OThe 1999 Super Deluxe Edition is
out on 29 November and reviewed
on page 85. Lisa Coleman’s album
Collage is out now.Adam dropped the Prince
Charming and Dandy
Highwayman alter-egos and
decided to 'go it alone'
for his debut solo albummake sure I gave my best at the shows, but it
became more of a struggle. Prince and I had
conversations about fi nding a way through,
but it had become too slick for me.”
At least Prince had the perfect solution:
he’d snuck the name
of The Revolution
onto 1999 ’s artwork
in backwards writing
and knew how to
develop them. “The
Revolution were an
alternate society,”
says Coleman. “We
were these hippy
purple people.
Prince saw us as a
cult, an alternative
movement. His
records were
all-inclusive,
mysterious, sexually
provocative. He
stirred people up and connected to a whole
lot of people who needed that.” It meant the
purple reign was just beginning.on my bunk on the bus at 4am and all of a
sudden I’d see Prince’s face in my bunk,
saying, ‘You missed a cymbal on something.’
I went to his management and said, ‘Prince is
a rock star now. Will you please get him his
own bus?’ He was a
little overwhelming,
but loved to come
back and be with us.”
The 1999 tour was
Dickerson’s farewell.
He missed the more
freeform nature of
Prince’s early shows.
He’d also discussed
getting Prince’s help
to go solo when the
time was right,
rejecting an appeal
to stick around for
three more years to
record and tour
what would become
Purple Rain. “People will often ask, ‘How
could you walk away from the fame and
money?’” says Dickerson. “But if you’ve got
contextual blues, none of that matters. My
epiphany was, ‘I wouldn’t want to be around
me right now, and I’m not doing my friend
any favours staying in his band when I’m just
miserable.’ It was time to go. I was able to“THE BREADTH AND DEPTH OF WHAT
PRINCE WAS EXPERIMENTING WITH AT
THE TIME IS REMARKABLE. WHEN YOU
LISTEN TO THE ORIGINAL 1999 ALBUM,
YOU HEAR HOW COHERENT IT IS.”
MICHAEL HOWE
a facet of Prince’s personality. He’d fool
around, look down his nose the way Morris
does... It was very funny, but a part of his
personality Prince decided he couldn’t use in
his own work. Prince was great at distilling
his personality, breaking apart pieces of
himself and giving them to others so he could
focus on what he wanted in his own music.”COMPETITIVE ENVIRONMENT
Prince watched The Time every night. “Prince
created a competitive environment between
his bands,” says Jones. “He left frustrated
with his own band more often than with The
Time. They had a magnetism and all knew
each other’s movements. I don’t recall many
times when Prince’s band would watch The
Time, and that was a big tell – he’d come
back from seeing them and try to pump up
his own band. But The Time were blazing.
They burned Prince many nights on tour, and
he knew it.”
Prince would sometimes party after a show,
but he’d watch all three acts’ performances
back on video early in the morning. “He’d
either give you notes or recreate something
in soundcheck he wanted to try out in the
show that night,” says Jones. “It kept people
on their toes. That rivalry and competition
was good for him.” It kept Prince on top, but
Bobby Z couldn’t keep up, admitting: “I was
© Allen Beaulieu