Prince in the Nineties: An Oral History
At the dawn of the Nineties, Prince appeared to be entering not merely a new decade but a period of rejuvenation. He had completed his third dramatic film (Graffiti Bridge), had hired new managers, was about to embark on a stripped-down hits tour of Asia and Europe that eschewed the ostentation of the Lovesexy shows, met the woman (Mayte Garcia) he would eventually marry, and was in the early stages of forming a post-Revolution band that would grow into one of his most versatile. “I feel good most of the time, and I like to express that by writing from joy,” he told Rolling Stone in 1990. “I still do write from anger sometimes, like in ‘Thieves in the Temple’ [the initial single from Graffiti Bridge]. But I don’t like to. It’s not a place to live.”
As the decade wore on, those thoughts would prove to be sadly short-lived. Few artists of Prince‘s caliber would endure the creative and business highs and lows that Prince did, publicly, for most of the Nineties. He remained as creatively frenzied as ever, logging more and more time in his Paisley Park studio, and he was still among pop’s most galvanizing live performers. He would still exhibit his standard control-freak wackiness: Before an album playback for Warner Bros. staff in a label conference room in the mid Nineties, one of Prince’s security guards entered the room first, checking behind curtains and shooting everyone an intense, check-you-out stare before Prince was allowed to come in. Whether colleagues were baffled or amused, it was all part of the Prince experience.
But the promise of the Nineties would soon give way to music business feuds, management shuffles, personal tragedy (the loss of his and Mayte’s child in 1996) and dramatic moves – like changing his name to an unpronounceable symbol and writing “slave” on his face – that would confound musicians, co-workers and business associates alike. For every strong album came a disappointing one to match. By the end of the decade, he would no longer have the same band, managers or label he did at the decade’s start, and he would enter into a more scattershot period in both his music and career. Here, in the words of people who worked with him, is the story of Prince during the pivotal New Power Generation years, an era that would set his career on an entirely different course right up until his death.
Randy Phillips (co-manager, 1990-1): He had just left his previous managers. I don’t know if he fired him. He just stopped talking to them, which was very Prince. His attorney came to me and my partner Arnold Stiefel and we said, “How can you hire us? We haven’t met with Prince yet.” We flew to Paisley Park and we ended up sitting in a conference room waiting for him for eight hours. Then we get summoned to his apartment on the top level. You walk into this room that’s all white. It was like a Fellini movie. There’s a heart-shaped bed and in bed, in gold lamé, was Kim Basinger, reading a magazine. Prince is in the back of the room, sitting at a Plexiglas desk in a heart-shaped Plexiglas chair.
We go in there and say, “Let’s talk about the Nude Tour, the European stadium tour [summer 1990].” He looks at me and says, “You know what? You’re a manager. Then go manage.” And that was the end of the meeting. We got back in our car and went to the airport.
Michael Bland (NPG drummer 1990-1996): He had finished the Lovesexy tour and had resurfaced in town. I was playing in Dr. Mambo’s Combo, and Prince invited the band to come out to Paisley after we finished a set. We all got a cab and went out. Prince says, “Hi, how you doing?” I said, “Great.” He said, “How’d the set go tonight?” I said, “We did OK.” We go down [to the studio] and we start just kind of groovin’ and funkin’, and just kind of having a musical conversation. And at some point he leans over on the microphone and he says, “You lookin’ for a job?” He called me at my mom and dad’s house and made me an offer to join his band. I had started college already in Minnesota. I remember saying something to the effect of, “Well, is it possible I could get in one more semester through the fall?” And he just started laughing and said, “I think you’re going to be a little bit too busy for that.”
Phillips: Graffiti Bridge wasn’t well received. He thought it was as great as Purple Rain. But creatively it was awful. Arnold and I tried to take our name off the credits. In Prince’s mind, everything was a hit. So he didn’t understand that. That’s when he started fighting with the label.
Tommy Barbarella (keyboardist 1990-1996): I cut my teeth with cover bands and ended up hooking up with the Steele family. Prince came down to see us a new club. He would come with Kim Basinger, and they would sit up there and watch. He had done an [unreleased] record on Margie Cox, a great local singer, called Flash, and they were going to open for him on the Nude Tour in 1990. During rehearsals, the keyboard player decided he didn’t want to do it and I was the first call. I’m like, “Of course.” One day Prince came to the rehearsals. He’d written all these songs and asked Sonny [Thompson, bassist] and Michael [Bland] and I to stay after and help him with a song. We helped him finish a song he’d written on piano, and he wanted to see what it would sound like if we did this or that. He ended up recording the song and it ended up going on the record like that, and that song was “Diamonds and Pearls.” Five months later I got the call to join this band, and that started that new era, the New Power Generation.
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