Michael Jackson

After the American Music Awards in January 1985, Lionel Richie and Michael Jackson led a group of over 40 musicians (and also La Toya Jackson) in recording “We Are The World” to raise money for African famine relief under the name USA for Africa. We take star-studded tributes and fundraisers for granted these days, but in terms of sheer wattage and media hype, none of them can hold a candle to USA for Africa. This was a “just stand in the back and look pretty, Harry Belafonte and Smokey Robinson – we don’t have any lines for you to sing” collection of talent.

The biggest pop stars to miss the recording session were Madonna and Prince. I don’t know why Madonna wasn’t there, and I’m not going to bother to look it up. The fact that most people don’t know is a sign that most people don’t care. And if Prince had decided to leave the club at 2:00 AM instead of 3:00 AM that morning, no one would have cared about his absence for long either.

But in the wee hours of the morning, one of Prince’s bodyguards punched a photographer outside a club and wound up in jail, and the optics were bad: Prince partying all night while the rest of the industry was “checking their egos at the door.”

There are many different accounts of the night’s events, but this excerpt from Alan Light’s book quotes several people in Prince’s inner circle and seems to present things fairly. A few of the more incriminating rumors are refuted (some sources reported that Prince was a last-minute no-show; Light makes it clear that Prince never offered to sing), but Prince comes off as tone deaf at best, ignoring his managers Albert Fargnoli and Alan Leeds:

Dude, the eyes are on you, okay? You just cleaned up. The two biggest things on the planet tonight are this recording session and you, and everybody is going to want to know why that’s not one thing. So take your awards and keep your ass in the hotel. You cannot run the clubs the way you usually do, with two bodyguards, chasing girls. Not tonight, not while this is going on.

For a few weeks, Prince was pilloried in the media, from the Los Angeles Times to Saturday Night Live…

I am also the world!
I am also the children!
I am the one who had to bail them out
Now ain’t that giving?

Still, once the smoke cleared, there wasn’t much of a scandal here. Prince himself didn’t punch anybody, and it’s clear that “We Are The World” didn’t need him. The quote from an organizer that made the rounds at the time (“The effort would have been much more marketable with Prince’s participation”) is tough to swallow. There have been few things in history more marketable than “We Are The World.” It was the biggest selling single of the entire decade. It can be argued that Prince raised more money for USA for Africa by contributing an unreleased track (“4 The Tears In Your Eyes”) to the We Are The World album than he could have by singing a dozen words or less on the single. (I know I wouldn’t have bought the album if not for the Prince track.)

Beyond that, it’s clear that Prince didn’t need “We Are The World” either. Today it’s hard to believe that “We Are The World” was the biggest selling single of the 1980s. When you hear “Raspberry Beret” or “Money For Nothing,” it’s easy to imagine that it’s 1985 again. When you hear “We Are The World,” you… wait, you never hear “We Are The World”! Half of the remaining FM stations in this country blast eighties hits all day, but “We Are The World” gets in the mix about as often as “The Curly Shuffle.”

The song raised a lot of money and awareness, and every successful celebrity fundraiser that followed owes a debt to it. But musically, the song has not endured, and it does not rank among the best work of just about anyone on that stage. I would guess that in 2016, most young adults aren’t very familiar with the song. Time hasn’t been kind to the lyrics either; they range from self-absorbed (“We’re saving our own lives!”) to clunky (“It’s time to lend a hand to life”). “As God has shown us, by turning stone to bread” is a nice enough sentiment, although, reached for comment, God simply stated, “No, I didn’t.” (There is no biblical basis for that lyric.)

There are many theories to explain Prince’s absence, ranging from shyness to arrogance, but Wendy Melvoin’s claim that “he thought the song… was horrible” is a believable one. Would Prince’s vocal on the best-selling single of the decade have even warranted a mention in his obituary? Probably not.

The subtitle to the excerpt from Light’s book is “At the apex of his success, Prince made a high-profile decision that damaged his reputation for years.” Manager Bob Cavallo boldly states, “I believe that moment is what made people ambivalent about his greatness” and that it took two decades for Prince to live it down.

Yes, it’s true that Prince would never again experience the white-hot superstardom of Purple Rain. I don’t believe that anyone else has, either. But I don’t think “We Are The World” had anything to do with it. A month before Prince made that “high-profile decision,” he made a conscious decision to float back to earth. He put the finishing touches on Around The World In A Day, an album with the implied subtitle “Thanks, But I’m Done With The White-Hot Superstardom Of Purple Rain.”

