A collection of the very first, the very last, and the very best interviews conducted with Prince over his nearly 40 year career. There is perhaps no musician who has had as much influence on the sound of contemporary American music than Prince. His pioneering compositions brought a variety of musical genres into a singular funky and virtuosic sound. In this remarkable collection, and with his signature mix of seduction and demur, the late visionary reflects on his artistry, identity, and the sacrifices and soul-searching it took to stay true to himself. An Introduction by Hanif Abdurraqib offers astute, contemporary perspective and brilliantly contextualizes the collected interviews.
A collection of the very first, the very last, and the very best interviews conducted with Prince over his nearly 40 year career. There is perhaps no musician who has had as much influence on the sound of contemporary American music than Prince. His pioneering compositions brought a variety of musical genres into a singular funky and virtuosic sound. In this remarkable collection, and with his signature mix of seduction and demur, the late visionary reflects on his artistry, identity, and the sacrifices and soul-searching it took to stay true to himself. An Introduction by Hanif Abdurraqib offers astute, contemporary perspective and brilliantly contextualizes the collected interviews.
The real Prince in the words of those who knew him best—from award-winning author Touré. Nothing Compares 2 U is an oral history built from years of interviews with dozens of people who were in Prince’s inner circle—from childhood friends to band members to girlfriends to managers to engineers to photographers, and more—all providing unique insights into the man and the musician. This revelatory book is a deeply personal and candid discussion of who Prince really was emotionally, professionally, and romantically. It tackles subjects never-before-discussed, including Prince’s multiple personalities, his romantic relationships, his traumatic childhood and how it propelled him into his music career, and how he found the inspiration for some of his most important songs, including “Purple Rain,” “Starfish and Coffee,” and the unheard “Wally.” Nothing Compares 2 U paints the most complete picture yet written of the most important and most mysterious artist of his time.
Featuring a foreword by Beyoncé Knowles-Carter. When Prince wanted to document his One Nite Alone tour in 2002, he turned to Afshin Shahidi. Again in 2004, he went along on Prince’s record breaking Musicology Tour. Afshin met Prince in 1989 and became his cinematographer and later his photographer. He was the photographer closest to Prince for the last fifteen years of Prince’s life. Afshin is the only photographer to shoot the legendary 3121 private parties in Los Angeles that became the most sought after invitations in Hollywood. Prince: A Private View compiles his work into a journey through Prince's extraordinary life. With many never-before-seen photos, this is the ultimate collection of – some intimate, some candid, some in concert – shots of Prince, but all are carefully directed in the artist-as-art style that we associate with him. Deep photo captions are brief, but complete stories about Prince's life at that moment - some are incisive, others are personal and even funny.
A warm and surprisingly real-life biography, featuring never-before-seen photos, of one of rock’s greatest talents: Prince. Neal Karlen was the only journalist Prince granted in-depth press interviews to for over a dozen years, from before Purple Rain to when the artist changed his name to an unpronounceable glyph. Karlen interviewed Prince for three Rolling Stone cover stories, wrote “3 Chains o’ Gold,” Prince’s “rock video opera,” as well as the star’s last testament, which may be buried with Prince’s will underneath Prince’s vast and private compound, Paisley Park. According to Prince's former fiancée Susannah Melvoin, Karlen was “the only reporter who made Prince sound like what he really sounded like.” Karlen quit writing about Prince a quarter-century before the mega-star died, but he never quit Prince, and the two remained friends for the last thirty-one years of the superstar’s life. Well before they met as writer and subject, Prince and Karlen knew each other as two of the gang of kids who biked around Minneapolis’s mostly-segregated Northside. (They played basketball at the Dairy Queen next door to Karlen’s grandparents, two blocks from the budding musician.) He asserts that Prince can’t be understood without first understanding ‘70s Minneapolis, and that even Prince’s best friends knew only 15 percent of him: that was all he was willing and able to give, no matter how much he cared for them. Going back to Prince Rogers Nelson's roots, especially his contradictory, often tortured, and sometimes violent relationship with his father, This Thing Called Life profoundly changes what we know about Prince, and explains him as no biography has: a superstar who calls in the middle of the night to talk, who loved The Wire and could quote from every episode of The Office, who frequented libraries and jammed spontaneously for local crowds (and fed everyone pancakes afterward), who was lonely but craved being alone. Readers will drive around Minneapolis with Prince in a convertible, talk about movies and music and life, and watch as he tries not to curse, instead dishing a healthy dose of “mamma jammas.”
