Forever in My Life: The Final Post

At the Chanhassen Inn before the Piano & a Microphone Gala at Paisley Park

Prince Rogers Nelson changed my life.

Although I did not become a fan until I was a teenager, his music had always been in the background of my everyday life: I heard his music on the radio, Purple Rain was often on TV and I used to go through my mother’s record collection and look at her 12” Purple Rain single on vinyl (that was actually purple and I later had it made into a purse). But, it wasn’t until my best friend, Kamika Wallace, bought the Purple Rain Soundtrack from Columbia House CD club (when you could get 12 CDs for $0.01). We played the shit out of that CD, especially “The Beautiful Ones,” “Computer Blue”,” Darling Nikki” and, of course, “Purple Rain.” But, I went a step further and bought The Hits/The B-Sides and that changed everything.The first full-length album that I bought after that was Prince (1979) and from there I was hooked. Little did I know that Prince's songs would take me on an 18-year musical odyssey that suddenly came to a halt when he died on April 21.

The Stats

Fan since: 1998

Favorite Song: Moonbeam Levels

Favorite Album: The Gold Experience

Least Favorite Song: Sometimes it Snows in April. I always thought that song was super depressing…now I know why.

Least Favorite Album: Batman Soundtrack…I tried though.

Favorite Lyric: “Damned if I don’t hit that, wait right there I’ll be right back.”

What I’ll miss the most: no more live shows.

The Beginning

As corny as it might sound, listening to Prince’s music made me feel like it was okay to be different. I’ve always been a person who marched to my own drummer and was always super juiced about stuff that most people found boring. My interests ran the gamut from classic movies (including silent ones), old TV sitcoms (shout out to "Bosom Buddies" and "The Facts of Life") and old show business biographies. I guess I was trying really hard to stand out, which is difficult when you attend a performing arts high school, but I did. Yet, Prince’s music spoke to me; it connected with something deep down in my soul.  His lyrics communicated my individuality to others in a way that I could not. By announcing myself a Prince aficionado (not a fan, mind you, as I researched The Purple One and his music like I was trying to earn a degree), I let the world know that I was daring not to downgrade myself to the musical tastes of my peers. You would never hear Jennifer Lopez, Britney Spears, The Backstreet Boys, Sisqo, DMX or anyone of that ilk in my Discman.

This might seem like a no brainer now, but I became a Prince fan when I was 15, in 1998, and Prince was not really considered universally cool at that time. Don’t get me wrong, people respected his talent and musicianship, but I think there were many who felt his time had passed. Besides, a lot of people felt it was hard to take a man seriously who legally changed his name to an unpronounceable symbol. But, what did they know? I was fiercely loyal to this man who had touched me—to the point of driving my friends and family crazy. I did find one kindred spirit at school, Donald, whom I had known in middle school. He was kind of a loner, but he genuinely liked Prince just as much as I did. I remember he gave me a birthday card where he wrote out the lyrics to Nothing Compares 2 U and he even gave me his mom’s old Controversy poster, (the one where Prince is in the shower in his bikini underwear with a crucifix in the background) which I still have to this day. I tried to integrate Prince’s music into every aspect of my life: I did a presentation on The Time in my music survey class, I tried desperately to get someone to decorate my high school graduation  gown so it said “Lovesexy” down the right sleeve (and failed) and I used Prince lyrics as my high school yearbook quote. Later, there were times when I had to give Prince’s music a “break” and I gravitated toward other artists, especially during my first years of college, but Prince was always lurking in the background.

The Memories

While I was catching the bus to and from the University of Washington Thursday, I could only smile to myself as random memories kept popping into my head: I laughed when I thought about my friend who informed me that I blew out his car speakers when he let me play the Controversy album when we went out; I remembered how sad I was when my aunt and I went to visit Paisley Park during Prince: A Celebration in 2000 and we could not get inside because all the day tickets were sold out (and I almost started crying); I cringed when I remembered how I overdrew my bank account to buy my friend and I tickets to an aftershow that Prince did in Seattle in 2011…and ended up getting fired from my job two weeks later. I remember that I flew from Illinois to Minneapolis for the so-called "Purple Olympics" in July 2007, where Prince played three concerts in one day. Before I left, I told my editor at the Daily Herald, Mike Smith, that I was going and he spent a few minutes with me brainstorming on a way for me to cover the concert for the paper. Of course, we could not come up with a legit reason for a Suburban Chicago paper to cover a Prince concert in Minnesota...but we tried.

