Prince

  21

  THERE’S ALWAYS A RAINBOW

  “AS USUAL, PRINCE’S ANSWER TO AN UNPLEASANT REALITY WAS to construct a reality of his own,” said Alan Leeds. “Thus: Lovesexy.”

  He would reach Paisley at around eleven, spend an hour or two checking mail and handling business matters that required his input, then hit the studio with a song idea, a lyric he wrote last night, or an urge to improvise. By six or seven, he usually had something new, with tons of overdubs, almost done.

  Now that he started Lovesexy, Leeds recalled, “the cloud over the studio lifted.” He was nicer, happier, feeling good most times, and “writing from joy.” Instead of fighting rap music, he started incorporating elements of it into his song “Alphabet St.”

  He also continued his newfound emphasis on image. After spending all day in Studio A, creating something for Lovesexy, he called Leeds’s office. “Hey, come downstairs a minute. I’ve got something to play for you.”

  Leeds rushed down. He played Leeds his new work, dancing around, and emphasizing nuances by singing in his ear so Leeds wouldn’t miss the important part. During the third high-volume playback, Prince shouted his concept for a video.

  Leeds was impressed.

  But Prince asked why Leeds’s facial expression had changed.

  “I can’t believe you already have a video in mind.”

  He misunderstood again. “Alan, don’t you get it? These kids today don’t hear music like we do! They have to see music. That’s what MTV has done. I have to think that way.”

  Another time, Leeds asked, “Why not throw away all the props and do a tour in a turtleneck and a pair of jeans where he and his band simply sang and played?”

  Incredulous, Prince replied, “What? And look like you instead of a star? Nobody will pay to see someone who looks like an everyday guy!”

  The very idea of it scared him.

  For seven weeks, he focused on Lovesexy, recording most of the songs in the order in which they’d appear on the album. After final sessions yielded a few funky things, he put these earlier. Then he included his ballad “When 2 R in Love.”

  March 2, Prince attended the thirtieth annual Grammy Awards ceremony at Radio City Music Hall. During the event, telecast live, Michael Jackson came out with long hair, a drooping blue sweater over a white shirt, high-water black pants and matching dance shoes. Prince had declined to appear on “Bad,” but rightly predicted it’d be a hit. It recently became Jackson’s seventh No. 1 single, in all, and Bad’s second chart-topper. He watched Jackson perform “Man in the Mirror.” He did a few moves on an empty stage. Four black women in black dresses, and gospel singer Andraé Crouch came out and sang. Lights landed on the huge blue-robed New Hope Baptist Church Choir. By song’s end, Jackson sang to nothing but a bass drum and handclap, then called out to the crowd.

  Prince, though, had his mind on Sign. Everyone had loved the album and called it a masterpiece. He expected it to do well tonight. As they reached Album of the Year, Prince listened with pride as they announced Sign as a nominee. It faced Whitney Houston’s Whitney, Jackson’s Bad, Trio (by Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt, and Emmylou Harris), and U2’s The Joshua Tree.

  To Prince’s chagrin, U2 won.

  “That was kind of a rude awakening,” Prince said. Something in him sank. He felt like a failure, watching U2 go up and get the prize. Bono mentioned Prince’s talent during his acceptance speech, but nonetheless the defeat deflated Prince.

  The show continued.

  Prince heard them announce Best R&B Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group. “U Got the Look” with Sheena lost. Then, for Best R&B Song, awarded to the songwriter, “U Got the Look” lost again.

  Five other categories and no mention of Prince, even after a strong year. It was time to leave.

  He couldn’t get over U2 defeating Sign.

  Back home, he tried to avoid wallowing in self-pity. Still, he says he “stopped caring about awards and all of that stuff.”

  Lovesexy was his most spiritual album to date. To make sure listeners got the entire message, he told Warner to put its many songs on a CD as only one selection. Thus, listeners couldn’t skip from song to song; they’d have to hear it all. It was an odd move but Warner did it. Then the label decided “Alphabet St.” could introduce his carefree new sound. It had crowded beats, catchy chants, and uplifting themes. They shipped it to radio. A video could help, but Prince wouldn’t submit one.

