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It has been 8 years, today, since Prince died of was what finally ruled an accidental drug overdose; specifically Fentanyl. Prince was found unresponsive in an elevator at his Paisley Park Studios, Minnesota, on April 21, 2016.
In 2018, Prince's family filed a lawsuit in Minnesota alleging that there were multiple failures by Prince's doctor to monitor his intake of drugs. The lawsuit claimed that the physician failed to appropriately evaluate, diagnose, treat and counsel Prince for his recognizable opioid addiction, and further failed to take appropriate and reasonable steps to prevent the foreseeably fatal result of that addiction. It further stated that these departures from the standard of acceptable medical practice had a substantial part in bringing about Prince's death. Also named in the lawsuit were a clinic at a hospital and a Walgreens store. The charges were, of course, dropped.
You can't save a man from himself, it turns out ... big surprise, there. Those of us who are Elvis fans have realized that for a long time.
An investigation revealed Prince had experienced significant pain for several years. Upon further investigation, evidence showed Prince had thought he was taking the prescription drug, Vicodin, when in fact he was taking a counterfeit Vicodin pill laced with potentially deadly Fentanyl. I've seen the supposed 'drug stash' photos. It looked like a collection of vitamins and OTC stuff to me, which is not to say it is good to mix those all together at once ... I even saw a box of Claritin. I Guess Prince had allergies? OK, a few prescription bottles, but nothing like what some of us have to take at the age of 57. Prince had to have gotten the Vicodin laced with Fentanyl off the street, or he was taking Vicodin and then taking illegal Fentanyl on top of it. No doctor in their right mind would prescribe both opioids at the same time.
I have to stop this little story right here. I have been taking the drug Oxycodone (the generic form of Percocet, very much the same as Fentanyl) for over 20 years. I take it for chronic pain. I have also used Fentanyl patches and found them to be rather ineffective and uncontrollable when it came to actual pain control which is why I do not use them, now. My story is a long, difficult one that involved Vicodin at one point ... BUT, I can tell you with absolute certainty that there is no way in any realm of thinking that Prince thought he was taking Vicodin. There is a world of difference between the two drugs.
As someone who is now a 'functioning drug addict' because I took opioids for over two decades, I can tell you that yes, they were all prescribed, but the doctors did not shove them down my throat. I would no more dream of suing them than I would of suing a farmer because I ate lettuce all my life. These lawsuits by families who try to go after doctors or drug manufacturers when their loved ones end up dying because, lets face it, they wanted that extra high that particular day ... well, those suits are just stupid.
I had my opinion of Prince as the situation went down, but I was not there in Prince's life. However, I know the horror of chronic pain and I can well imagine what it can drive someone to who is working themselves to death and needs relief ... someone who can't just take a break and take it easy. All of us roll the dice. Just a matter of luck as to whether we crap out. The only reason I am sharing this with you is because I believe Prince was a drug-seeking addict. I have seen too many of them, although I've never resorted to their actions myself. Never underestimate what a drug addict will do.
So, this lawsuit filed by the family in 2018 was nothing but an effort for a money grab. Did Prince not leave ENOUGH money for his family?? Geez. Well. on to the rest of my blog post.
Prince was a man bursting with music — a wildly prolific songwriter, a virtuoso on guitars, keyboards and drums and a master architect of funk, rock, R&B and pop, even as his music defied genres. In a career that lasted from the late 1970s until his solo tour this year, he was acclaimed as a sex symbol, a musical prodigy and an artist who shaped his career his way, often battling with accepted music-business practices.
A seven-time Grammy winner, Prince had Top 10 hits like “Little Red Corvette,” “When Doves Cry,” “Let’s Go Crazy,” “Kiss” and “The Most Beautiful Girl in the World”; albums like “Dirty Mind,” "1999” and “Sign O’ the Times” were full-length statements. His songs also became hits for others, among them “Nothing Compares 2 U” for Sinead O’Connor (another great artist we lost recently) “Manic Monday” for the Bangles and “I Feel for You” for Chaka Khan. There are so many more ... these are just the ones that come to mind right at the moment. Give me five minutes and I would come up with a hundred more.