To me, the only lasting legacy of Prince’s “We Are The World” scandal is the song “Hello,” and I’ll have more to say about that B-side later in the week.

“I’ve got three acts. I don’t need four. I mean, what would you do in my position?”

“Um… I would fire Dez Dickerson & the Modernaires. I can’t believe we’re even having this discussion. You do realize I wrote every song that these four acts play, right?”

Or at least that’s what I thought The Kid should have told Billy. Prince’s character in Purple Rain was believable as a Troubled Misfit, but as an Underdog just trying to hold on to a nightclub gig?

Sure, Prince lore does feature one classic underdog story. In November of 1981, 90,000 rock fans showed up to the L.A. Coliseum for a show featuring The Rolling Stones, J. Geils Band, George Thorogood, and a tiny unknown black man wearing high heels and a thong singing “Jack U Off.” What could go wrong?

“Jack U Off” was an aggressively heterosexual come on, mind you, although as bassist Brown Mark explains…

When you talk about street lingo, where I come from, guys don’t jack girls off. I don’t think Prince understood that—Prince was in his own world.

If you are guessing that the Los Angeles crowd reacted to Prince singing “I’ll jack you off” by breaking into discussion groups to ponder how sexual slang varies among different regions and cultures, you are mistaken. They didn’t know what to make of Prince to begin with, and “Jack U Off” was the last straw. They chased him off the stage in a torrent of verbal and literal garbage. To Prince’s credit, he showed up again two days later to face the same ordeal.

Prince was taken from us much too soon as it is, but I look at a picture like this…

…and I’m grateful that he wasn’t taken 35 years earlier.

So, The Kid as an underdog might have worked if the antagonists in Purple Rain were racist homophobes, but by the time the movie was shot, “Little Red Corvette” and “1999” were burning up the charts, and Prince was clearly oozing otherworldly talent over every frame of the film. You’re trying to tell me that he can’t cut it at First Avenue, portrayed in the movie as a multiracial, androgynous Wonderland? His days as an underdog were clearly behind him.

Or were they?

On August 3, 1983, Prince and the Revolution were at the top of their game, producing the live tracks that would anchor the Purple Rain album/film during a landmark First Avenue gig. But just 17 days later, before shooting for the movie began, Prince would be humbled in Los Angeles once again, when James Brown called Michael Jackson and then Prince to the stage.

Jackson performs for only 31 seconds, but it’s a transcendent performance nonetheless, an all-time “leave ’em wanting more” move. You could show that 31 seconds to a baby or a Martian and they would know they were looking at a superstar. After setting the bar high, Jackson spends the next 31 seconds pleading with Brown to call Prince up too.

Some may say Prince’s performance got off on the wrong foot when he was carried to the stage on the back of his massive bodyguard, Big Chick Huntsberry. I would disagree. I think it’s a perfect way for the diminutive Prince to make an entrance, and if a director ever wants to make a smaller, personal film about Prince’s world, they could do a lot worse than exploring the relationship between Prince and Big Chick.

But things soon go downhill, as Prince commandeers a (left-handed?) guitar and is unable to accomplish much with it. He salvages the appearance with a solid double “microphone between the legs” move, he preens a bit, and then he takes a bow, leading to perhaps the most relatable moment of his career. Have you ever been mildly embarrassed and tried to exit a party without calling any extra attention to yourself? I certainly remember what that’s like. It feels something like…

“Okay, this isn’t my night, but that wasn’t so bad. The guitar bit flopped, and it kills me to be shown up by Michael Jackson, but who cares… it’s not like anyone with a computer will be able to watch this performance on demand in 30 years. I just need to finish my bow and quietly exit past this sturdy lamppost and I can forget all about this.”

“This is not my night. What kind of lamppost collapses when a hundred-pound man lightly places a hand on it? Actually, why is there a lamppost here in the first place? That’s okay. Be cool. Just help push the lamppost back up, and as long as it doesn’t break…”

“This is not my night.”

This serves as a reminder that not everything came easy to Prince. And while we are all familiar with the many contrasts of Prince’s persona (black/white, male/female, sacred/profane), there is one more dichotomy that stood out to me: the enigmatic Genius who floats on a magic cloud of talent and charisma versus the Human.

With the exception of the Rolling Stones story, all Prince lore serves the Genius theory. He wrote his first song when he was seven. He played all 27 instruments on his first album. He wrote and recorded so much music that there are “thousands” of unreleased songs in The Vault. The idea of Prince as a savant is explored in detail at Daily Grail, with quotes like this one from keyboardist Morris Hayes:

I was just one of those church cats that played music by ear, so at first it was very difficult for me to keep up. We wouldn’t just learn one song, we’d learn a string of songs, and when we’d come back the next day I’d forget some. I remember he pulled me to the side and said, “Are you a genius, Morris?” I said no. “O.K., then write it down. I don’t write it down ‘cause I’m a genius. I’ve got a million of ‘em, and I can remember. But unless you’re a genius, write it down.”