  Then, he changed his mind. March 20, it was snowing. It was also a Sunday. But in his Eden Prairie home, he wanted to work. Alan Leeds was at home, on his day off. Still, Prince called him. As soon as he answered, Prince said, “I want to shoot a video.” For “Alphabet St.”

  Did he speak with Fargnoli?

  No. Warner also didn’t know.

  Prince would pay for it. Alan could call Warner and they would.

  No. He’d handle it.

  “Okay, when?”

  “Today.”

  Leeds tried to talk him out of it. No filmmakers were available. Even if they were, they’d have to rent equipment. With a snowstorm raging, few rental places were open.

  “Sounds to me like that’s your problem, not mine.”

  The call ended. Without a choice, Leeds made calls. A few directors said no. He called lesser-known talents.

  Soon, Prince reached for the phone again. Alan answered.

  “When are we shooting?”

  Leeds reported he was having trouble setting it up.

  Keep trying.

  He did. A director named Michael Barnard would do it. Night fell and it kept snowing. Meanwhile, Barnard found a set owned by a cable company and a truck filled with video equipment.

  Leeds called Prince to say it was on.

  At eleven, Prince was on the set with Sheila and Cat. Barnard filmed him against a blue screen. The result looked slipshod and cheap. During postproduction, Prince had Barnard add text phrases that cruised across the screen, including a one-frame subliminal message that said, “Don’t buy The Black Album [his unmarked The Funk Bible]. I’m sorry.” Then: “Ecstasy.”

  Upon its release, April 23, the single for “Alphabet St.” stalled at No. 8. Warner rushed the video out but Alan Leeds shook his head. All of the stress involved with creating this catchpenny clip. “All this for a song that was probably beyond saving.”

  A week before Lovesexy’s release, Prince attended Michael Jackson’s show in Minneapolis. After seeing Jackson moonwalk, and sing and shout, Prince proudly told him he was heading in a hopeful, new direction. But with the release date approaching, controversy surrounded Lovesexy’s cover by Jean-Baptiste Mondino. On it, Prince sat naked, atop a giant orchid, against a white background. Rolling Stone predicted, “Prince may have to pay a price” for it, and noted a few major record chains refused to order it. Many that did, stocked copies behind their counters. With reporters describing the painted photo more than his new songs, he was livid. “If you looked at that picture and some ill come out of your mouth, then that’s what you are. It’s looking right back at you in the mirror.” That may be but Walmart refused to order copies. And at the Handleman Company, the country’s largest record distributor, company head Frank Hennessey said, “Most of the accounts we service are family-oriented stores, and the cover is not one that you would consider to be an integral part of the family relationship.”

  Either way, Warner got the new album into stores on May 10, only a few months after he had withdrawn The Funk Bible. Critics offered mixed reviews. Though Rolling Stone, in June, gave Lovesexy 4 out of 5 Stars, GQ’s writer Stephen Fried felt the cover showed “Prince as a scrawny little Adam in a Garden of Eden.” Jon Bream felt the most shocking thing about it was that it held no surprises, though he mostly approved of Prince’s new direction. Many European critics loved every note. But it divided his core audience. Some liked Lovesexy’s riffs, hooks, and lyrics. Others frowned on overblown production, upbeat ballads, and self-righteous lyrics.

  Lovesexy was sel
f-aware and life affirming. It was also overproduced in spots. Part of Prince’s spiritual reawakening meant abandoning some rock material and sanitizing a few themes. Productionwise, Lovesexy’s drums sound artificial. His interlocking riffs were as innovative—entering when least expected, and usually in another key—as they were, at times, distracting. Many lyrics were only vaguely spiritual, and as escapist as anything on Around or Parade. Lovesexy wasn’t as ambitious or diverse as previous works. In spite of these limitations, it remains one of his most experimental—and consistently entertaining—works.

  In print, Prince defended Lovesexy as “a mind trip, like a psychedelic movie. Either you went with it and had a mind-blowing experience or you didn’t.” Judging from sales, most didn’t. Lovesexy’s low sales kept it out of the Top 10, making it his least successful work since 1981’s Controversy. Sitting at No. 11, it fueled talk of his career being over.

