For some, the album and film go hand in hand. Audio and visual conjoined twins never to be separated. For many, Purple Rain exists purely as music. 40 years later, Purple Rain (the film) feels easy to compartmentalise, and, if you choose to separate out the soundtrack, ignore the uneven performances, laugh at or be outraged by its misogyny, you’ll actually find it’s all of those elements together that make it the enduring testament to Prince’s artistry (and imagery) that people still watch today.

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Ofcourse, the whole film/album thing didn’t make sense at the time. He was a young artist with just a couple of pop hits and not much recognition beyond the MTV generation. But Prince had plans to star in a film loosely based on his life (he’d been jotting down ideas for it in a purple notebook while on his tour bus) and had made it clear to his label Warner Brothers that the new songs were to be for a soundtrack to a film in which he would star.  He gave them an ultimatum: If they couldn’t land him a major film deal, he’d find another label that could. In the end, Warner Brothers A&R man Mo Ostin agreed to pony up the money for the untitled film project.

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Musically, while he had toured with various players early on, it wasn’t until the breakthrough success of 1982’s album 1999 that Prince surrounded himself with the formalised line-up of musicians that he considered his equals. In 1983, he added an ampersand and called them The Revolution.

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The success of Little Red Corvette the previous year had opened the door for the pop breakthrough Prince had longed for. As his audience became larger and more diverse with each passing show, Prince began reconfiguring his sound, his style and his band in ways that would connect with the broadest-possible target. He knew that he could extend his reach into the rock & roll world by presenting himself as a top-notch guitar player fronting a real band, instead of a sex-obsessed R&B groove superstar. Crucially, he made one key change in The Revolution lineup, replacing guitarist Dez Dickerson with Wendy Melvoin, a childhood friend of keyboardist Lisa Coleman who had been hanging around the tour and made a few vocal contributions to 1999. A band that had previously had a front line of three black men was now mixed in terms of race and gender.

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On 3 August 1983, Prince and the Revolution were back home in Minneapolis. Back on familiar turf, playing his first full show at the First Avenue club in more than a year. At the last minute, he decided to call in a mobile recording truck and have his set taped professionally.  Not only did the concert mark Melvoin's first appearance, it was also the public debut of the song that would define the next chapter of Prince’s career and, in some ways, the rest of his life. The recording of that very first performance of Purple Rain (with some edits and a touch of added strings) would be the actual version used on the record and in the film.

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On the heels of that First Avenue show, the first batch of album tracks he presented to the Revolution were, they felt, too pop, not funky enough. Those finally selected for inclusion displayed all the elements of Prince’s brilliance — pop, funk, rock, dance, sex, humour, spirituality. Notably, it was also the most collaborative project he would ever release, with The Revolution contributing key parts to many of the album’s tracks. On Purple Rain, The Revolution would solidify as a unit, reshaping Prince’s music as they played it. 

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Aside from Wendy and Lisa, other important women in the mix for Purple Rain were engineers Susan Rogers and Peggy McCreary who handled the recording chores in Minneapolis and Los Angeles, respectively, Wendy Melvoin’s twin sister Susannah, who became a muse to the smitten Prince (they dated briefly), drummer Sheila E (who became a star on her own, with Prince’s guidance) and of course the film’s leading lady, Patty ‘Apollonia’ Kotero. Apollonia had stepped in when the previous co-star Denise ‘Vanity’ Matthews quit the project.

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Lead single When Doves Cry served somewhat of a bridge between the heavily synthesised melodies and drum pattern led grooves that dominated 1999. Written after filming had wrapped, it fittingly encapsulated the main theme of the film. And whilst it seems an obvious hit now, it was quite a daring and striking single choice at the time. It set the stage for what was to follow when the album dropped a month later.

• On 28 February, 1984 Prince attended the 26th Grammy Awards, only to watch Michael Jackson walk away with most of the trophies. Prince was nominated for Best Pop Vocal and Best R&B Vocal, but lost both to Jacko.  Two days later, Prince entered Sunset Sound studio with When Doves Cry buzzing in his head.

