Prince: A creative powerhouse – ageless in both body and work

Prince Rogers Nelson, who has died at the age of 57, was that rare beast: a world famous pop star who managed to retain an aura of mystery. A hugely gifted musician, a brilliant showman and a creative powerhouse, Prince remained ultimately unknowable except to his family and closest confidantes. Such otherworldliness was exacerbated by his youthful appearance that remained largely unchanged until his death. He was, to his fans, ageless, both in body and in work.

Prince’s canny refusal to give away too much of himself, either through his songs or through his dabblings in film (in 1984 he starred in the cult classic Purple Rain), simply compounded the world’s curiosity. Famed for his voluminous blouses, androgynous features and stack-heeled shoes, he was, in his Eighties heyday, sexually ambiguous, though his songs revealed a man with voracious appetites.

In 1984 he wrote “Darling Nikki”, a song with overtly sexual lyrics that seemed to reference masturbation. After hearing her 11-year-old daughter playing the song, Tipper Gore, then wife of Al Gore, founded the Parents Music Resource Centre to warn against corrupting lyrics. The organisation later masterminded ‘Parental Advisory’ stickers on album covers.

But whether toying with the world’s sexual preconceptions or declaring war on the music industry as he did in the Nineties, none of this detracted from the central enigma that was Prince. Those who were granted an interview were forbidden to use recording devices and frequently came away more baffled than they were before they met him.

He leaves behind a staggering catalogue. He has an almost untouchable run in the Eighties – 1999 (1982), Purple Rain (1984), Sign O’ The Times (1987) and Lovesexy (1988). In 1984, following the release of Purple Rain, he simultaneously enjoyed a No 1 album, single and film in the US.

Fellow musicians talked of his unstoppable energy. At his home at his fabled Paisley Park home, he kept anti-social hours and demanded that others work all night alongside him. After arena shows he would often go straight to a club and play a two-hour set to a select audience.

Prince was extremely generous with his talents, nurturing young musicians and loudly praising them on tour and in the press. He was, in particular, a champion of female artists - Lianne La Havas and Janelle Monae are among the more recent singers to have been taken under his wing. Over the years, he made a point of including women in his backing bands too, among them Wendy Melvoin, Lisa Coleman and Sheila E. Though he guarded his work ferociously, he allowed female artists to record his songs. For Sinead O’Connor and Chaka Khan, who recorded “Nothing Compares 2 U” and “I Feel For You” respectively, these covers would be life altering.

Prince was born in June 1958 in Minneapolis. His parents Mattie Shaw and John L Nelson were musicians who worked in the Prince Rogers Trio, the band that gave their son his name. As a child he was a talented basketball player though his height meant he could never pursue it as a career.

Having started out as a solo artist, he later formed a band called The Revolution, and quickly made a name for himself as a preternaturally talented performer and songwriter influenced by the sinuous funk of James Brown, Sly & The Family Stone, Miles Davis and George Clinton. According to the sleeve notes on his debut LP, 1978’s For You, he played all 27 instruments on the album.

In the late Eighties he built Paisley Park, a vast home and studio complex in the Minnesota suburb of Chanhassen which included two full-sized live venues, assorted food concessions and a roller-skating rink. One visitor, a British journalist, recently observed Paisley Park as looking “less like a mystical utopia, more like a branch of Ikea“.

In 1992 Prince re-signed to his record label Warner in a six-album deal worth $100m. The deal was, he later felt, a poisoned chalice, removing much of the creative control that he so valued. In a bid to claim back ownership of his past albums and make music on his own terms, he changed his name to a symbol and, for several years, was known as The Artist Formerly Known As Prince. Years later he would re-sign to the same label.

In 1996 Prince married Mayte Garcia, a 22-year-old dancer and actress who he’d been dating for several years. The pair had a baby who they named Boy Gregory, but he died a week after he was born due to Pfeiffer syndrome, a rare defect of the skull. Not long afterwards Garcia suffered a miscarriage. A matter of days after losing their second baby, the couple went on The Oprah Winfrey Show and talked as if he were still alive. Garcia later said that they were struggling to process what had happen and were in denial. The couple separated in 2000.

In the mid-2000s Prince became a Jehovah’s Witness, having been introduced to its tenets by his bass player Larry Graham. Both Graham and Prince were frequently to be found going door to door in Minneapolis looking for converts.

Despite being an early adopter of self-financed web releases, Prince railed against the iniquities of the internet. He also closely policed his work online. In 2014 he filed a lawsuit against assorted sites for breaching copyright by posting concert footage without permission and providing links to bootleg recordings. Recently, Prince removed his entire catalogue from Spotify and made it available on Tidal.

Neither the lawsuits, nor the odd so-so album, appeared to dent Prince’s reputation as a musical genius and bona fide legend, however. Over the last decade, his main income came from touring and he appeared to love every second of it.

In 2007 he played a 21-day residency at London’s 02, throughout which a hardcore group of fans attended every show. In February last year he played a series of guerilla gigs in London’s Electric Ballroom with a new all-girl three-piece called 3RDEYEGIRL, and offered £10 tickets on a first-come, first-served basis. The shows revealed a new, hard-rocking direction and critics and fans were wowed. As ever, Prince could do no wrong.

Prince Rogers Nelson, musician and actor; born 7 June 1958, died 21 April 2016