy sparks, bob dylan, boy george, bruce springsteen, celine dion, charles coplin, chili sauce, clare fischer, cloud guitar, computer blue, corey taylor, creedence clearwater revival, darling nikki, david coleman, diamonds and pearls, dolphin stadium, dr fink, duane tudahl, dwight yoakam, eric clapton, first avenue, foo fighters, fox theatre, gold, i would die 4 u, ike turner, jennifer hudson, jimi hendrix, ladder, let's go crazy, lisa coleman, los angeles, louis wells, love 4 one another tour, miami, novi novog, one nite alone tour, our destiny, philip glass, prince, purple rain, purple rain film, purple rain tour, queen, raspberry beret, revolution, sign o the times tour, stevie wonder, sunset sound, super bowl, suzie katayama, tina turner, wake me up before you go-go, warner bros records, wendy melvoin, wham, when doves cry, yokohama stadium

Purple Rain, 1984

Purple Rain (Verse 2)

Contact sheet from Prince's August 3, 1983 performance at First Avenue; © David Brewster/Minneapolis Star Tribune, stolen from Housequake on Twitter.

Note: This is the second of three projected posts on “Purple Rain”: a song of such monumental importance to Prince’s creative arc that I’ve opted to split my analysis into parts. You can–and should–read the first part here.

Tags 1983, 1984, 1985, alan leeds, alan light, albert magnoli, automatic, baby i'm a star, bobby z, brown mark, carrier dome, case of you, computer blue, current, david z, delirious, dez dickerson, dmsr, dr fink, electric intercourse, first avenue, hamish whitta, heidi vader, hugo klaers, i would die 4 u, jimmy page, john command, joni mitchell, let's go crazy, lisa coleman, lise houlton, little red corvette, loyce houlton, marius petipa, minneapolis, minnesota dance theatre, minnesota vikings, prince, purple rain, purple rain film, record plant, revolution, richard luka, sleeping beauty, stairway to heaven, steve mcclellan, suburbs, syracuse, tchaikovsky, time, vanity 6, warehouse, warner bros records, wendy melvoin, when you were mine

Purple Rain, 1984

Purple Rain (Verse 1)

First Avenue, August 3, 1983; photo by Jim Steinfeldt, © Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images.

Note: I was just over 1,800 words into the post you’re about to read when I finally admitted defeat; there is, quite simply, no way that I can fit everything I have to say about “Purple Rain” into a single, digestible piece of writing. So, in the grand tradition of my “Controversy” three-parter from 2018, I’m splitting it into chapters. The first, and likely longest, will talk about the song’s composition; the second will go into detail about its debut performance at First Avenue on August 3, 1983; and the third will delve into the final recording that appears on the Purple Rain album and film. There will probably also be a coda of some kind discussing the song’s impressive (and ongoing) afterlife. Basically, just think of July 2021 as my unofficial “Purple Rain” month–and, for the next several weeks, sit back and let me guide u through the purple rain.

It’s a sweltering August night at First Avenue in downtown Minneapolis. Prince and his band have just returned to the stage for the first encore of their benefit show for the Minnesota Dance Theatre: the local dance company and school, located just up the street at 6th and Hennepin, where the musicians have been taking dance and movement classes to prepare for their imminent feature film debut. Moments earlier, MDT founder and artistic director Loyce Houlton thanked Prince with a hug, declaring, “We don’t have a ‘Prince’ in Minnesota, we have a king.” Before that, Prince had run the group through a fierce 10-song set: sprinkling a handful of crowd-pleasers amongst the largely new material, and ending with the biggest crowd-pleaser of all, his Number 6 pop hit “Little Red Corvette.”

No one in the sold-out crowd of around 1,500 recognizes the chords that now ring out from the darkened stage. Even the film’s director, Albert Magnoli, hasn’t heard the song before; it wasn’t among the tapes he’d reviewed to prepare for his draft of the screenplay. But the chords–played by 19-year-old guitarist Wendy Melvoin, in her first public performance with Prince–are immediately attention-grabbing: rich and colorful and uniquely voiced, somewhere between Jimi Hendrix and Joni Mitchell.