THE #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A Times, Sunday Times and Telegraph Book of the Year ______________________________________________ 'A triumph ... a masterclass in the bottling of its subject's seductive essence. His presence in this book is so strong that it's hard to believe he has really left the building' MOJO 'Handsomely presented, visually sumptuous' THE TIMES ______________________________________________ From Prince himself comes the brilliant coming-of-age-and-into-superstardom story of one of the greatest artists of all time-featuring never-before-seen photos, original scrapbooks and lyric sheets, and the exquisite memoir he began writing before his tragic death. Prince was a musical genius, one of the most talented, beloved, accomplished, popular, and acclaimed musicians in pop history. But he wasn't only a musician-he was also a startlingly original visionary with an imagination deep enough to whip up whole worlds, from the sexy, gritty funk paradise of his early records to the mythical landscape of Purple Rain to the psychedelia of Paisley Park. But his greatest creative act was turning Prince Rogers Nelson, born in Minnesota, into Prince, the greatest pop star of his era. The Beautiful Ones is the story of how Prince became Prince-a first-person account of a kid absorbing the world around him and then creating a persona, an artistic vision, and a life, before the hits and fame that would come to define him. The book is told in four parts. The first is composed of the memoir he was writing before his tragic death, pages that brings us into Prince's childhood world through his own lyrical prose. The second part takes us into Prince's early years as a musician, before his first album released, through a scrapbook of Prince's writing and photos. The third section shows us Prince's evolution through candid images that take us up to the cusp of his greatest achievement, which we see in the book's fourth section: his original handwritten treatment for Purple Rain-the final stage in Prince's self-creation, as he retells the autobiography we've seen in the first three parts as a heroic journey. The book is framed by editor Dan Piepenbring's riveting and moving introduction about his short but profound collaboration with Prince in his final days-a time when Prince was thinking deeply about how to reveal more of himself and his ideas to the world, while retaining the mystery and mystique he'd so carefully cultivated-and annotations that provide context to each of the book's images. This work is not just a tribute to Prince, but an original and energizing literary work, full of Prince's ideas and vision, his voice and image, his undying gift to the world. ______________________________________________ 'Prince's voice comes through loud and clear; his personality, joie de vivre and single-mindedness jumping off the page throughout.' CLASSIC POP MAGAZINE 'The Beautiful Ones is for everyone. It's not a read, but an experience, an immersion inside the mind of a musical genius. You are steeped in Prince's images, his words, his essence... The book can be a starting point for a Prince fascination, or a continuation of long-standing admiration. Either way, it will deepen the connection of any reader with the musical icon." USA TODAY 'An affirmation of Prince's Blackness and humanity... Prince writes about his childhood with clarity and poetic flair, effortlessly combining humorous anecdotes with deep self-reflection and musical analysis... Prince is one of us - he just worked to manifest dreams that took him from the North Side of Minneapolis to the Super Bowl.' HUFFPOST 'A compelling curiosity that finds its author orbiting around a few touchingly intimate encounters with his sphinx-like subject ... with passages, lyric sheets and photographs from the Purple One himself' TELEGRAPH, Books of the Year 'Both a pleasure and a surprise ... Prince took the project very seriously, and it shows in the work he delivered. ... It shines an intimate and revealing light on the least-known period of his life' VARIETY 'The Beautiful Ones is a book in pieces, fragments of the ground-breaking autobiography Prince had planned. Pieced together after his death in 2016, it collects his handwritten childhood memoires, superb personal photographs and his chosen co-writer Dan Piepenbring's vivid account of their brief collaboration. Yet remarkably despite the central absence, it still catches something of Prince between the gaps - a trace of perfume, a glance to camera, a first kiss' SUNDAY TIMES, Book of the Year 'This is a beautiful book and a must-have for Prince completists' DAILY EXPRESS 'A ghostly memoir of a pop legend' THE i
A memoir by Morris Day of The Time centering around his lifelong relationship and association with Prince"A vital, illuminating, and wildly entertaining autobiography." -Billboard "Great book! Great storytelling!" -LENNY KRAVITZ "Lean, slick, cooler than Santa Claus, and surprisingly tender, this book not only traces Day's history in Minneapolis funk, but doubles as an intimate recollection of his time with Prince." -BEN GREENMAN, author of Dig If You Will The Picture Brilliant composer, smooth soul singer, killer drummer, and charismatic band leader, Morris Day has been a force in American music for the past four decades. In On Time, the renowned funkster looks back on a life of turbulence and triumph, chronicling his creative process with an explosive prose that mirrors his intoxicating music. A major theme throughout the book is Morris's enduring friendship and musical partnership with Prince, from their early days on the Minneapolis scene to selling out stadiums and duking it out as rivals in Purple Rain. Eventually, Morris went on to release four albums with a new band of his very own, The Time; however, before long, increasing tensions between the two performers set them down separate paths. Through the years, the fierce brotherly love between Morris and Prince kept bringing them back together-until pride, ego, and circumstance interfered. Two months before Prince's untimely death, the two finally started to make amends. But Morris never could have imagined it would be the last time he'd ever see his friend again.