People who encountered Prince often tell stories of him mysteriously appearing or disappearing, a reputation Prince played with when making his Twitter debut in 2013.

I suppose there is one other humanizing story in Prince lore. Wikipedia states that Prince had epilepsy as a child. I think we can all relate to this, because illness doesn’t care how gifted you are…

My mother told me one day I walked in to her and said, “Mom, I’m not going to be sick anymore,” and she said, “Why?” and I said, “Because an angel told me so.”

Oh. Never mind.

In early 2004, Prince opened the Grammys with Beyoncé, was inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame (before destroying it with one of the greatest guitar solos ever), and launched his Musicology tour. From that point on, every time I saw Prince perform in person or on screen, his brilliance was seemingly effortless. “I’m working up a black sweat!” he sang in 2005, but it never looked like he was working or sweating. It was like Michael Jackson’s 31 seconds in 1983, except for 12 consecutive years. And it’s why I thought he might live forever.

Ironically, when he was at his peak in the eighties, he usually did appear to be a fallible human working up a black sweat. He was more like the other man on that 1983 stage, the “hardest working man in show business.” His most successful tours financially (Purple Rain) and critically (Lovesexy) were scripted affairs that required a lot from Prince (multiple instruments, a wild range of vocal styles, costume changes, and a fair amount of acting), but left little space for him to improvise and let his genius flow naturally. If you saw a two-hour show in 1985, you might think, “That was amazing; he left everything he had on that stage.” If you saw a three-hour show in 2011, you might think, “That was amazing; I bet he could have played for another three hours.”

Throughout his career, I would sometimes use his physical appearance as shorthand for whether we were looking at the Human or the Genius. If he looked constrained by too much lace or too many accessories, he was struggling with something (his record company? stardom? God?). If he looked comfortable, he was invincible on stage.

This action figure wrapped in eight layers of lace at the 1985 Grammys?

He was working something out, and while his performance of “Baby I’m A Star” was fabulous, it was Human. He left a puddle of sweat on that stage. An extra layer of lace knocked over the microphone stand…

…and then Prince clocked himself with the microphone in his haste to pick it up. (What is it about L.A.?)

He somehow managed to belt out the first lyric of the song (“Hey!”) at the exact moment that the microphone tried to kill him, and he never looked back. It was an admirably professional moment, and the performance was ultimately brilliant. But it was human.

A year later, this guy was comfortable and confident, and his performances were unbridled orgies of natural ability.

prince-parade-tour — Prince has been gone for three months now, and this photo is 30 years old. But regardless, he just stole your girl.

The guy on the cover of the Lovesexy tour book was a troubled human…

…but the guy at the Super Bowl fluttered into Dolphin Stadium on the wings of doves and exceedingly funky angels.

This is reductive bullshit, of course. The times when we were able to see Prince’s flop sweat, he was still a once-in-a-lifetime talent. And when the genius seemed to be flowing through him with ease, he was still working his ass off. He could knock things over in his pajamas, or dazzle when he was BeDazzled. He would do his best to look cool when he was struggling, and when he was in the zone, he might draw attention to imperfections. I saw him do that in Oakland just weeks before his death, making an exaggerated “that’s not quite right” face as he repeated the last measures of “Under The Cherry Moon” on the piano three or four times. (They all sounded perfect to me, for what it’s worth.)

Bruce Springsteen is a much more prolific songwriter than people give him credit for (he’s got his own vault of unreleased material), and he was considered somewhat of a guitar prodigy as a teenager. But if you were to ask his fans to describe him in one word, few would say “talented.” His relationship with his fans is based on letting them see him sweat.

As a Springsteen fan, you would think I would appreciate seeing Prince sweat as well. But while I am certain that the internal conflicts behind his more human performances also fueled some of his greatest records, I must admit that I grew quite attached to the Genius on stage. I saw this infallible man perform eight times over the past dozen years and it was breathtaking every time.

What about you? Do you ever consider the Human and the Genius separately, or do you always see the complete picture? Were your favorite Prince performances sweaty or sublime?

Either way, I don’t care how many lampposts The Kid knocks over… Billy should just fire Dez and move on, no?

Tag: Michael Jackson

I Am Also The World!

Working Up A Black Sweat