In the spring of 1980 I was 12 years old.
I don’t really remember a lot about 7th grade.
I remember loving to sing.
I remember that my love for girls was blossoming, but not yet all consuming.
I remember loving the radio.
I vaguely remember wishing that my clothes were cooler on a more consistent basis.
I remember feeling like I was in a weird space because I wasn’t really a kid anymore, but I wasn’t quite a Dude yet either.
I can’t say for certain, but odds are I probably had a Jheri curl.
As fate would have it, I ended up going to a concert with my cousin Denice and a couple of her girl friends, one of whom I was crushing on a little.
First on the bill was Lenny White, who had a hit with a silly song called “Peanut Butter” h. I didn’t know much about him. I though it was kinda funny that a grown man was singing about peanut butter though. In hindsight there’s probably some sexual innuendo that went over my head at the time. I should go back and listen with Rated R ears now that I’m an adult.
Next on the bill was this “Prince” fella. I knew he had a few songs with pretty cool grooves. I saw him on American Bandstand.
“Soft and Wet” was funky and also just slightly over my head on the sexual innuendo scale. Without admitting it, I probably thought he was referring to a really comfortable Slip N Slide.
I knew and liked “I Wanna Be Your Lover” and “Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad”.
But the truth is, I was a little confused about his persona. His whole look.
I mean, I knew dudes who had perms, but Prince’s perm was on some Farrah Fawcett type shit.
He was naked and riding a pegasus on his album cover, plus his voice was higher than my Mom’s.
Headlining for the night….RICK JAMES!
What more do need to say? “We want Rick to funk us up!!!!!!”. I felt so cool screaming that at the top of my lungs and substituting “fuck” every now and then slightly under my breath. “You and I” h, I’m in love with “Mary Jane”, h, “Bustin Out”, h?!?! Come on!!!! This was gonna be awesome. I had never smoked weed, but I was pretty sure the Omni Arena in Atlanta was full of it.
So Lenny plays…..I sat through his set as people filed in. It was fairly unremarkable from what I remember.
Then Prince played and although I was really, really, really into this pizza I got from the concession stand, I found myself first (involuntarily) tapping my foot and then (involuntarily) bobbing my head and then actually dancing to this weird looking dude’s music. I felt like I wasn’t “supposed” to be into it.
I mean, he was wearing heels.
with hair that was a perfect combination of Farrah Fawcett and my cousin’s friend that I had a crush on.
But the band was ridiculous. He owned the stage. I forgot about pizza.
Rick played next and he brought out the big guns. So much bravado.
You had the feeling that Rick had only stopped doing bad shit just long enough to play this show and then he was going to return to doing more said bad shit with some bad girls he’d just met at an afterparty.
Tons of Lights and Explosions and Steps That Lit Up and a Huge Badass Band With Horns.
And the weed smell was off the charts for his set. “Whatcha want us to do with funk?!! FIRE IT UP!”.
But on the way home, it was Prince that stuck with me.
His bravado was all musical. He had “regular” lights and basically no staging and still killed it. I vowed to go home and put that “blue record” on and give it a fair shake. I have been fan ever since. Like a Fanatic. I bought all of his subsequent records on release day. Those were events! Every 12”. I even knew all the B-sides
I sang “International Lover” at a high school talent show. Thank God there isn’t video.
I started exploring my sexuality as a young man (dude had 3 of the most beautiful women I’d ever seen in a group called Vanity 6. AND THEY WORE LINGERIE. IN…..PUBLIC).
I wore large hoop earrings (some “borrowed” from my mom and some sheepishly purchased from Claire’s in South Dekalb Mall) .
I tried as best I could to adopt his seemingly otherworldly and effortless inability to give a fuck.
I worried my mom because I had a poster of Prince in the shower in a thong on my wall.
But above all of that was the music.
A genius’ display of never-ending, cross cultural, genre bending melange of every color in the musical rainbow…….all from this one dude and the crew that he assembled.
I’m pretty bad at remembering lyrics. I probably know all the lyrics to 50 songs. 60 songs tops. 45 of them are Prince songs. I know every word, every sound, every lick on Sign O The Times. I watched Purple Rain in the theater (singing all the songs at the top of my lungs) over and over through back to back screenings for two days in a row. I know all the dialogue. All of it. And I’m not one of those dudes that knows movies like that….
I saw Prince every time he came to Atlanta from 1980 through 1989 or so. Every. Time. When he did multiple night stands, I went to them all. The 4 shows I saw of the “Triple Threat” Tour with Vanity 6, The Time and Prince are the best shows I’ve ever seen to this day. I heard they were staying at the Ritz Carlton downtown so I wanted to go stalk them. My mom said I couldn’t go, so I called my dad and he gave me permission. I didn’t even live with my dad at the time and I knew my mom would be mad as hell at both of us (but probably more him than me).
I started playing guitar and dabbling with other instruments and exploring every genre of music I could find. Like Prince.
He could sing as high as Minnie Ripperton and as low as Larry Graham, so I wanted that range too.
In everything that I’ve written or played since 1980 there has been a piece of his spirit in there somewhere.
My rhythm guitar playing?
Prince’s playing was/is an entirely different kind of greasy. punk. rock. funk guitar. And that’s all I’ve ever wanted to do. My right hand is forever indebted.
Go listen to “Adore” on Sign O The Times.
My view of funk is 90% informed by that “MInneapolis/Prince” sound as is evidenced on “Junkie”
A few years ago, Prince started doing shows in major cities with virtually no notice. A good friend of mine was tasked with doing publicity for this run. She knew I was a huge fan, so when he played Atlanta, she invited me down and told me that there would probably be one of those legendary after show jams at a club downtown. I went to the show. I went to the legendary after show thing which turned out not to be so legendary. At some point in the evening, there was what appeared to be a receiving line of people going up to Prince to say hello.
I remember seeing TLC there.
My friend Francis was like, “you should go meet him and say hello!!!”. I didn’t really want to because he looked kinda miserable and I wasn’t sure what I would say, but I got in line anyway. I wasn’t nervous at all about meeting him, but I was nervous about shaking his hand. I had read that he hated when dudes would shake his hand really hard like they were trying to be super macho. I wanted to shake his hand “like a man” but also be respectful just in case the story was true. Obsessing about the hand shake threw me off, and when it was my turn I was caught off guard as to what to say. All I could muster was “Thank you. Thank You so much. You don’t know me and you don’t know my music, but your music has given my life a shape and a purpose that it wouldn’t have had you not been born. I know it’s corny, but thank you”. And then I scurried away.
I’d like to think that behind his sunglasses (at night) he could see and sense the genuine gratitude that I had and still have for him, his spirit, his fearlessness, his singularity and his music.
Here in LA, as the sun sets through the smog, we get the most amazing hues of orange and pink and lavender from time to time.
I’m hoping that tonight, it’s heavy on the lavender.
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