It’s been almost a week since the tragic news of music icon Prince’s death broke and tributes to the late singer, songwriter, and producer continue to pour from his countless legions of fans.
Everyone from some of our favourite local musicians, to world leaders like Barack Obama have paid tribute to the legendary musician, with many sharing stories of their personal interactions with Prince.
The staff at beloved Melbourne jazz room Bennetts Lane recently spoke to Fairfax to recount their long-standing relationship with Prince, who played a number of impromptu sets at the venue.
Indeed, Prince had a strong relationship with Australia, recently bringing his Piano & a Microphone tour Down Under and remarking on the beauty of the Melbourne skyline on Twitter.
Speaking to Tone Deaf, the crew at Sydney’s legendary Studios 301 recounted how The Purple One himself took over their studio back in 1992 when he toured here on the back of his Diamonds and Pearls LP.
“The crew here at 301 are very honoured to have worked with Prince in our studios in 1992 whilst he was in Australia on his Diamonds and Pearls world tour,” Ron Haryanto, 301’s Operations Manager, told Tone Deaf.
“The icon and his band recorded in Studio B from April-May when we were at our former Castlereagh Street location, laying down tracks that would remain unreleased as he transitioned into his ‘Love Symbol’ era shortly after.”
Stephen Crane and Greg Cameron who were working in the 301 Tech department at the time reminisced about Prince and his band the New Power Generation’s late night sessions at 301.
“After he was done at his hotel room, he would make his way to 301, arriving at around 2am and working until dawn.”“It was all just a flash in time. It was very exciting, he’s just such a musical genius! When we found out that he was coming in we prepared the studio for a week,” they recalled.
According to Ron, whilst Prince had booked three sessions at the studio where the likes of Midnight Oil and INXS had recorded legendary albums, he only came in to record for two of those.
Ron recounts how the icon’s band would come straight to the studio from their shows and begin setting up, whilst Prince would return to his hotel room and watch the entire concert he’d just performed.
After he was done at his hotel room, he would make his way to 301, arriving at around 2am and working until dawn with recording engineer Mark Forrester and Angelique Cooper who performed MIDI programming.
“Prince would arrive at the studios with blank Post-It notes. In his head he worked out all of the arrangements on the spot, then write them on individual notes for each member of the band,” Ron recalled.
[include_post id=”477589″]
“He’d give these to each musician to play and they would all play the parts. They would do one take, maybe two and leave. Prince would spend the rest of the night singing and recording overdubs, working with Mark and Angelique.”
“Prince was so impressed with Angelique that she was invited to the US to complete the songs at Paisley Park, which she did.”
Stephen added, “I recall hearing that Prince had at least multitrack reels full of music all unreleased at that time. He was just writing and making music constantly.”
