Fact #61609
When:
Short story:
Prince's album Purple Rain is confirmed as America's biggest seller since Thriller by Michael
Jackson.Full article:
THE MAKING OF PURPLE RAIN
Susan Rogers (engineer) : I had been working for Crosby, Stills And Nash as a maintenance tech when I heard that Prince was looking for someone to work with. I jumped at the chance. He wanted me to remove his home console and put it in this warehouse, which seemed a little crazy, but we managed to make it work. I mean, nobody had really done that before.
The first time I met Prince, after everything was set up, he asked me to set up a vocal mike so he could record. I had never professionally engineered in my life, but I really had no other choice. That's how I began my engineering career.
Bobby Z (drummer) : What Prince was doing with the warehouse was totally unique. He put this board right in the middle of this very echoey place, and rolled tape without giving the technical aspects of it any real thought. There was never any proper separation between the board and the instruments. If it sounded OK, that other just didn't matter to him. He believes in spontaneity and getting good performances, not whether a mic is placed properly or not.
Wendy Melvoin (guitarist) : I was just in the right place in the right time. Prince heard me screwing around one day at a soundtrack and hired me on the spot.
Eric Leeds (Prince saxman) : Wendy Melvoin (guitar) and Lisa Coleman (keyboards) were very important to Prince. They have a very deep sense of structure and form, and a very conceptual approach to music. They had a very deep underlying relationship with him.
Wendy Melvoin : We were absolute musical equals in the sense that Prince respected us, and allowed us to contribute to the music without any interference. I think the secret to our working relationship was that we were very non-possessive about our ideas, as opposed to some other people that have worked with him. We didn't hoard stuff, and were more than willing to give him what he needed. Men are very competitive, so if somebody came up with a melody line, they would want credit for it.
Lisa Coleman (keyboardist) : Prince would send us masters in LA, and we would work out the arrangements or whatever else, and then send it back to him. Often, they would just be skeletons of songs…
Susan Rogers (recording engineer) : They thought of stuff that Prince could never dream of. Prince's music never sounded the same after they left.
Matt Fink (keyboardist) : That whole period was like boot camp. He knew this was a major deal for him, and he certainly felt a lot of pressure to pull it off. He made it very clear to all of us that we had to be disciplined in our work and dedicated to what we were doing. He just worked non-stop; he never slept.
Susan Rogers : We recorded constantly, day and night. You never knew when one record began and the other one ended.
Susan Rogers : Women have a very nurturing nature, and Prince thrives in that atmosphere. He likes a studio atmosphere where people are flexible.
Peggy McCreary (engineer) : You really never knew what he was going to do next. We'd have everything set up for a mix, and he would stop and say, ‘Put up a clean tape.’ Well, that's not an easy thing to do. I'd have to throw the board back to the mics, and get the right drum sound and reset the EQs, and the trick was to do it all in about five minutes. 'Cos if I didn't get it done fast enough, he'd yell, I'm losing my groove, Peggy! But then he'd come up with something great, and it would all be worth it.
Susan Rogers: Apollonia (Kotero) couldn't sing, really. She was in the film, and he needed the song (Take Me With U) for the movie. The day we had to record this, Prince brought her to his house to rehearse. He asked her to do the Vanity 6 song Sex Shooter, and she starts singing When I'm Sixty-four in this soft voice. I remember thinking, This is gon’ be a long night. He took her into another room for 15 minutes alone, and tried to coax her into being a little bolder, a little more assertive. By the time we recorded it, the whole thing just clicked. She had this campy quality to her voice that was perfect. She sounded like an actress pretending to sing.
Alan Leeds : Prince had agreed to perform a benefit concert at the First Avenue night-club in Uptown Minneapolis Dance Theatre… At the very last minute, though, he asked me to get a mobile truck down to the club so he could record. We had no idea what he wanted to do, but we set it up with David Rifkin (Bobby's brother) engineering. The night of the show, it was just elbow to elbow, a goddamn sweat box, and no-one knew what to expect, 'cos Prince was gonna play a bunch of new stuff that no-one had heard. But it turned out to be one of the great Prince shows. He did Joni Mitchell's A Case Of You that night, which he's only done about two times live. And Purple Rain brought the house down. That's the version you hear on the album. It was a great night - thank God we got it all on tape. (Also from that night were I Would Die 4 U and Baby I’m A Star.)