The Influences

Prince changed the way I listened to music; once I became a Prince fan, I became an album listener. When I started liking him, I was buying most of his catalogue at used music store--on tape mind you--and I was able to get albums for very cheap. On top of that, the bus ride to school was an hour and nobody was trying to sit on MUNI fast forwarding and rewinding a tape, so I just ended up listing to entire albums. Granted, there were still some songs that I skipped (sorry "Sometimes it Snows in April" and "When We’re Dancing Close and Slow" fans), but I listened to the albums all the way through at least once. From then on, I decided that if I was going to buy any album, especially those expensive CDs, there better be some quality music on at least 80 percent of the album.

Prince also influenced the type of music I listened to: I became more partial to singer/songwriter/producers. I also started to lean more toward R&B that had some rock elements to it; I became avid fans of Teena Marie, Babyface/The Deele, Klymaxx/Bernadette Cooper, DeBarge (who don’t get enough credit as talented songwriters), Switch (same as the former), Jesse Johnson and more recently Billy Joel, Duran Duran and Barry Manilow. I sought the music of powerhouse singers and entertainers like Barbra Streisand, Donna Summer and Michael Jackson/The Jacksons/Jermaine Jackson. This is not to mention all the associated artists albums and bootlegs that I purchased/borrowed/downloaded over the years. I would go as far to say that Prince made me enthusiastic about listening to music in general; and I didn’t just listen to it, I immersed myself in it, analyzed it, digested it and applied it to every emotional aspect of my life. The amount of song lyrics I have stored in my head today scares even me.

Stage at 2013 Billboard Music Awards

The Blog

 I like to say that Marcus Scott brought me out of retirement to start this blog. When he called me in 2012, I had not written anything professionally in more than three years and I was working in the hospitality industry. The Great Recession had shot down my dreams of being an entertainment reporter and I was still a little bitter that my life had not turned out the way I wanted. Marcus said he was starting a new Prince group, Beautiful Nights, that would have a presence on Facebook and throw Prince parties in the Chicago area. He wanted it to have an accompanying blog and he wanted me to be the exclusive writer. He told me that I had to do this and he thought of me after coming across some newspaper clips I had randomly mailed him a few years before; to sweeten the deal, he told me that he would even be able to hook me up with an interview with The Twinz (Maya and Nandy McClean, Prince’s former backup singers/dancers). I figured I did not have anything to lose so I said yes.  Besides, how do you turn down someone who has that much faith in you? I had limited knowledge about blogging and digital media, but I just had to fake it until I could make it.

My first interview actually ended up being with him, talking about his past as a Prince impersonator and the Beautiful Nights group. The page views came in a trickle at first—even the later interview with The Twinz was not really widely read. Things picked up when I posted a video interview with Seattle-based artist Troy Gua (who created Le Petit Prince), but it was not until I started sharing my interviews on Prince.org (shout out) that I started getting a lot more traffic. Things only picked up from there, with the popular interviews garnering several thousand page views. I got to the chance to interview (and be interviewed by) the infamous C.J. and she also featured me in her Minneapolis Star Tribune column twice. I remember the thrill I felt when talking to Susannah Melvoin on the telephone and her suggesting that we get together for lunch to do the interview; that was before she realized I lived in Seattle and she lived in California. I also enjoyed doing simpler stories where I talked to avid fans: like the four-part "My Love is Forever" series, where I collected anecdotes from people who had been Prince fans since he released his first album in 1978; and talking to Jesse Jenkins, a young fan who was handpicked by Prince to premiere the single “Live Out Loud” and was later personally invited by Prince to attend his SXSW performance and meet him after the show. I remember St. Paul Peterson and Jill Jones being hilarious and Cat Glover being so open and full of energy. My favorite interview, however, was the one I did with T.C. Ellis and getting to hear about the High School for Recording Arts, which he founded in St. Paul. Another thing that was awe inspiring was the fact that there were other Prince fans who wanted me to succeed and volunteered to help me. I would be remiss if I did not mention-- in addition to Marcus-- Tamiko Umoren, Duane Tudahl, Morris Mills and Erica Thompson—who all helped me procure interviews with people who once worked with Prince.

