Don't Make Me "Black".

IN THE BEGINNING
Prince Roger Nelson was born June 7, 1958, at Mount Sinai Hospital in Minneapolis to Mattie Shaw and John Nelson. They had been in a jazz ensemble called the Prince Roger Trio. Since Mattie called her husband Prince, she dubbed her son Skipper “because he was small in size and he was just real cute — he was a darling baby.”

LENNY WARONKER (Warner Bros. VP): You could not only tell there was talent but there was a vision. He went out and played guitar, then overdubbed drums. By the time the drum part was recorded, it was clear. We didn’t want to insult him by making him go through the whole process, but he wanted to finish. As I was walking through the studio, he was on the floor. He looked up and said, “Don’t make me black.” I thought, “Whoa!” He said, “My idols are all over the place.” He named an array that was so deep in terms of scope of music that for an 18-year-old kid to say what he said was amazing. That, as much as anything, made me feel that we shouldn’t mess around with this guy.

PRINCE (on “Larry King Live,” 1999): [Minnesota] was interesting because I grew up getting a wider array of music. I grew up with Santana and Larry Graham and Fleetwood Mac, all kinds of different things.

HIS MOTHER (Star Tribune interview, 1984): He could hear music even from a very early age. When he was 3 or 4, we’d go to the department store and he’d jump on the radio, the organ, any type of instrument there was. Mostly the piano and organ. I’d have to hunt for him, and that’s where he’d be — in the music department.

PRINCE (Star Tribune interview, 1978): Around the time I was 8, I had a pretty good idea what the piano was all about. I had one piano lesson and two guitar lessons as a kid. I was a poor student, because when a teacher would be trying to teach me how to play junky stuff, I would start playing my own songs. I’d usually get ridiculed for it, but I ended up doing my own thing. I can’t read music. It hasn’t gotten in the way yet. Maybe it will later, but I doubt it.

BOBBY Z (drummer): Prince was playing the piano. It was an upright or spinet — a small thing. It was moving, waving like a cartoon, responding to his fingertips. The music was rich and full. I never heard anything like that. I’d never seen anyone play the piano like that. I was taken immediately.


JIMMY JAM: We were at Bryant Junior High. I was a year younger than him. We were in a band to back up the choir at school. I was gonna play drums, and I knew Prince played keyboards. He showed up at practice and picks up a guitar and plays, note for note, the intricate solo from Chicago’s “Make Me Smile.” I made the mistake of getting up from the drums, and he sat there and he killed ‘em. He had the biggest Afro in the world — that wasn’t fair, either.