by Hahn, Alex
Adding to the furor, Prince showed up for meetings at the company wearing the same bikini briefs and fishnet stockings that he wore onstage. One Warners staffer, encountering Prince in a hallway, berated him for the salacious lyrics he had been writing. Prince, undaunted, shot the staffer a withering look and stalked away.
It was clear that he would not be cowed by opposition to the album. But the fact remained that with only two albums under his belt, and still only 20 years old, Prince was courting conflict with his record label, with potentially perilous results. He was under contract with Warners for three albums only, meaning that if Dirty Mind tanked, his very career could be jeopardized. Warners had the right to reject an album it deemed insufficient, and he had seemingly given the company ample grounds to do just that.
Prince also continued to be a costly artist for Warners to maintain and promote. His large band created significant overhead, and he had squandered time and resources on two side projects – Sueann Carwell and the Rebels – that had been scrapped. Now, he was proving to be a mercurial and challenging partner, one with little regard for the norms of the music industry.
How Prince’s broadside to the label was received – and whether his demands were accepted or rejected – had the potential to end his promising career almost as quickly as it had begun.
13. Ragged Edges
The task of overcoming Warner Bros.’ opposition to Dirty Mind, as well as ensuring that Prince’s career did not essentially spiral out of control, fell to managers Steve Fargnoli and Bob Cavallo. Fargnoli, who was named the third partner in Cavallo, Ruffalo & Fargnoli in recognition of his expanding role, continued to forge a personal bond with Prince. “Steve was one of a tiny handful of people that Prince really trusted,” said Marylou Badeaux. “He had a sixth sense of what would work and what wouldn’t.”
Fargnoli immersed himself in virtually every detail of Prince’s life, striving to match his client’s energy and drive. But while he was more visible, behind the scenes it was senior partner Bob Cavallo who made many key strategic decisions and levelled out Fargnoli’s occasional impulsiveness. As Howard Bloom, soon to become Prince’s publicity agent, put it, “Cavallo was the mastermind – he was the general and Fargnoli was the troops.”
Along with the complementary traits they brought to bear, both Cavallo and Fargnoli remained committed to overcoming Warners’ concerns about Dirty Mind. After the initial shock had worn off at the company, Cavallo and Fargnoli presented arguments for the album that were cogent and forceful. Dirty Mind, they contended, would allow both Prince and Warners to capitalize on profound and rapid changes that were occurring within the music industry, examples of which abounded. The punk group the Clash had recently released a landmark album, London Calling, that had broken through to a broader audience. New Wave groups like The Knack and Blondie were scoring hits with lean, provocative songs that were a far cry from the sugary pop and bloated hard rock of the previous decade. Dirty Mind certainly fit within this paradigm.
Gradually, executives Mo Ostin and Lenny Waronker lined up behind the project. Russ Thyret, who had played an instrumental role in signing Prince, in turn exhorted the company’s rank-and-file publicists and promoters, many of whom remained unconvinced. “Russ Thyret was a huge piece of the puzzle, and always saw Prince as an act for all formats,” noted a Warners source.
Still, Dirty Mind would be one of the most sexually explicit albums released by a major label since the Rolling Stones’ 1972 release Exile on Main Street, and pervasive doubts remained as to how the record would be received. The decision to release the album was ultimately a leap of faith; that the company made this leap owed much to the efforts of Cavallo and Fargnoli, but ultimately resulted from the iron will of the man who had created it.
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Dirty Mind hit stores in October 1980. The black-and-white cover showed Prince in black bikini underwear, a trench coat, and a handkerchief around his neck. The “Rude Boy” pin on his coat had its origins in a punk-related style, England’s “two-tone” ska movement, and Rude Boy was also the title of a 1980 film featuring the Clash. The cover, like the music itself, was a declaration of rebellion by this young artist.
