In a year that’s already brought multiple losses to the music world, the sudden death of Prince yesterday has to be the most shocking.
The rock and R&B superstar was touring just last week, and by all accounts still in full command of his prodigious powers. And though his work blazed the brightest during the ’80s and ’90s, there was every indication that he was gearing up to blow minds once again.
Boston’s love affair with Prince goes back longer than most. WXKS-FM (Kiss 108) was among the first to play “I Wanna Be Your Lover,” his first hit single in 1979. One year later, he was already reinventing himself as a maverick artist who couldn’t care less about boundaries between so-called black and white music, funk and rock and classic R&B — and threw a few twists on gender identity into the bargain.
That year’s “Dirty Mind” album made a few dents on such adventurous rock stations as Boston’s WBCN, and Prince played a show at the club then known as 15 Lansdowne. Nobody who was there that night had any reason to be surprised by his later, massive success.
That began in earnest with the 1982 release of the “1999” album and then its follow-up, the album and movie “Purple Rain.” By then, his music was ignoring boundaries altogether. “When Doves Cry” had to be the first great dance single with no bass, and “1999” appealed equally to audiences who swore by James Brown, and The Cars.
Meanwhile, the movie “Purple Rain” presented Prince and his group the Revolution — including the striking multi-instrumentalists Wendy & Lisa — as the gang everybody wanted to join, flouting social and sexual conventions.
Prince’s free-thinking mix of sexuality and spirituality was an essential part of the image. But he was above all an obsessive musician who logged endless hours in the studio. During 1987, he wrote, produced and largely played five albums — one by singer Jill Jones, two in disguise as the jazz/funk band Madhouse and his own double LP, “Sign ‘O’ The Times” (itself edited from an even larger batch of sessions) — plus its originally unreleased follow-up (too dark, he claimed), the dance-oriented “Black Album.”
He was eccentric for sure, famously changing his name to an unpronounceable symbol for a number of years. But even when the albums flagged, he remained a master live performer. There was another memorable Lansdowne Street stop in 1988, when he was playing secret club dates after the official concerts. Backed by a stellar band, including Sheila E. on drums, he jammed for two hours on funk and jazz grooves and wrapped up at sunrise.
Prince may be gone, but the man knew how to live. And if they were paying attention, his fans did, too.