I stopped writing on this blog about a year and a half ago when I went back to school.  It was not because I didn’t love doing it anymore, but trying to procure, schedule and do the interviews (as well as transcribing the audio and actually writing the stories) just became too time consuming. In fact,  the last interview I posted with Howard Bloom in 2014 took me more than a month to complete. In the interim I have received a second Bachelor’s Degree and I am now working on a Master’s Degree. But, I regularly check the stats on the page, clicking through old stories and wondering what might have been if I had been able to continue on. When Prince passed away, however, I finally realized how pointless it is to reflect on what might have been when I could clearly see what I had actually accomplished: I convinced my friend, Elke Hautala, to take a road trip to Boise, ID to do a video interview with Gayle Chapman, which in turn led to us organizing a concert for her in Seattle six months later. I also got to write review when Prince's Live Out Loud Tour with 3^rd Eye Girl came to Seattle and I was in the house at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas when he was honored at the Billboard Music Awards. Furthermore, I was told by a good source that Prince actually read one of the stories on my blog. To think that this man, whose poster I use to stare at in my bedroom as a teenager and dream about meeting one day, was actually aware of something that I had done was incredible. I’m not sure if it is true or not, but it’s a nice thought. I have been coming back to the Web site regularly the past couple of days, as I was preparing this story. It went from 75 page views on Wednesday to more than 4,400 views Thursday. It is interesting to see that people are actually reading it again, but I would trade all those views if it would bring Prince back.

 The Music

It’s funny how certain songs can take you back to a specific moment in time: Every time I hear "Moonbeam Levels," I’m back in my old car in Sonora, CA and still a newspaper reporter driving from the office to an interview for some story or other (like when I covered the theatrical group at a state prison in Jamestown, CA or was it that thrilling story I wrote about the many uses for zucchini?); when I hear “The Most Beautiful Girl in the World,” I think about the morning after I slept with this guy I used to really like and he sang this song to me—and in case you were wondering, the falsetto was on point; the entire Planet Earth album transports me right back to the Western Suburbs of Chicago, particularly St. Charles, IL. It was my first time away from home and I had just moved there to do an internship at the now defunct Kane County Bureau of the Daily Herald. I remember driving to the Super Target near the office when that bad boy opened at 7 a.m., so I could be one of the first people to have the album when it was released.

I still remember when Kamika and I went to massive Amoeba Records in San Francisco on a Prince album dig and I found The Black Album on tape. We were still rocking our Walkmans then, but top of the line ones that actually had rewind buttons on them. We had this thing where we would each listen to a Prince album on the way home and report back to each other what the jams were on it. She picked the Black Album and, to this day, every time I listen to the “Bob George,” I can picture her on the bus, nodding her head, and pausing the tape to tell me after the song was over that this joint was the “new Erotic City” (what she really meant was that the song was hella funky). She turned me on to some gems: “Bambi,” “Eye Hate U” and she even tried to get me to like “Into the Light” from the often-maligned Chaos and Disorder album (but it took another ten or so years for that to happen). When I hear “Betcha By Golly Wow” or “Purple Rain,” I remember that we used to carry around an analog tape recorder and we used to make copies of us singing Prince songs with her throwing in spontaneous ad-libs—the best being on “Purple Rain” where she said “Never wanted to be your weekend lover, I only wanted to be your lover during the week.” When I hear “Sexy MF,” I remember the time one of my relatives let me play my Hits Volume II CD while they were setting up at a family barbecue and when the chorus of the song came on my cousin got incensed and demanded that I turn it off because of the cursing (despite the fact that the song "Head" had just finished playing not long before and no one said a word). Lastly, I remember that the very first CD I played in the studio apartment I live in now was LotusFlow3r and how proud I felt at that moment that I finally had my own place in Downtown Seattle.

The Gifts

             Over the years I have received some cherished Prince-related gifts from friends:
The first one is a framed charcoal drawing of Prince that a friend of mine drew for me andwas           a gift on my 29^th birthday. What really made it so cool was that he gave it to me right before               we went to go see a Prince concert at the Tacoma Dome in December 2011.
      
