The early years

At a young age Prince’s parents separated and he had a troubled relationship with his stepfather causing him to run away from home. During a brief period where he once again lived with his father who bought him his first guitar, initiating an enduring interest in composition and performance. Later, Prince moved in with a neighborhood family, the Andersons, and became friends with their son, Andre Anderson (later called Andre Cymone).Prince and André joined Prince’s Cousin Charles Smith in a band called Grand Central other members we’re Morris Day and André’s sister Linda Anderson.

The group later received some musical tutoring from Pepé Willie, a musician married to one of Prince’s older cousins who would later provide both Prince and André with their first recording opportunities as session players for the band 94 East. By their high school years the members of Grand Central had re-invented themselves as Champagne, switching their focus from covers to self-written material. Despite some success as a live act in the Minneapolis area, Champagne would dissolve before any recordings were made.

Prince became a central figure of “Uptown”, a 1970s underground funk scene in Minneapolis (centering around the Uptown neighborhood of Minneapolis) which also spawned Flyte Tyme, Jellybean Johnson, Terry Lewis and Alexander O’Neal. In 1976, he started working on a demo with producer Chris Moon in a Minneapolis studio. He also had the patronage of Owen Husney who Moon introduced him to allowing him to produce an excellent quality demo. Husney started contacting major labels and ran a clever campaign promoting Prince as a star of the future, resulting in a bidding war eventually won by Warner Bros., who offered him a long-term contract.

The rest is truly history