David Leonard (engineer) : He said that he wanted to record the whole band that night. There were no remote trucks, so I just had to put a console up on road cases and plug it in so they could record. Once we got set up, they just blew through it. (Resulting in Let’s Go Crazy and Computer Blue)
Susan Rogers : No-one would be in the control room when Prince did vocals. Not even me. He would control the tape machine himself, and punch in whenever he felt necessary. Those lyrics were very intimate, and he didn't want anyone around when he sang them.
Susan Rogers : Prince often started with drums in a recording situation. They were of paramount importance to him. He'd either come in and lay down a drum track on the machine, or walk over to the drum kit and tape the lyrics to the tom-tom, so he could sing the song in his head as he was playing. Mind you, he never had a click track going. All the music and arrangements would be worked out in his head, and he just played the fills where he thought he would need them.
Bobby Z : Prince is one of the very best drum programmers, because he can get very warm sounds out of machines, particularly on songs like When Doves Cry. He really liked the sound the Linn gave him, and hung on to it for a long time, even after it was obsolete.
Susan Rogers : No-one can program a drum machine better than he can. He can take a four-track machine and create a completed track out of it.
Peggy McCreary : He wanted two boards together so he could have 48 tracks, which was something that he never did in the early days.
Lisa Coleman : I think I influenced When Doves Cry to the extent that Prince was engaged in a healthy competition with us. He was always thinking, ‘How can I kick their ass?’
Peggy McCreary : He just came in, cut it (When Doves Cry), and mixed it in a day. It was the most amazing thing I'd ever seen… He took the bass out. I remember him saying ‘No-one else will have the guts to do that.’ And he was right, because it became a hit.
Prince : In some ways, Purple Rain scared me. It was too successful and, no matter what I do, I’ll never top it. It’s my albatross and it’ll be hanging round my neck as long as I’m making music.
Tweet this Fact
Susan Rogers (engineer) : I had been working for Crosby, Stills And Nash as a maintenance tech when I heard that Prince was looking for someone to work with. I jumped at the chance. He wanted me to remove his home console and put it in this warehouse, which seemed a little crazy, but we managed to make it work. I mean, nobody had really done that before.
The first time I met Prince, after everything was set up, he asked me to set up a vocal mike so he could record. I had never professionally engineered in my life, but I really had no other choice. That's how I began my engineering career.
Bobby Z (drummer) : What Prince was doing with the warehouse was totally unique. He put this board right in the middle of this very echoey place, and rolled tape without giving the technical aspects of it any real thought. There was never any proper separation between the board and the instruments. If it sounded OK, that other just didn't matter to him. He believes in spontaneity and getting good performances, not whether a mic is placed properly or not.
Wendy Melvoin (guitarist) : I was just in the right place in the right time. Prince heard me screwing around one day at a soundtrack and hired me on the spot.
Eric Leeds (Prince saxman) : Wendy Melvoin (guitar) and Lisa Coleman (keyboards) were very important to Prince. They have a very deep sense of structure and form, and a very conceptual approach to music. They had a very deep underlying relationship with him.
Wendy Melvoin : We were absolute musical equals in the sense that Prince respected us, and allowed us to contribute to the music without any interference. I think the secret to our working relationship was that we were very non-possessive about our ideas, as opposed to some other people that have worked with him. We didn't hoard stuff, and were more than willing to give him what he needed. Men are very competitive, so if somebody came up with a melody line, they would want credit for it.
Lisa Coleman (keyboardist) : Prince would send us masters in LA, and we would work out the arrangements or whatever else, and then send it back to him. Often, they would just be skeletons of songs…
Susan Rogers (recording engineer) : They thought of stuff that Prince could never dream of. Prince's music never sounded the same after they left.