But just as some at Warner Bros. had feared, the album failed to carry forward the commercial momentum of Prince’s second album. Many radio programmers were deterred by the lyrics and by stickers Warners placed on promo copies urging stations to “please audition before airing,” resulting in minimal radio play. The first two singles, “Uptown” and “Dirty Mind,” enjoyed some success on the Soul Singles Chart but failed to dent the Pop Singles Chart, and the album itself reached only No. 45 on the Pop Chart. The rock audience hadn’t materialized, and, not surprisingly, some of the fans who had purchased his second album had defected. Prince’s hybrid of R&B, New Wave, punk, funk, and rock was perhaps too far ahead of its time, and apparently more than a mainstream audience could digest.
Not willing to abandon the project prematurely, Warners decided to bankroll a U.S. tour of mid-sized clubs with Prince as the headliner. The band holed up in Minneapolis during the autumn of 1980, rehearsing intensely on the new material. Meanwhile, back in Los Angeles, his managers huddled to find a solution to the riddle of his career.
Cavallo and Fargnoli decided the support of the rock press was essential; they needed to convince the media, and through them the public, that Prince was not just a multi-talented curiosity, but a revolutionary figure, both musically and culturally. To execute this heady concept, Cavallo hit on the idea of hiring as a publicist the intriguing figure of Howard Bloom. A chatty man with an appearance and manner not far removed from that of the actor and comedian Woody Allen, Bloom was unique among his peers, an amateur scholar focusing on mass psychology and how music impacts social behavior. In working with artists, Bloom sought to identify what he called their “passion points,” the unconscious psychological forces that, when unlocked, resulted in spontaneous and authentic creation.
Cavallo viewed Bloom’s idiosyncrasies as perfectly matched for those of Prince. Another fortuitous element was Bloom’s zeal for eliminating the music industry’s artificial divide between black and white artists, one he deemed a form of apartheid. “The R&B chart was its own ghetto,” Bloom recalled. “In the 1970s, it was incredibly unhip for any white person to work with any black artist. There was a wall, and it was segregation to the nth degree.”
When Bloom received Cavallo’s call, he was already familiar with Prince and had been impressed with his second album and its chart success. As a condition of his involvement, Bloom laid out several requirements. He wanted a month to study everything Prince had ever said and recorded, and then he needed at a minimum a full day alone with the artist. The goal was to burrow as far into Prince’s psyche as possible and then translate his discoveries to the media.
Cavallo agreed, and several days before the Dirty Mind tour began, Bloom met with Prince after a rehearsal at the Shea Theater in Buffalo, New York, Bloom’s hometown. But Bloom had by now become apprehensive about the assignment; word from various sources indicated that his new client was a withdrawn, arrogant figure who would never open up emotionally.
None of this proved to be true. During a session that lasted from 2 a.m. until 9 a.m., Prince free-associated about his tumultuous childhood, a formative visit at age five to see his father at a nightclub, teenage shenanigans in the Anderson basement, and more. Prince’s passion points, not surprisingly, turned out to be a lust for fame, a conflicted relationship with both parents, and a voracious sexual appetite.
Bloom left the long session exhausted but fueled with excitement. Prince had a significant backstory that could be used to craft an intriguing and compelling public persona. He also had a quiet but unmistakable charisma that could translate well during interviews with sympathetic journalists.
As Bloom retreated to begin planning a media campaign, the Dirty Mind tour got under way. To help generate fan interest, Prince’s managers wanted a strong opening a
ct; a perfect opportunity arose when the R&B singer Teena Marie was dropped from Rick James’ current tour in a cost-saving measure after weak grosses. Adding to the indignities James had earlier suffered at Prince’s hands, she shifted over to the Dirty Mind bill.[197] Meanwhile, production and lighting designer Roy Bennett was hired to create Prince’s stage show. “For an artist on their first tour, it was quite a big production for the time,” noted Bennett, whose set design placed drummer Bobby Z. Rivkin and the two keyboardists, Matt Fink and Lisa Coleman, on risers behind Prince.
But despite the hours of planning and rehearsal that went into the tour, the poor performance of Dirty Mind proved to be a hindrance, one that Teena Marie’s presence on the bill seemingly could not surmount. Pre-sales for the concerts were sluggish, leaving Warners potentially exposed to a major financial setback.