A revealing collection of interviews with the shape-shifting, genre-bending, wildly influential musician and song writer David Bowie was an icon, not only his stunning musical output, but also his fascinating refusal to stay the same—the same as other trending artists, or even the same as himself. In this remarkable collection, Bowie reveals the fierce intellectualism, artistry, and humor behind it all. From his very first interview—as a teenager on the BBC, before he was even a musician—to his last, Bowie takes on the most probing questions, candidly discussing his sexuality, his drug use, his sense of fashion, his method of composition, and more. For fans still mourning his passing, as well as for those who know little about him, it’s a revealing, interesting, and inspiring look at one of the most influential artists of the last fifty years.
An epic fantasy adventure set in the beloved world of the Demon Cycle, following a new generation of heroes, from New York Times bestselling author Peter V. Brett “Heart-wrenching, smart, and modern . . . The Desert Prince has set a new standard for fantasy.”—Wesley Chu, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The War Arts Saga Fifteen years have passed since the end of the war with demons, creatures of darkness who have hunted the night and plagued humanity since time out of mind. The heroes of humanity’s hour of need have become legend, and those who remain struggle to escape their shadows. Olive Paper and Darin Bales have grown up in this new peaceful world. Demons have been all but destroyed, but dangers still lurk for the children of heroes. Olive, princess of Hollow, has her entire life planned out by her mother, Duchess Leesha Paper: a steady march on a checklist to prepare her for succession. The more her mother writes the script, the more Olive rails against playing the parts she is assigned. Darin faces challenges of a different kind. Though free to choose his own path, the weight of legacy hangs heavy around his shoulders. It isn’t easy being the son of the man people say saved the world. Everyone expects greatness from Darin, but the only thing he’s ever been great at is hiding. When Olive and Darin step across the wards one night, they learn the demons are not all gone, and those that remain hunger for revenge. Events are set in motion that only prophecy can foresee as Olive and Darin seek to find their own places in the world in time to save it again.
Featuring insights on even more groundbreaking recording sessions, rehearsals, and sound checks, the expanded edition of Duane Tudahl's award-winning book pulls back the paisley curtain to reveal the untold story of Prince’s rise from cult favorite to the biggest rock star on the planet. His journey is meticulously documented through detailed accounts of his time secluded behind the doors of the recording studio as well as his days on tour. With unprecedented access to the musicians, singers, and studio engineers who knew Prince best, including members of the Revolution and the Time, Duane Tudahl weaves an intimate saga of an eccentric genius and the people and events who helped shape the groundbreaking music he created. From Sunset Sound Studios’ daily recording logs and the Warner Bros. vault of information, Tudahl uncovers hidden truths about the origins of songs such as “Purple Rain,” “When Doves Cry,” and “Raspberry Beret” and also reveals never-before-published details about Prince’s unreleased outtakes. This definitive chronicle of Prince’s creative brilliance during 1983 and 1984 provides a new experience of the Purple Rain album as an integral part of Prince’s life and the lives of those closest to him.