A spotlight shines on Wendy as she continues to play, her purple Rickenbacker 330 echoed by her partner Lisa Coleman playing the same progression on electric piano. Prince begins to solo around the edges of the progression; he paces the stage, walking out to the edge of the crowd as he plays, then slings his “Madcat” Telecaster around his back and makes his way to the microphone at center stage. He holds the mic for an instant and backs away, as if suddenly overwhelmed. Then, he steps back to the mic and begins to sing: “I never meant 2 cause u any sorrow…”

Tags 1982, 1983, 1984, 1999 tour, 2004, 2015, albert magnoli, beautiful ones book, bob seger, bobby z, brown mark, chick huntsberry, cincinnati, dmsr, dolly parton, dr fink, faithfully, first avenue, fleetwood mac, free, gram parsons, hennepin avenue, i know what to say to you, jill jones, jimi hendrix, john l nelson, jon bream, jonathan cain, joni mitchell, journey, katrina's paper dolls, linn lm-1, lisa, lisa coleman, little red corvette, loyce houlton, madcat telecaster, miles marshall lewis, minneapolis, minneapolis star tribune, minnesota dance theatre, prince, purple music, purple rain, purple rain film, revolution, rickenbacker 330, riverfront coliseum, rock and roll hall of fame, something in the water, stand back, steve perry, stevie nicks, turn the page, wendy melvoin, willie nelson

Reviews

Review: MPLS Sound

Since Prince passed away a little over five years ago, an urgent topic of conversation for aging dorks like myself has been how “we” can keep his memory alive for future generations. And yet, in all of the endless discussions I’ve participated in since 2016, somehow I can’t recall “publish a young adult graphic novel about his impact on the Minneapolis music scene” ever coming up. Now, after reading MPLS Sound, I’m wondering how we all could have missed something so obvious.

MPLS Sound is not a comic “about” Prince–which may be the most brilliant thing about it. Instead, it tells the fictional story of Theresa Booker, who shares some key character traits with Prince–a lower-middle-class upbringing in segregated Minneapolis, a frustrated musician father, a steely determination and drive–with the added wrinkles that come with being a Black woman in a music industry dominated by White men. Prince is certainly present, serving by turns as an inspiration, benefactor, and antagonist for Theresa’s band, Starchild; but it’s Theresa with whom the book’s target audience will identify most readily. Putting her in the lead also allows writers Joseph P. Illidge and Hannibal Tatu to address more topical issues of sexism and colorism: asking the pointed question of how much space there was for a fuller-bodied, darker-skinned Black woman in even a post-Prince Minneapolis.

Tags alexander o'neal, chick huntsberry, first avenue, hannibal tatu, joseph p illidge, lipps inc, meredith laxton, minneapolis, prince, purple rain film, replacements, vanity 6, walker art center

Purple Rain, 1984

I Would Die 4 U

Having sold Bob Cavallo on his vision for the film that would become Purple Rain, Albert Magnoli’s next task was to fly to Minnesota and plead his case to the movie’s star. From the moment he arrived, however, he faced resistance from an unlikely source: “Steve Fargnoli, one of Prince’s managers, met me when I got off the plane,” Magnoli recalled to Rolling Stone’s David Browne. Claiming that they had already made a commitment to William Blinn’s version of the script, “Steve said, ‘Kid–that story you told Bob? I don’t want to hear a word of it. You’re here to tow the line’” (Browne 2016).

Undeterred, when Prince showed up that night to discuss the film, Magnoli gave him the same pitch he’d given to Cavallo–this time, adding a new wrinkle: “Suddenly I saw the violence, the dysfunctional relationship with his mother, his father as a musician writing music and hiding it in a box.” Prince, surprised, sent away Fargnoli and his bodyguard, “Big Chick” Huntsberry, and took the director for a drive outside the city in his BMW. “I realized later we were driving to a cornfield and it was totally dark because there were no lights,” Magnoli recalled. “He was quiet and I was quiet. He asked me, ‘Do you know me?’ I said no. ‘Do you know my music?’ I said, ‘Just “1999.”’ And he said, ‘Then how is it that you essentially tell me my story without knowing me?’” (Browne 2016).