remember which—in this huge mall, all the members of the Revolution except Prince, and we ran into Bruce Springsteen. He was out looking like the average street dude in a trench coat, a little bit disheveled, trying to blend in. We introduced ourselves, and we all went to eat at a restaurant in the mall. Next thing we

know, everyone recognizes us, and there’s a crowd gathered around us blocking the doors and we couldn’t get out. We had to go through the restaurant kitchen, the secret catacombs of the mall, to get out. It was like the Beatles or something.

LEEDS In D.C., Prince needed to get his hair done, and there wasn’t an adequate salon in the hotel. So our stylist made an agreement with a salon in Georgetown. With Prince, this means you close down the salon and black out the windows, and no other customers are present; even the people who work at the salon vacate the premises. The same with nightclubs: You’d have to buy out the club because he didn’t want the public in. Find a local modeling agency and invite a hundred models, but not the general public. Oh God, the money wasted. DICKERSON He invited me and my wife at the time to catch a couple shows in D.C. The first night we were there, Prince invited us to his suite, and at that point, the way they were traveling was full-blown, diamond-level status— they’re hauling a grand piano from city to city for his suite. But in terms of the personal interaction, it was great. We got back to old times. As we were about to leave, I said, “Hey, we were thinking of going to Georgetown tomorrow to do some shopping,” which is what we always did as a band when we were on the road. At first he got this smile on his face and was about to say something, but then he stopped—I’ll never forget, the look on his face changed and his voice dropped—and he said, “You know, I really can’t go anywhere anymore.”

PART III.
Prince and the Revolution didn’t wait long to
record a follow-up to Purple Rain: Less than a
month after the Oscars, the kaleidoscopic Around
the World in a Day appeared in stores. It sold far
fewer copies than its predecessor but yielded a pair
of Top 10 hits: “Raspberry Beret” and “Pop Life.”
Parade followed the next year, as did a European
tour, but relations between Prince and his band
were becoming strained.
And the winner is: Prince, with Wendy
(left) and Lisa at the 1985 Oscars
In the spring of 1985, Purple Rain won the
Academy Award for Best Original Song Score. The
competition: Kris Kristofferson and the Muppets.
The category was eliminated the following year.

BETTMANN CORBIS

MELVOIN The cast of Amadeus was right in front of me, and I was sitting next to Jimmy Stewart. He looked over at us and was like, “Who are these weird, medieval-looking, grim reaper types?”

COLEMAN When we got the award, Prince made a joke like, “We better run, because they’re going to think we stole it.” We were running out the back door. He let Wendy and me keep it at our house for a long time.

LEEDS There has not been a tour bus that I’ve been on in 20 years where the first movie played was not Purple Rain. It drives me up a wall. These young artists, they know every word in the script.

COLEMAN He became more of a satellite. It hurt our feelings. He used to travel with us on the same bus, but then he got his own. He would always be escorted ahead of us in his own car, and we were left behind. He had his big house, and when he got the guard at the gate, it was, “Wow, dude. It’s me. I did your laundry.” I lived with him for a while in his house—I’d fix him a sandwich or we’d do laundry together. It was really brother-and-sister stuff. When it changed, I’d have to go through other people to talk to him. I was not into that. I’m still not into that. DAVID Z. I think what changed him more than anything was being on tour and staying right across the street from the Dakota when John Lennon was shot in 1980. He’s diminutive, and when you walk into a place and every eye is on you, he just saw himself as a target. That got to him. LEEDS He was very protective of his image as this weird, shy, quiet, introverted, nerdy, creative genius. He really did hide behind managers and bodyguards and so on. COLEMAN At the end of the [1986] Parade tour, he brought Wendy and me to his house for dinner. We always called it the “paper-wrapped chicken dinner,” because it was wrapped in pink slips. We’d be here in L.A. and he’d send us tapes with a piano and vocal, just an idea, and then we’d produce it. We would do all the instruments and background vocals. He felt like, “I need to take it back and do it all myself again. I’m losing touch with myself. So unfortunately, I’m going to let you go, because you’re doing everything.”

Bobby Z. and keyboardist Brown Mark left the
Revolution along with Wendy and Lisa.
Dr. Fink stayed on until 1991. The full group
hasn’t performed together since 1986.

GE T MORE

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BOBBY Z. Would I have liked to have gone on and done more Prince and the Revolution stuff? Of course. It was a band for the ages. But Prince wanted to experiment with different musical genres, which means different musical people. I mean, it happened to Lennon and McCartney. It’s just human nature.

CAVALLO Warner Bros. had no rights for a
sequel. I had this idea: Purple Rain 2: The Fur-

ther Adventures of the Time. It would start with Prince in some big arena, playing one of his incredible concerts. The Time are there, about to go to Las Vegas because they won a contest to play a lounge in a big hotel. And the basic story would be the Mob were the people who booked them, so they eventually get into trouble, and the only friends that they have are the showgirls. Well, for some reason, Morris thought that character took away his manhood. LEEDS Prince’s [subsequent] musicians were always talented. But arguably, they’re not of the level he once had. If they don’t bring any ideas, they don’t challenge him, they don’t stimulate him. The Revolution were constantly bringing songs to his attention. They would leave rehearsal and go listen to a Duke Ellington record or a country-western record. He was all ears. The more money he’s had, the more he’s been able to isolate himself from the real world. He handpicks his input. ?UES TLOVE Purple Rain really started hip-hop culture, whether the historians want to view it that way or not. You have Prince himself, a very unusual-looking figure, five feet tall—pretty much anybody considered a musical genius in hip-hop has some sort of odd physical feature, i.e., Biggie’s lazy eye. And then the whole idea of beefs—Prince and Morris. Morris’ whole pimp attitude, that was something you didn’t hear since the blaxploitation films of the early ’70s. Prince sang about sex and he worked with drum machines. MELVOIN We did keep in touch a little. I believe it was toward the late ’90s that it got very strained and we didn’t speak that much until—well, we’ve been speaking for about seven years now. BOBBY Z. Wendy and Lisa and Prince had talked about [a reunion] a while ago, but it doesn’t seem in the stars. He just launched a whole new platform and triple album that could keep him on the road for two years. You know, it’s his call. DICKERSON I did go back to Minneapolis last spring for a thing called the Prince Family Reunion. A bunch of people—basically, everyone but Prince—got together and played Prince songs. COLEMAN He has hinted to Wendy and myself recently that he can’t condone who we are or be friendly in a certain way. We both have kids now with other partners—he’s been a little less than Uncle Prince. So that hurts, especially because he liked that element in his band back then. We were trying to mix it up and bust the categories: Androgyny and multiracialism were the way to go. I always feel he should open up and be honest because he’s a fucking cool guy.

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