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“Dearly Beloved, We are gathered here today” .. With its Gospel inspired intro and The Revolution bringing skills to the table, Let’s Go Crazy was a bold opening statement. I Would Die 4 U celebratory; Baby I’m a Star earnest; Take Me With U, all prime intro and bridge with an Apollonia duet, The Beautiful Ones a syrupy falsetto; Computer Blue, complete with ambiguous spoken exchange between Melvion and Coleman, and Darling Nikki the requisite dirty fucker which would incur the wrath of the morality police.

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Each of Purple Rain’s nine tracks is a masterpiece in its own right, but none more so than the epic final track, the song the album spends 34 minutes building to. The song won a Grammy for Best Rock Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal, and it also won an Oscar for Best Original Song Score. It was nominated for Album Of The Year losing out to Lionel Richie’s Can’t Slow Down. Prince here is part preacher, part guitar god (he reportedly called Jonathan Cain and Neal Schon of Journey to ask their blessing and to ensure they wouldn’t sue over the song’s proximity to Faithfully).

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In 1985, still in the heat of Purple Rain’s glow, Prince reflected on balancing roles as a band leader and bandmate. “I strive for perfection, and I’m a little bull-headed in my ways,” he said. “Then sometimes everybody in the band comes over, and we have very long talks. They’re few and far between, and I do a lot of the talking. Whenever we’re done, one of them will come up to me and say, ‘Take care of yourself. You know I really love you.’ I think they love me so much, and I love them so much, that if they came over all the time I wouldn’t be able to be to them what I am, and they wouldn’t be able to do for me as what they do. I think we all need our individual spaces, and when we come together with what we’ve concocted in our heads, it’s cool.”

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Four decades on, the first-ever stage adaptation of Purple Rain is in the works. Based on Albert Magnoli and William Blinn’s screenplay for the 1984 movie—and featuring Prince’s music and lyrics—the musical will be directed by Tony nominee Lileana Blain-Cruz. Pulitzer finalist Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, whose play Appropriate is enjoying success on Broadway, will provide an accompanying book.

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In a statement to Variety, the show’s producers said: “We can’t think of a more fitting tribute than to honor Prince and the Purple Rain legacy with this stage adaptation of the beloved story.”

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They continued: “We are thrilled with our Broadway partners and creative team, who are bringing a theatricality to the film’s original fictional story. We can’t wait for a new generation to discover Purple Rain and for lovers of the original film and album to experience its power once again, this time live.”

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Expect more details to be announced in the coming months.

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The success of Purple Rain transformed Prince’s career; he once described it as “my albatross — it’ll be hanging around my neck as long as I’m making music.” Another time, he said it was “in some ways more detrimental than good. It pigeonholed me.” But the songs from the album remained at the centre of his repertoire for the rest of his life. It’s only fitting that Purple Rain was the last song he ever performed onstage.

• The album eventually sold millions. The week the Purple Rain film opened, in July 1984, Prince became the first artist to have the Number One album, single, and film in the USA simultaneously. The album would top the US chart for a staggering 24 weeks.

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This year the annual Paisley Park Celebration open house will take place from 20-24 June to mark the date of the 40th anniversary of the Purple Rain film and its Oscar winning soundtrack (the actual date of the album’s release being 25 June 1984). 

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We delve into Purple Rain this playlist. Expect a Super Deluxe Edition before the summer is out - at least, that’s the rumour.

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ALSO THIS ISSUE .. There’s cuts from the new UB40 album (UB45) and the Sister Rosetta Tharpe opus that is Live In France: The 1966 Concert In Limoges (an RSD release in the US, and now available for everybody’s delectation via CD and Download). 

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ELSEWHERE .. It’s Archive all the way. Stevie Nicks makes the list (Prince features on synths); as does Caroline Rose, Jungle, a solo outing from Bryan Ferry’s Bride Stripped Bare album and we have a further nod to Amy Winehouse. We go niche with some retro synth action from Swedish producer Robert Parker; delve into the 80’s with Philip Bailey and round things off in style with a classic from Thelonious Monk.

 

As is the norm, we’re back in a couple of weeks.  

Until then, let this playlist be your fire when you’re cold.

Ed.

For Dickey and Larry.

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