  22

  I AIN’T GOT NO MONEY

  “EARLY ’EIGHTY-EIGHT WAS THE FIRST TIME WE FELT FINANCIAL pressure,” said Alan Leeds. But in Europe, Lovesexy sold 1.9 million copies, topped album charts in many countries, and emerged in many nations as his biggest-selling hit since Purple Rain.

  Prince kept planning a show that brought fans a god-fearing message and newsworthy spectacle: handing designers sketches for bright stage costumes with lots of polka dots, sending contracts to specialist dry-cleaning stores in various cities, hiring an entourage member to hand-wash clothing in case something went wrong with the specialist dry cleaners, having four wardrobe assistants under the stage to ensure band members changed costumes within seconds, and using the tour program to explain his shelving of The Black Album (the name most had now taken to calling The Funk Bible). He also spun a fairy tale fable in the program about his Graffiti Bridge character Camille giving in to his hateful, competitive dark side and about wasting time and energy creating “something evil,” to silence critics and express “hate 4 the ones who ever doubted his game.” He tacked on an upbeat moral. If readers killed their own “spooky electric” sides, they would experience “lovesexy,” a fancy term for a joyful loving relationship “with the heavens above.” Considering the path he took to arrive at this album, the fable seems surprisingly apt.

  After six months, he was still staging rehearsals and unveiling a costly new idea each day. “He wanted water fountains and a moat around the stage,” Leeds recalled. Longtime set and lighting designer Roy Bennett, co-manager Fargnoli, and John McGraw pitched ideas. Then Bennett helped create his most ambitious and spectacular stage set ever. It cost about $2 million, and included a multilevel circular stage, see-through curtains, and a hydraulic brass bed. But the process dragged on. “Prince kept adding things and saying, ‘Can I have this?’” Bennett recalled. Bennett added a swing set, a small basketball court, and his car, which alone cost $250,000, Bennett recalled, “as much as the entire Sign O’ the Times show! But Prince wanted to have this car.”

  Prince worked around the clock: videotaping morning rehearsals, working in the studio until four or five in the morning, and watching the rehearsal videos when he got home before dawn. Then he dressed for another rehearsal.

  He and his band practiced for months. But they spent only three weeks on full production rehearsals. Trying to determine what caused lighting problems consumed two more weeks.

  He was handling another problem, too. Somewhere along the line, relations with New York’s Howard Bloom Organization, the publicity team Prince had signed on to help expand his audience, had soured. Bloom kept trying to promote Prince, though he had given only one in-depth interview in six years. Prince sat in on meetings, but Bloom hadn’t seen him in two years, since the campaign for Under the Cherry Moon. Now, employee Robyn Riggs was handling Prince’s publicity but hadn’t seen him since mid-May.

  Recently, they tried and failed to get Prince the cover of Rolling Stone. “That had a lot to do with it,” said Bloom, talking of their soured rapport. They got him the cover of Vanity Fair’s upcoming September issue despite him not giving an interview; but it wasn’t enough. In mid-June, Prince had Warner senior staff publicist Liz Rosenberg fly to Minneapolis to discuss his publicity.

  Two weeks later, Prince reached a stunning decision. Riggs was still working on his forty-concert European tour, which would start in a week, but he fired The Howard Bloom Organization. “It happens in this business,” Bloom told reporter Jon Bream. They had a good eight-year run—in a business where acts usually changed publicists once each year.

  His tour was starting in days, but they were still trying to work out problems with the lighting. Inevitably, they ordered an all-new system from another company, which installed it within a day. But they had to reprogram the entire show. “Within three days, the stage set and everything was shipped off to Paris for the tour start,” said set designer Roy Bennett. “So we had to do the first show as a dress rehearsal.”

  Opening night, July 8, in Paris, France, Prince had other things on his mind. His designers had already included phrases and colorful graphics on everyone’s clothes but he approached wardrobe director Helen Hiatt. “Can you write ‘Minneapolis’ on the sleeve?”

  Hiatt did it an hour before showtime.