The summer I did my internship at the Daily Herald in 2007 was the same year that the Chicago Bears went to the Super Bowl and Prince did the halftime show. The paper, of course, sent writers and photographers down to Miami. My going away present at the end of my stint there was two framed photographs that Rick, the bureau photo editor, had taken himself during the halftime show. One was Prince by himself and the other was him with The Twinz.
  
My grandmother's late second husband, Errol, worked as a banquet waiter in some of San Francisco's best hotels for many years. In the early 1990s, when he was working at the Clift Hotel, Prince came to town on a tour. When I was in high school (around 1998), at the height of my Prince madness, he gave me this very small jar of honey that had a black label with gold letters that said: “Prince, Scandalous Sex Suite, featuring Kim Basinger.” Errol later told me that someone working with Prince had given it to him. He had kept it on his dresser all that time until he gave it to me. I had it on my dresser from that moment all the way through college, when I left home to accept the internship. I left that jar of honey behind and have not seen it since. In my Mother’s haste to clean out my old room-- so my younger brother could move in-- a LOT of things came up missing and that was one of them. When I came home three months later to get my things, I could not find it. I asked her about it and she acted like she had no clue what I was talking about. I eventually forgave her and moved on, but, I am getting a small twinge of sadness just writing about it now.
    
When I was in high school, my friend and classmate, Salvador Santana gave me a purple hand towel emblazoned with gold symbols; he said that his father, Carlos, had gotten it directly from Prince. I loved this towel and it has hung on the wall in every apartment I have lived in since then. I just recently bought a frame for it, as I did not think it was getting the reverence it deserved.

Marcus Scott and I at a Morris Day and the Time concert

The Friends

There are so many people I would not have met, but for being Prince fan. There are way too many to name, but these are some of the most important people:

• I met Natasha White-Smallwood in 1999, when I was 17 years old and we were both working at Old Navy in San Francisco. She saw me in the break room one afternoon reading Dance Music Sex Romance: The First Decade by Per Nilsen. She rushed over to me and wanted to know where I bought the book. We started talking about Prince and the rest is history; she has become one of my best friends over the last 17 years and the first person I called when I found out about Prince.
• I met Marcus Scott at a party thrown by Mone Baker in 2007 in Chicago. This is when I was living in Aurora, IL and working at the Daily Herald. I got invited to the party because a mutual friend who was living in California was connected to the Chicago Prince Crew that attended the now-defunct monthly Prince parties that were held at Club Berlin. I stayed in touch with Marcus over the years—on and off—which inevitably lead up to him pitching the blog idea to me. Mone is the one who actually invited me to move up to Seattle from San Francisco and I stayed with her until I got on my feet. Needless to say, that move changed the course of my life. 
• I also got to spend some casual time with some of the people I interviewed and talk to them about topics other than their work with Prince. I spent an entire weekend with Gayle Chapman, when she came to Seattle for the concert Elke and I organized for her. I also got to be photographed by the fabulous Steve Parke when I took a trip to Baltimore. They were both very wonderful experiences. 

The concerts

I saw Prince in concert 17 times-- the first time at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis when I was 17 years old. We just got barely got there, as the concert tickets went on sale in Central Time and my stupid alarm did not go off, resulting me waking up 30 minutes late. I got my aunt and I two tickets in the very last row (I used to always say that if we had been any further back we would have been outside). But, we were there. My favorite concert experience took place when I made the trek to the Rio in Las Vegas when Prince was doing the 3121 residency at the hotel. I went four times, the first time with my ex-boyfriend, whom I had to beg to go with me for my birthday; but, the second time I went alone and I since it was a GA show, I got there six hours early to make sure I got a good spot.

I ended up right in front of the stage! I was very enthusiastic and of course I knew the words to all the songs. Let me just say that there was no moment more thrilling than when, during the show, Prince reached down and grabbed both my hands, sort of dancing with me from the stage. I’m pretty sure I momentarily lost all sense of reason because the next thing I knew I had climbed onstage. Luckily, he did not have security to come tackle me or have me ejected from the venue, so I guess it was okay; and for two or three magical minutes it was just me and Prince dancing together onstage. I’m sure it was a curious sight—me at 6’2” and Prince nearly a foot shorter--doing the Bump. But, being in that close proximity to Prince is surely a moment that I will never forget.

