Prince on Prince: Interviews and Encounters

by Arthur Lizie

Overview

Prince on Prince gets behind the controversies to tell the Prince story in his own words.

Prince is among the most respected and influential entertainers of the twentieth century, breaking sexual, racial, and creative barriers throughout his almost forty years in the spotlight.

He was a multitalented studio artist, a master songwriter who produced and performed almost all of his own music on yearly LPs and countless singles and videos. He was one of the most dynamic live performers ever to hit the stage, a world-class dancer, and musician who's still remembered for the best Super Bowl halftime performance in history. He fought for artists' rights, changed his name to a glyph, and took a star turn in the Oscar-winner Purple Rain.

But for all this, he was a quiet and private individual, reluctant to talk about the work he felt should speak for itself. This volume offers a chronological look at some of Prince's most entertaining and revealing interviews, from 1978 and the release of his debut LP, For You, to a 2015 interview conducted only months before his untimely death at the age of fifty-seven.

Prince's memoir was left incomplete, but this volume offers a view of the man as he sought to portray himself in his own words to journalists of every status throughout his career.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781641607179
Publisher:	Chicago Review Press, Incorporated
Publication date:	11/15/2022
Series:	Musicians in Their Own Words , #22
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	288
File size:	838 KB

About the Author

Arthur Lizie is a professor of communication and media studies at Bridgewater State University. He is the author of Prince FAQ: All That's Left to Know About the Purple Reign and Neil Young on Neil Young: Interviews and Encounters. He lives in Massachusetts.

Table of Contents

May / June 1978   Prince: Touch of Magic   Insider   Jeff Schneider
Mar-80   That Mysterious Prince: He Talks About Himself!   Soul Teen   J. Randy Taraborrelli
21 Dec. 1980   Prince: More than just a ‘Dirty Mind’   Los Angeles Times   Dennis Hunt
25 Feb. 1981   Prince in the afternoon   Aquarian Night Owl – supplement   Gene Kalbacher
Jun. 1981   Prince. Mom’s favorite freak   Rock & Soul   Ed Ochs
6 Jun. 1981   Strutting With The New Soul Monarch   New Musical Express (NME)   Chris Salewicz
Nov. 21 1982   The Renegade Prince   Los Angeles Times   Robert Hillburn
Sep. 1983   Mixed Emotions: Prince on the Music   Musician   Robert Hillburn
Sep. 1983   Prince: Strange Tales from Andre’s Basement... and other fantasies come true.   Musician   Barbara Graustark
September 12 1985   Prince Talks   Rolling Stone    
Jun 7 1986   Radio Interview   Power96 WHYT   Electrifying Mojo
Jan. 1992   Prince Invites Black Beat to Paisley Park   Black Beat   Steven Ivory
11 Mar. 1995   New Gold Dream   Echoes   Adam Mattera
Nov. 12 1996       Press Conference    
    Portrait of The Artist as a newly free man       Nick Krewen
Jan. 1997   Den Siste Artisten (The Last Artist)   Pop   Andres Lokko
Apr. 1997   Portrait of the Artist   Musician   Robert L. Doerschuk
June 24 1997   World Healing Project   Press Conference    
Aug. 1998   18 Questions for THE ARTIST (still generally known as Prince)   Mojo (#57)   Ben Edmonds
Oct./Nov. 1999   The ARTIST Formerly known as PRINCE... An Exclusive Interview   OK!   Jesse Nash
Dec. 1999   O(+>: Portrait of The Artists as a Free Man   Notorious   Dimitri Ehrlich
Mar-00   An Interview with the Prince formerly known as The Artist   MOJO   Barney Hoskyns
May 16 2000   NYC   Press Conference    
Jun. 2001   Prince   Yahoo! Internet Life   Bilge Ebiri
Jun. 12 2004   Prince of Paradox   Daily Telegraph   Mick Brown
Sept. 12 2004   "Where's My Interview?"   Gallery of Sound   Gary Graff
December 13 2005       Press Conference - Los Angeles    
11 Jan. 2009   My night with Prince   L.A. Times   Ann Powers
October 12 2009        Hotel Costes Press Conference     
24-Jun-10   ‘Ik word steeds beter’ ("I'm getting better")   Het Nieuwsblad   Hans-Maarten Post
23-Jun-11   "I'm a musician. And I am music"   The Guardian   Dorian Lynskey
3 Jul. 2013   Everlasting Now: Prince   V   Vanessa Grigoriadis
Apr-14   All The Critics Love You In . . . London?   Mojo     Will Hodgkinson
22 Dec. 2015   Prince Hits N Runs N Talks!   Ebony   Miles Marshall Lewis

Editorial Reviews

"Prince was not only an incredible, gifted music maker. What this book shows is that his interviews were also performances. Lizie has assembled a wide range of material, including encounters from press conferences, websites, and radio shows. As the archive shows, in the face of an ongoing barrage of sometimes bizarre, sometimes banal, and sometimes poignant questions, Prince didn’t always tell the truth—though there were times where, palpably, he did. After finishing this book, I felt I’d gotten to know one of popular music’s most forward-thinking contributors much better.” —Dr. Mark Duffett, Associate Professor of Music, Media, and Performance, University of Chester

“I was on the verge of believing I’d read everything there was to know about Prince, when along comes Prince on Prince. This book is a must-read for anyone who wants to learn more about a man who was an enigma to both friends and fans.” —Laura Tiebert, coauthor of The Rise of Prince: 1958–1988
 

"This book is in some ways the closest you will get to sitting down and talking with Prince. A must-have for anyone who wants to learn more about this one-of-a-kind, spectacular, creative force of nature, the likes of which we have never seen or heard before and never will again." —Jeff Munson, former Paisley Park staff and art director

“Prince on Prince provides the reader with a fascinating collection of interviews from every stage of Prince’s prolific career. Thoughtfully selected, they provide deep insight into one of the most influential artists of our time. Both longtime fans and those new to his work will find a new understanding of a complex persona.” —Dr. Kirsty Fairclough,  coeditor of Prince and Popular Music

"A collection of intriguing, frustrating, incisive interviews and insights into Prince’s remarkable career."—Genevieve Williams, Library Jounrnal

From the Publisher

11/01/2022

The interviews in Lizie's (media studies, Bridgewater State Univ; Prince FAQ: All That's Left To Know About the Purple Reign) volume are as much about the challenges of interviewing Prince as the interviews themselves. From the very beginning of his legendary career, Prince's relationship to the music press might best be described as ambivalent. This collection used that aura of mystery to its advantage, saving the richness and depth of Ebony's retrospective 2016 piece—portions of which had been published prior to Prince's death—for the very end. That Prince was a musical genius is beyond debate, but what's most interesting about these interviews—besides the difficulties securing them, the apparent mutability of Prince's personal history and beliefs, his early embrace and then rejection of online music distribution—is how much of that genius comes through in how he talks about music. His fertility of invention, insistence on and ability to foster the ideal conditions in which to create and collaborate, and determination to do the hard work to follow his creative impulses, are all there on the page. This may encourage casual listeners to seek out some of Prince's lesser-known and more esoteric work. VERDICT A collection of intriguing, frustrating, incisive interviews and insights into Prince's remarkable career.—Genevieve Williams

Library Journal