After kicking off in Buffalo on Dec. 4, 1980, the tour proceeded to Washington, D.C. and Raleigh, N.C., before reaching Manhattan's trendy East Village nightclub, the Ritz, on December 9, 1980. Opened by music impresario Jerry Brandt only nine months earlier, the Ritz was housed within New York City’s historic Webster Hall, with a mission of showcasing new rock artists. Among these were the Irish rockers U2, who made their U.S. debut at the Ritz only three nights before Prince’s scheduled performance.
The Ritz gig also brought into Prince’s orbit Scotland-born Brenda Siobhan, an aspiring singer and the soon-to-be wife of set designer Roy Bennett. Brenda remained at home planning the couple’s wedding while Roy was on tour and had not expected to see her fiancé for some time. But as the tour approached New York, Roy had premonitions about the upcoming gig. “I’ve got a feeling he’s going to be really big,” Roy told Brenda and urged her to attend the show.[198]
On the morning of December 9, 1980, Brenda and Roy left their hotel for the sound check at the Ritz. The mood abruptly changed when the couple learned that former Beatle John Lennon had been murdered the previous night outside his New York apartment building. Suddenly, a pall was cast on the event and the entire city.
By showtime the room was only about half-full, with Lennon’s death seemingly having depressed turnout. But a number of New York cultural luminaries were in attendance, including Andy Warhol, funk producer Nile Rodgers, and singer Nona Hendryx. While Dirty Mind had yet to take hold among the general public, tastemakers and hipsters were clearly paying attention.
When Prince took the stage at about midnight, the crowd reacted boisterously to a show that took the album’s explicit themes to a new level. The centerpiece was “Head,” in which Prince simulated masturbation with his guitar during a lengthy instrumental break. Such performance art, while unlikely to play well in middle America, appealed perfectly to the assemblage at the Ritz.
For Brenda, her fiancé’s prescience concerning the importance of the gig had been confirmed. “The whole vibe of that room was amazing,” she recalled. “That was the point where we thought, this is happening.”
But the sense of momentum dissipated as the tour departed Manhattan and reached into southern towns like Charleston, Chattanooga, and Baton Rouge, where crowds remained small. Warners cut the southern swing short, a demoralizing setback for Prince and the band.
Back in Minneapolis during a two-month break before the tour resumed, Prince himself began grappling with doubts. Had the Warners officials who had questioned the album’s prospects been correct after all? For another perspective, Prince turned to the level-headed Dez Dickerson. The guitarist, while at root a loyal soldier, was never hesitant to give Prince unvarnished advice when asked.
Over dinner at an Indian restaurant, Prince candidly conveyed the concerns that were being voiced by Warners. In part to be reassuring, but also because he genuinely believed in the direction of Dirty Mind, the guitarist urged Prince not to worry. “I really thought we were onto something that hadn’t been done before,” Dickerson recalled.
Rehearsals resumed, with the tour scheduled to continue in March. Behind the scenes, Prince also began composing new music. Among the pieces he worked on was a dramatic ballad called “Do Me, Baby,” a song with a fraught history. Former Grand Central percussionist Terry Jackson had first learned about the song years earlier when he saw its lyrics, written in Andre Cymone’s handwriting, on a paper bag in Andre’s bedroom. It had also been recorded by Prince and Andre in demo form in 1979 with Andre on lead vocals. In Jackson’s mind, there was little question that Andre was the sole writer.
Now, without notice to Andre or anyone else, Prince began to plan the song as a focal point of his fourth album. Meanwhile, Andre was already chafing about Prince’s failure to credit his contributions, such as those he had made to “Uptown.” “The bass line of that song is based on something Andre came up with in a jam that we did at rehearsal,” Dickerson recalled.[199]
When Andre arrived late to rehearsal one afternoon, he was stunned to hear the band playing a fully formed version of “Do Me, Baby.” Prince had seized the song as his own, clearly with no intent of sharing credit, let alone acknowledging Andre as the exclusive writer.
“Why are you doing this, man?” Andre asked his friend in an anguished voice when the band stopped playing.