On Prince’s biggest hits, he sang passionately, affectionately and playfully about sex and seduction. With deep bedroom eyes and a sly, knowing smile, he was one of pop’s ultimate flirts: a sex symbol devoted to romance and pleasure, not power or machismo. Elsewhere in his catalog were songs that addressed social issues and delved into mysticism and science fiction. He made himself a unifier of dualities — racial, sexual, musical, cultural.
Prince’s music had an immediate and lasting influence: among songwriters concocting come-ons, among producers working on dance grooves, among studio experimenters and stage performers. He sang as a soul belter, a rocker, a bluesy ballad singer and a falsetto crooner. His most immediately recognizable (and widely imitated) instrumental style was a particular kind of pinpoint, staccato funk, defined as much by keyboards as by the rhythm section. But that was just one among the many styles he would draw on and blend, from hard rock to psychedelia to electronic music. His music was a cornucopia of ideas: triumphantly, brilliantly kaleidoscopic.
Prince really could do it all. A guitar virtuoso, synthesizer master, a singer with a range greater than his bandmates, and he could out-beat any drummer. Prince could also dance up a storm and he uniquely fashioned himself. He was known for the ability to create music from anything. Prince was incredibly free when he was in his music. Musicians share how they’d often spend more than 24 hours at a time in the studio with the legend. Prince would refuse to leave the studio until a song was finished.
His musicians often commented on how innate and unreal his writing process was. How he would write multiple music lines simultaneously, like finishing the bass part while working on the drum pattern, and ride the flow without second-guessing himself. He worked so fast, engineers said the tape machines didn’t rewind quick enough for him. It is reported that he’d binge-eat cake and other sugary foods while working in the studio.
Prince loved to play basketball. He was notorious for stopping interviews right in the middle and changing his platform shoes for sneakers so he could shoot hoops with the interviewer. His bandmates were always anxious to join in. There was a definite competitive and playful side to The Purple One.
Prince was married twice. First, he wed Mayte Garcia (a huge talent in the belly-dancing community) in 1996. They had a child, Amiir, (Boy Gregory) who only lived for six days. They had a miscarriage shortly after their first child died. They then divorced in 2000. Prince married Manuela Testolini in 2001. They had no children and divorced in 2006.
Prince with Mayte Garcia, the mother of his two children
Friends and ex-girlfriends marvel on what they refer to as his different personalities, the names they gave those personas, and his ability to compartmentalize his emotions. He’d swing moods – going from joyous to guarded. Prince may have never really recovered from his parents' divorce which happened when he was very young.
Who can forget "Purple Rain?" Even if you were not a Prince fan, the 1984 film and song is linked to him forever. "Purple Rain," music won Prince an Academy Award, and the album sold more than 13 million copies in the United States alone. Although many think that his character in "Purple Rain" was autobiographical, Prince claimed it was not. I guess that was part of the publicity for the movie, because I clearly remember hearing that it was his 'life story.'
I had a chance to go see Prince a few years before he died. He was playing close by; in Sacramento, CA. I chose not to go, my anxiety disorder was acting up and prevented me from handling the crowd situation. I probably would have spent most of the time in the bathroom, anyway. But I really, REALLY wish I could have gone. It is the one celebrity-oriented regret I have in my life, outside of not seeing Elvis in person.
Most of the trove of Prince’s recordings remains unreleased, in an archive he called The Vault. Like much of his offstage career, its contents are a closely guarded secret, but it’s likely that there are masterpieces yet to be heard. I don't know if we will ever hear them all., but Prince's sister Tyka, claimed she was doing her best to see that we do. She was left just a sixth of Prince's estate though, so she didn't have a lot to say about his music after the initial desperation to get to his unreleased music after her brother's death. I see that there are tours that can be taken through Paisley Park, but it doesn't have the feel and class/elegance of say ... Graceland.
There are events that happen at Paisley Park, not on scale that they happen at Graceland, but here is the link where you can check it all out: https://www.paisleypark.com/events
'Piano and a Microphone 1983'' is a posthumously released demo album by Prince. released on CD, vinyl, and digital formats on September 21, 2018. It is the first album released by the Prince estate consisting solely of material from his archive, the Vault.