  Warner arranged more publicity. Major magazines shipped reporters to the show. MTV and BET wanted to televise part of it. But Warner’s Bob Merlis arrived to find Prince wouldn’t let them film anything. People claimed he was angry with a French media outfit running an unbecoming photo of him near a better one of Michael Jackson. Either way, MTV’s Kurt Loder vowed to fill on-air time with disgruntled journalists. Prince reversed his decision but during his two-hour show for seventeen thousand fans at the Palais Omnisports de Paris, Bercy, BET’s video crew was left literally out in the rain, hoping someone would let them into the venue.

  Prince attended a party Warner threw after the show. Warner publicist Liz Rosenberg led some journalists over to his post near a buffet table, but Prince decided reporters wouldn’t be able to interview his band after all. By curtailing all access, Alan Leeds explained, Prince wanted reporters to have no choice but to cover his music. The move, however, backfired. Musician’s writer tried to ask Bob Merlis why Prince and Fargnoli reneged on the promised interview. Merlis had no idea. Fargnoli stalled the writer and left. The writer approached Fargnoli the next night after Prince’s second show in Paris. Fargnoli left even quicker. The writer tried again. Fargnoli claimed they hadn’t promised the interviews.

  The writer went on to contact twenty associates. Hearing most wouldn’t speak on the record, former bassist Mark Brown said, “That’s pretty typical. The guy doesn’t want anybody to know about him.” Then Jimmy Jam explained nonparticipants either respected Prince’s privacy or had “some sort of fear, if they’re pursuing a career, that he can ruin it if they say the wrong thing.”

  For his part, Prince had moved on to thinking about his next single. He told Warner to put his ambitious “Glam Slam” out next. The label agreed. But then Prince changed his mind a day before Warner shipped copies to stores. This time, label executives ignored him. Record shops had received copies and were about to start placing them on shelves.

  He told Warner to pull it, sensing it’d tank. Unfortunately for him, he was right. “Glam Slam” arrived on July 11, Bream explained, “and it completely missed the mark.” Radio stations ignored it to the point where it didn’t even make Billboard’s Hot 100 Pop Chart.

  Prince’s European tour continued, and so did the costs for a staff of ninety. As he played Milan, Italy, his payroll grew to include hundreds of employees. He also paid for over fifty trucks lugging his equipment, props, and wardrobe. There were four hair and makeup people. And too many outfits. “That’s how excessive things were in the eighties,” Eric Leeds quipped.

  The tour continued, with high overhead. Prince reached London in late July. At the Chelsea Harbor Hilton, his valet wanted the usual baby grand piano in Prince’s room. A promoter said they couldn’t do it. His valet sa
id, “There’s got to be a way. It’s the Presidential Suite.”

  “The only way we could do it is if we got a crane and lifted it over the balcony.”

  “Do that.”

  And so, to satisfy Prince, that’s precisely what they did. They lifted it three floors, and removed it the same way. Prince would have his piano during his month in London. “In those days,” the valet told the Minneapolis Star Tribune, “you didn’t want to cut corners.”

  In every venue, the three-level, seventy-by-eighty-foot stage was usually in the center. But during his show, he felt exposed. It was a circular stage. “He had nowhere to go, nowhere to hide,” said Bennett. Forever in the spotlight, he had to perform every second. Even worse, everyone saw his reaction when something went wrong. Then, at certain points, the band had to cram into a tight space under the stage and change clothes. Along with about twenty employees, the space held various props and equipment.

  Every night, Eric Leeds bumped his elbow on the same bed in a corner. Eventually, he asked, “Why is it here?”

  Head of wardrobe Helen Hiatt laughed. “Eric, ‘Dirty Mind.’”

  “What about it?”

  “The bed is in ‘Dirty Mind.’”

  The next night, when he started “Dirty Mind,” Eric turned and saw the contraption rise into view. “We had been on the road a month with this show, and I didn’t know!” he said. “That’s when I realized that I didn’t have a clue what this show was about. I was just playing my part.”

  Between dates, in August, Prince kept flying back to Paisley Park to record more songs. Once he finished, his assistant Therese came in to transcribe lyrics. But one week during a visit, he was sick and told people he couldn’t sing. Still, he made his weekend session last forty hours, without breaks for meals or sleep. An engineer asked, “Do you want headphones to get the lyrics?”