Immediately after that concert he did an aftershow at the 3121 Jazz Cuisine, a fine dining restaurant that was part of the 3121 experience. Since it was January, pretty much everyone was able to get into the “Jazz Room” an intimate part of the restaurant that only seated about 50 people. I remember that while his band played a set, he came out to the seated area and handed out a Jehovah’s Witness publication (I think it may have been Awake! Magazine, but I’m not sure). It was so interesting to see Prince proselytizing (or witnessing) at this own show. Then about an hour later, he was fronting the band and played a funky set for us, right there in that small room. It was a surreal experience and, honestly, I never told anyone about it, because I was not sure if people would believe me. I went to another concert the very next night and I was in the front again, but I stood at a different spot near the stage. Yet, at one point during the show, he came over to where I was, playing the guitar, smiled and gave me “the nod.” I remember being so happy that he actually remembered me. I saw at least ten more concerts after that, but none of them compared to the feelings I had from those two that weekend.

The Last Time

I did get to see Prince one last time at the Piano & a Microphone Gala Event at Paisley Park in January. I almost didn’t go, as it was only announced a few weeks beforehand and I had just plunked down an ungodly sum of money on a trip to New Orleans and a Platinum Ticket for a meet and greet with Barry Manilow and front row seats at his show. But, at the end of last year, I had decided that going to Paisley Park was on my bucket list and, after that debacle in 2000, I was definitely going to make it happen in 2016. When the show was announced, I inquired to see if my co-worker would switch her days off with me and she said she would, no problem. I booked the hotel and the flight, but a week later, I got cold feet, worried that I was spending way too much money, and cancelled them. However, when a video released online showing how they were remodeling Paisley Park for the big event, I had a charge of heart, fearful that I would be missing something special. So, I rebooked the hotel and flight (thank God for Southwest Airlines) and, when the tickets went on sale I was able to get one with ease, which as my fellow die-hard Prince fans know was not always the case, so I knew this trip was meant to be.

The trip to Minnesota was a bit stressful, but once I got there, I knew I made the right decision. Even up to that night I was still a little anxious, even more so with the confusion trying to get into Paisley Park for the second show at 10 p.m. Once I got inside, most of the people in VIP had already been there for the first show, so they had claimed their spots. The floor immediately in front of the stage was strewn with pillows, but there was no open spot for me to sit down. Finally, I just decided that I would sit on the floor. There was kind British gentleman sitting on a pillow next to the spot I had chosen and moved over a bit to give me room, inviting me to sit down.

I sat in front of the edge of stage right, but since Prince was playing a grand piano and not moving about the stage, it was hard to see him unless I was standing up. But, it didn’t matter. It was only important that I was able to hear him. It was wonderful to hear him play “The Ladder,” the beautifully spiritual ballad that I never thought I would hear live. I just took advantage of the moment, sitting in the dark on the floor—by this time I had a pillow—with no lighting except from the back screen and a few lit candles on the stage. I just closed my eyes and let myself be in the moment, quietly singing the lyrics from a long-ago Prince favorite to myself. Despite the fact that I was at a concert, I felt myself transported back in time, laying in my bed in the dark, listening to the Around the World in a Day album with one lit candle. It was surreal. But, Prince also had a way of mixing it up, so he alternately had us stand up while he jammed on "Kiss" and "I Wanna Be Your Lover." Granted, I did miss some of the most talked-about moments of the evening (like when he became overcome with emotion at one point in the evening and briefly left the stage) because of where I was sitting. But, I was just so happy to be in the house, after being turned away years earlier, that it didn’t matter. The night flew by so fast and I was a bit disappointed that he didn’t do an encore, but once I got back to the hotel, at nearly 2 a.m., I remembered that I was getting old and I had to fly back to Seattle the following day and work the graveyard shift once I got back home. So, although I did want more, I was grateful that Prince made it possible for me to get a full night’s sleep. I woke up glowing and got excited at that the thought that he might bring this tour on the road so I could see it again. There was no way I could have known that was the last time I was ever going to see him. I can only hope that one day I will inspire others as much as Prince inspired me.