Matt Fink (keyboardist) : That whole period was like boot camp. He knew this was a major deal for him, and he certainly felt a lot of pressure to pull it off. He made it very clear to all of us that we had to be disciplined in our work and dedicated to what we were doing. He just worked non-stop; he never slept.
Susan Rogers : We recorded constantly, day and night. You never knew when one record began and the other one ended.
Susan Rogers : Women have a very nurturing nature, and Prince thrives in that atmosphere. He likes a studio atmosphere where people are flexible.
Peggy McCreary (engineer) : You really never knew what he was going to do next. We'd have everything set up for a mix, and he would stop and say, ‘Put up a clean tape.’ Well, that's not an easy thing to do. I'd have to throw the board back to the mics, and get the right drum sound and reset the EQs, and the trick was to do it all in about five minutes. 'Cos if I didn't get it done fast enough, he'd yell, I'm losing my groove, Peggy! But then he'd come up with something great, and it would all be worth it.
Susan Rogers: Apollonia (Kotero) couldn't sing, really. She was in the film, and he needed the song (Take Me With U) for the movie. The day we had to record this, Prince brought her to his house to rehearse. He asked her to do the Vanity 6 song Sex Shooter, and she starts singing When I'm Sixty-four in this soft voice. I remember thinking, This is gon’ be a long night. He took her into another room for 15 minutes alone, and tried to coax her into being a little bolder, a little more assertive. By the time we recorded it, the whole thing just clicked. She had this campy quality to her voice that was perfect. She sounded like an actress pretending to sing.
Alan Leeds : Prince had agreed to perform a benefit concert at the First Avenue night-club in Uptown Minneapolis Dance Theatre… At the very last minute, though, he asked me to get a mobile truck down to the club so he could record. We had no idea what he wanted to do, but we set it up with David Rifkin (Bobby's brother) engineering. The night of the show, it was just elbow to elbow, a goddamn sweat box, and no-one knew what to expect, 'cos Prince was gonna play a bunch of new stuff that no-one had heard. But it turned out to be one of the great Prince shows. He did Joni Mitchell's A Case Of You that night, which he's only done about two times live. And Purple Rain brought the house down. That's the version you hear on the album. It was a great night - thank God we got it all on tape. (Also from that night were I Would Die 4 U and Baby I’m A Star.)
David Leonard (engineer) : He said that he wanted to record the whole band that night. There were no remote trucks, so I just had to put a console up on road cases and plug it in so they could record. Once we got set up, they just blew through it. (Resulting in Let’s Go Crazy and Computer Blue)
Susan Rogers : No-one would be in the control room when Prince did vocals. Not even me. He would control the tape machine himself, and punch in whenever he felt necessary. Those lyrics were very intimate, and he didn't want anyone around when he sang them.
Susan Rogers : Prince often started with drums in a recording situation. They were of paramount importance to him. He'd either come in and lay down a drum track on the machine, or walk over to the drum kit and tape the lyrics to the tom-tom, so he could sing the song in his head as he was playing. Mind you, he never had a click track going. All the music and arrangements would be worked out in his head, and he just played the fills where he thought he would need them.
Bobby Z : Prince is one of the very best drum programmers, because he can get very warm sounds out of machines, particularly on songs like When Doves Cry. He really liked the sound the Linn gave him, and hung on to it for a long time, even after it was obsolete.
Susan Rogers : No-one can program a drum machine better than he can. He can take a four-track machine and create a completed track out of it.
Peggy McCreary : He wanted two boards together so he could have 48 tracks, which was something that he never did in the early days.
Lisa Coleman : I think I influenced When Doves Cry to the extent that Prince was engaged in a healthy competition with us. He was always thinking, ‘How can I kick their ass?’
Peggy McCreary : He just came in, cut it (When Doves Cry), and mixed it in a day. It was the most amazing thing I'd ever seen… He took the bass out. I remember him saying ‘No-one else will have the guts to do that.’ And he was right, because it became a hit.
Prince : In some ways, Purple Rain scared me. It was too successful and, no matter what I do, I’ll never top it. It’s my albatross and it’ll be hanging round my neck as long as I’m making music.