In an interview which appeared in Rolling Stone Magazine Prince's sister said:
"In his last concert, which was at Paisley Park, he told everybody to come out and announced he was going to stop playing the guitar because he wanted to get better at the piano. Perhaps he thought if he didn’t hold his game on the piano — because he was too busy on his guitar — that he would lose it. He wanted to get better at the piano, he wasn’t thinking of stopping. It was not retirement, it was just a change of focus. I believe he would want to be remembered as a consummate artist and clothing designer: because he designed his shoes and his clothes. He would draw things and then send it to people to recreate."
She goes on to say:
"He would want to be remembered obviously as a musician, but also a guitar player, and a drummer… he could play the saxophone. He could play anything and everything, even the little recorders when growing up. He could play every instrument sitting on the stage, and he would take turns going to each one. I would like him to be remembered as the person who could do that. Prince really never needed a band. The only reason he had a band was because he couldn’t play everything at once. He also was starting to write a book, so therefore,he was an author. "
What wasn’t he? Prince was a philosopher, a philanthropist. He was a straight-up Black/Middle Eastern man from the middle of nowhere. They barely had a radio station. The family Prince came from had less than nothing. He said he was going to be famous, and he actually did it.
In an article which appeared in Esquire Magazine in 2021 ... the following updated information was released:
'By the time Prince was 40, he had written and recorded more songs than any artist could possibly release in a lifetime. Material, it seems, is the musical genius’s burden. To house all of his unreleased recordings, Prince constructed a vault in the basement of his Paisley Park complex in the suburbs of Minneapolis. Legend has it that as many as 8,000 songs are stored in the vault. For diehard Prince fans, the vault has been like an insurance plan — a way of guaranteeing the artist’s eternity, despite his premature death. At the same time, the vault has been frustratingly impenetrable and almost impossible to make sense of, especially considering the legal battles that have enveloped it ever since Prince died without a will in 2016.'
The Vault
The Vault pried open after Prince's death
In 2021, a team dug into the vault’s status which was tied to the upcoming release of Welcome 2 America — the first release of a standalone Prince album that is comprised of new and original material. Previously, Prince’s estate only put out deluxe versions of some of the artist’s biggest albums, like 1999 and Sign o’ the Times, or compilations like Originals which was made up of Prince’s recordings of hits that he wrote for other artists.
It was revealed that, in its current state, Prince’s vault is more of a minefield than a treasure chest. The challenge is monetizing the catalogue while still trying to do right by Prince. That enormous task has been left to Troy Carter, a former Spotify executive and Lady Gaga’s previous manager. Since joining Prince’s estate in 2018, Carter has overseen the relocation of the majority of the vault’s contents from Paisley Park to Iron Mountain, a climate-controlled storage facility in Los Angeles, and created a team of archivists whose job it is to propose new releases of vault material.
Carter has made the following comments:
“I want to make sure that Prince isn’t somewhere in heaven giving me the side eye.” In that spirit, the upcoming release of Welcome 2 America is an important first test, and according to Carter, the judges will be the Prince fans who think they have heard everything.“Whenever we can find things that the fans haven’t heard, it’s like a victory,” explained Carter. With it’s 10 previously unreleased tracks, Carter is hoping Welcome 2 America is a win.
The album is one of Prince’s more politically-charged works. It covers current issues like police brutality and disinformation.
On a personal note, I have to wonder what Prince would have written about had he lived through the COVID pandemic and the Ukraine/Russia wars, not to mention the Hamas/Israel conflict.
To finish off this blog post, I'd like to have you take a look at this short video. In it Prince sings a snippet of the song he wrote, "Sometimes It Snows In April." I listened to it again this morning after a year of not listening to it, on purpose. As it always does, it made me cry. Cry for the lost artist, yes, but cry for the lost human being whom it seems was tortured in so many ways we must not have understood.
I miss him, as do all his fans. Just think of all the gifts this man had left to present to us and who knows what wonders life could have yet offered him? But, like so many talented people, his life was cruelly cut short and he left us much too early.
It 'snowed' in April of 2016 and will 'snow' each April forevermore. While snow can be beautiful and peaceful, it is also cold and unforgiving.
Darkmum
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