Stay Beautiful, always, Kristi

My Love is Forever (Part II): Linda Steele

  


   Dyes Got the Answers 2 Ur ?s is celebrating 35 years since the release of Prince's first studio album “For You,” with a series where we interview readers who have been fans from the very beginning.

  It all began when Warner Brothers Records released “For You,” on April 7, 1978, with the album's first single, “Soft and Wet” being released approximately two months later.

  Linda Steele, of Augusta, Georgia became a fan in 1978 when she was 16-years old. She did a telephone interview in January with our blog where she discussed her Prince-related artwork, meeting several protegees and close encounters of the Prince kind:

  "We had no idea that he would be become such a megastar like The Rolling Stones, like The Beatles, like Michael Jackson..."

  
  ?: Tell me a little bit about yourself.

  LS: I'm a hair stylist and I've been married for 12 years. I'm originally from South Carolina and I have a cat named Silver Bells. I am an artist and I do oils, graphite, watercolors and acrylics.

  ?: How did you discover Prince? Tell me about the first time you heard him sing or saw him. How did it make you feel?

  LS: The first time I heard Prince was in 1978 (and) I was 16 years old. My sister purchased the For You album, which had some beautiful songs on it. The first time (I) laid eyes on him, (I) thought he was one of the members of The Sylvers; he looked just like Edmond Sylvers. But, Prince was a new guy just coming out. He was just phenomenal. He was just a good-looking guy.

  When he sang "Soft and Wet" and "In Love," it was beautiful...We had no idea that he would be become such a megastar like The Rolling Stones, like The Beatles, like Michael Jackson...He was wild, he a wild child (and) he was getting it...

  ?: Do you have any Prince-related stories that you would like to share?

  LS: Rick James was going to be coming to South Carolina (for the "The Fire It Up" Tour, where Prince was the opening act). That was the first time that I ever laid eyes on him (in person) and (when) he came out he had on bikini underwear. He had nothing but his drawers on, baby! I mean, boy, he rocked that concert. The heels were not as high then as I saw him wearing in the future.

  (In 1981, during the first leg of the Controversy Tour) I remember doing a painting of Prince.... At that time, it wasn't hard to get to celebrities. He was big, but, he wasn't gigantic. By the time I took the oil (paintings) backstage, the security guard told me I had already missed him... I went to the hotel (where the band was staying). I met Jimmy Jam (who was then a member of The Time) and people were asking for his autograph. I saw Brown Mark coming through (the lobby) and I stopped him and I asked him if he would give (a painting) to Prince. He complimented me on my paintings and pointed to one and said "this one looks just like Prince."

Terry Lewis, courtesy of Linda Steele

   (In 1982, during the second leg of the Controversy Tour) I said "I'm gonna go to the hotel lobby and wait this time." Before the concert (I saw) Terry Lewis (who was then a member of The Time) going to the hotel restaurant. He stopped and said "Why are you sitting here? I am going to get something to eat, would you like to join me?" But, I was too embarrassed to say that I was sitting there waiting to see Prince. He asked me more than once and I just said I was fine. I could kick myself now! I can sing a few bars... (and) I could have been in the mix!

  (Later), before the concert, I saw Prince. He had on leopard boots, and I want to say he had on a leopard jacket, with this girl I had never seen before. It was cold weather, but, the girl didn't have any shoes on her feet... I was sitting there with a magazine and when I saw them up close, walking and talking, I couldn't say anything. I noticed that Prince was very, very snow white. He had very porcelain skin and thick black hair. Dez (Dickerson) was behind them. I didn't say anything, it just happened so quickly. I'll tell you who I did get an autograph from and a picture with: Roger Troutman (of Zapp), who was also on that tour.

  I went back to the hotel (after the concert) and I saw Prince again. This time, I went up and (lightly) grabbed his arm and said "can I get a picture?" He stepped to the side like he was going to take the picture. Then, this lady (who was with him), that may have been part of the road tour, said "no, no, you go on. That was cute what you did." I think she may have saw me sitting in the lobby.

  In 1983, (during the Triple Threat Tour), I went to sit in the hotel lobby where Prince was staying. When I sat down, Jill Jones sat down beside me. I asked her if she was going to the concert... I already knew who she was, but, I just pretended like I didn't (know). She saw my pictures. She said she would see him that night and would give him (one of the) pictures. I asked her how she liked them and she said "they're okay." But,  she was very nice.