“Because I’m a star and you’re not,” Prince curtly responded, and turned away.[200]
For Andre, the incident was the breaking point, and the culmination of resentments that had been building for years. Not long thereafter, he told Prince that he was leaving to pursue a solo career. For other band members, the decision was unsurprising. “Andre was just not good at playing second fiddle, and would only take direction for so long,” Bobby Z. observed. “He always saw himself as big as Prince someday.”
The time for a major personnel change, however, could not have been worse. The second leg of the tour was being planned, and a short European swing was also in the works. And Cavallo and Fargnoli had achieved a booking on Saturday Night Live, a prestigious opportunity to raise the band’s profile.
Hoping to delay Andre’s departure, Prince appealed to Bernadette Anderson, insisting that Andre’s abrupt departure would be potentially ruinous to his career. Anxious to avoid a rupture between her son and someone she still viewed as a kind of surrogate son, Bernadette urged Andre to postpone his exit. Andre relented, but he asked Prince to at least increase his anemic weekly salary for the remaining gigs. But even this request engendered opposition from the bandleader, prompting Andre to throw up his hands at his friend’s intransigence. “I told him, ‘You know what, I’ll do it for free,’” he recalled.[201]
Prince had in fact for many months been evaluating potential replacements for Andre, conscious that the bassist’s disgruntlement could prompt him to quit at any time. One of the musicians he scouted was 19-year-old Mark Brown, a member of the local band Fantasy. The band regularly performed at the club 7th Street Entry in downtown Minneapolis, and Prince attended their shows from time to time, creating a stir at the venue when he arrived.
Brown, a graduate of Washburn High School in the southwest part of the city, had been playing bass in one form or another since childhood; by the time he entered high school, he intended to pursue a career in music. To help make ends meet, he worked at the Town Crier Restaurant in Minneapolis, where he became friends with waitress Kim Upsher, Prince’s sometime-girlfriend and high school classmate.
Brown was also friends with two other former schoolmates of Prince’s, Terry Lewis and Jimmy Harris, who in recent months had coyly told him that his talent was being scouted by someone important. “They told me, ‘Keep it up, someone’s watching you,’” Brown recalled.[202]
After Prince invited him to a tryout, it became clear who the mystery suitor was. A few days later, Brown encountered Lewis and Harris and received their hearty congratulations about his new job. “They knew it before I did,” Brown recalled. Brown then retreated to learn Prince’s songbook, while the existing line-up prepared for the Saturday Night Live appearance and the continuation of the tour.
Howard Bloom,
meanwhile, despite his successful meeting with Prince in Buffalo, felt the clock ticking as Dirty Mind and the tour faltered. The solution to these problems, Bloom felt, was to use Prince’s tumultuous life story to attract the interest of influential journalists. Moreover, Prince’s subversive, rebellious attributes needed to be highlighted.
Saturday Night Live offered a perfect forum for what Bloom hoped to achieve; it had a national audience, and was watched avidly by East and West Coast influencers who could spread the word about a new phenomenon. And as an ideal counterpoint to that appearance, Bloom landed Prince an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, the country’s arbiter of cultural influence at the time. The article, entitled “Will the Little Girls Understand?”, hit the streets just two days before the scheduled SNL appearance. As Bloom had hoped, the article portrayed Prince in a mysterious and intriguing light, and it was accompanied by a glowing, 4.5-out-of-5 star review of Dirty Mind. The review’s content was tailor-made to Bloom’s grand strategy, presenting Prince as a rebel. “At its best, Dirty Mind is absolutely filthy,” wrote critic Ken Tucker. “Prince’s sly wit – intentionally coarse – amounts to nothing less than an early, prescient call to arms against the elitist puritanism of the Reagan era.” And indeed, the environment in the United States suddenly seemed perfect for Dirty Mind; the election of Ronald Reagan in November 1980 had left many people ready to embrace the very sort of anti-establishment figure that Prince now seemed to be.
The SNL performance and Rolling Stone article created a powerful one-two punch of publicity. On SNL, Prince and the band played a raw version of “Partyup,” ending with the bandleader slamming his microphone to the floor for emphasis. In the coming weeks, the Rolling Stone article produced a domino effect of other publications wanting to interview Prince, including alternative magazines such as New Musical Express and New York Rocker.