Warner, Prince is going in to the hall of fame. Can we have an OAR Purple Rain? (1 Viewer)

[Reginald Trent]

Prince is going into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. This is his first year of elgibility. A OAR of Purple Rain would be a fitting tribute for your former top artist.

 

[oscar_merkx]

more info

http://www.startribune.com/stories/457/4224730.html

Prince was the only artist selected in his first year of eligibility. (An artist is eligible 25 years after the release of his first album). John Mellencamp also was on the ballot for the first time, but wasn't selected by the 700 music-industry executives, musicians and critics who voted this year.

"It's not a surprise; he deserves it," said Twin Cities producer Bobby Z, Prince's drummer from 1978 to '88. "From the first day I met him in '75 or '76, I could see it immediately: He had a magical gift. One in a billion -- just oozing talent."

In 1976, Owen Husney quit his job running a Minneapolis advertising agency to become Prince's first manager and help him land a recording contract with Warner Bros.

Husney said Thursday that after the deal was signed, Prince told him: "I gotta do my own album. Maurice White [of Earth, Wind & Fire] is not producing. You go tell the chairman of Warner Bros. that I'm producing."

Prince was 18. Warner chairman Mo Ostin told Husney: "We might have to risk losing an album on this guy. But he's got record sense."

Prince proved it on his 1978 debut album, "For You," writing, arranging and producing all the songs and playing all the instruments. The record yielded a modest hit, the suggestive "Soft and Wet" -- a side of Prince that emerged full-blown in his provocative 1980 breakthrough album "Dirty Mind."

He found mainstream success in 1983 with the hits "Little Red Corvette" and "1999." His blockbuster was 1984's "Purple Rain," a semiautobiographical movie filmed in the Twin Cities that became an unexpected hit. The $7 million movie, with a first-time director and first-time star, grossed more than $65 million. Its soundtrack album sold more than 10 million copies, spent 24 weeks at No. 1 and earned Prince an Oscar and two Grammys.

He continued to have hits for another eight years. Then he started feuding with Warner Bros. about artistic freedom and the prolific pace at which he released albums. In 1995, he changed his name to a glyph (real name: Prince Roger Nelson) and lost respect and record sales. He returned to using Prince in 2001 and now releases albums on his own. His latest CD, "N.E.W.S.," is an all-instrumental disc.

He has sold more than 36 million albums in the United States. He has also written or produced hits for the Bangles, Chaka Khan, Sheena Easton and Sinéad O'Connor.

Prince joins Bob Dylan (class of '88) as the only other Minnesota resident in the Rock Hall of Fame, which is in Cleveland. Albert Lea-born Eddie Cochran was inducted posthumously in '87. Since 1986, 201 artists and industry figures have been enshrined.

The induction ceremony will be March 15 at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York. Said one fan on the Web site prince.org: "I hope he doesn't do or say anything too weird."