Thursday April 21st 2016

Today as I was getting ready to work in my site when I received a call from my sister telling me another icon who we grew up with, listening to as kids,teenagers and adults has passed away.  This time it was Prince Roger Nelson or to the rest of the world “Prince”.  Like any Prince Fan I was numb but a lot of memories began to flood my mind.I remember my older brother Colin playing an album with this guy who had no shirt on, showing off his chest hair and on the cover read simply “Prince”.  The first song I heard from that album was called “I Wanna Be Your Lover” and I instantly became a Prince fan.  The hi falsetto voice,cool music beats and raw lyrics were infectious.  i learned more about the purple wonderland was amazed how he could produce,write,sing and perform all of the instruments on his albums. As a family and with friends we listened to all of his music growing up. The song list is too long to go through but some of the songs we danced, sang,cried and ya fooled around to included Dirty Mind,Delirious,1999,Controversy…and I’m going to stop there because like I said the list way to long  and these are some of the songs we listened to before “that movie” was released in theatres to turn him into an international star.  FYI..I was such a Prince fan I bought a green trench coat that looked similar to his purple one he used to wear from “Le Chateau” and found a “RudeBoy” black and white checkered button just like the one he wore on his “Controversy” album but stupid me loaned it to an ex girlfriend who lost it.  Now you know why she’s an “ex girlfriend”.  Then it finally happened.  July 24th 1984 “Purple Rain” hit the big screen and it became a blockbuster.  Now everyone was on the Prince bandwagon.  I didn’t like it but I understood.  The movie fit the time perfectly.  Speaking of the the time, “Morris Day & The Time” stole the show in the film and who could forget the sexy Apollonia of Apollonia 6.

But the real stars were the songs..When Doves Cry, I Would Die For You,Take Me With You,Darling Nikki,Lets Go Crazy and the unforgettable Purple Rain.  I was in college and starting my radio career working at CKO.  I remember getting free tickets to see Prince perform at Maple Leaf Gardens.  As I was ready to go I got a call asking if I could fill in for someones shift. Because I wanted to impress my bosses i turned down the tickets and worked.  To this day it’s one of the few things in life I regret doing.  BUT I did see Prince at the Air Canada Centre, saw him do an intimate show at The Guverment and saw his show last year at The Sony Centre.

I could go on an on about “His Royal Badness”..the debates on who was better Prince or Micheal Jackson, all of the albums and songs released after Purple Rain or when Prince stopped using his name and became a symbol.  What I want to remember is the fun I had listening to his music and how much is was a part of my family. It was music(and music videos) we shared with our friends. It was music that we just plain enjoyed. Now we all  know Prince wrote A LOT of songs he never released so we’ll probably have a ton of albums coming out in the future.  But for me and “real” Prince fans, I’ll always miss what it was like to listen to the music back in the day.  Believe me when I say it was a special time in my life.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8BMm6Jn6oU