  Later, my brother was talking to a woman who said she was Prince's hairstylist in the lobby. She said she would see him and she would also give him one of the pictures. They were getting ready to load up on the tour bus.

Bobby Z, courtesy of Linda Steele

  We (also) went upstairs to the floor (where The Time was staying). I saw Morris Day and I gave him (another) one of my pictures -- which was a drawing of The Time's first album cover-- and he said "we're gonna hang it on the bus, Linda." I also saw Dr. Fink. We got into the elevator (to go back to the lobby) with The Time. They went outside to get on the (tour) bus. That's when I saw Bobby Z and I took a picture of him leaving to get on the bus.

  Today, he (Prince) wouldn't really come to this area anymore. (Back then) he was starting to be a big star, but, some people still hadn't heard of him. When "Purple Rain" came out, it was too late to try and talk to him. By then, he (had) exploded. I would write him letters and then I would send drawings and I would get postcards back.

  Then,  (years later) in an issue of NPG Magazine, I saw my photograph and you could see my drawing in the background with was other stuff printed on top of it.

  ?: How many times have you seen Prince in concert? Where was the last concert you attended?

  LS: The last time I saw Prince was the year before last (2011) in Columbia, SC. I saw one lady that was about 70 years old-- with a walker-- there. There were older people, little children and (people of) all nationalities. Just thinking back to 1978, (it's hard to believe) that he became that person. It's hard to stay on top... He is a legend, you hear me? He doesn't have to make any more songs, because he has so many hits.

Linda Steele's photo published in NPG Magazine.

?: What is your favorite Prince song and album? What is your least favorite?

  LS: "For You" is my favorite song. My least favorite song is "Sister." My least favorite album is Controversy. I liked the songs on the album, (it) had a lot of nice dance hits. (But), Controversy was more about him wanting to speak about himself. He didn't want to do interviews, so, he did it through songs; he did it through Controversy.

  ?: Why do you think you're still a Prince fan after nearly 35 years?

  LS: Prince was always sexy. Prince always had this swag about him and the ladies love him. I would still love to meet him, shake his hand and ask him "where are those drawings?" When he first came out, he was so quiet. He was just different. You really didn't know much about Prince and you'll really never know... Prince is also known to play all the instruments. He can do it all ... He'll always be great.

?: Who is your favorite Prince protegee or associated act? Why?

Cover of NPG Magazine featuring Linda Steele's photo

  LS: I would say Vanity, she had some good movies and she was pretty talented. (It was) a good race between her and Sheila E. I liked her voice and she was a pretty good actress, (but), I'm not saying Grammy or Oscar (award winning). She has been through a lot and she gave her life to God...I really like Vanity. I think Vanity has a lot of heart.

  ?: What's your favorite Prince music video?

  LS: I like "Thieves in The Temple." I like to see him see him sing and dance in that. It brought me back to his old days.

  ?: Are there things that Prince has done that, as a fan, you did not understand?

  LS: I never liked the fact that he never really gave his fans much time. He was always very secretive.

  I would say that some women complained that he only liked light-skinned women. I don't think that was true, I think everybody has a right to (like) who they like. I think he liked women that looked like Apollonia, Vanity and Mayte. That was his style. I remember one woman that wrote an article saying that her daughter had even noticed that. But, that's not my business...

  Prince has changed, he has come around somewhat. There comes a time where you have to relate to people, (when you're) in the spotlight...He just wouldn't give enough to the fans. I heard (in the past) there was one lady who went to get his autograph and he wouldn't even look up at her. I'm not trying to bash him. I love Prince (and) people are always going to put (him) in a box. It can't stop his talent and he is blessed...

  . I believe he is a very kind person. I believe he is very loving, but, very misunderstood. There are several kings, but, only one Prince.

  ?: How would you say that being a Prince fan has influenced your everyday life?

Courtesy of Linda Steele

  LS: It made me be a "go-getter" for my art. He played a big part in my artwork, because it was something (I could) show him. For a while I had stopped, but, then I went back. (NPG Magazine) putting my picture in the magazine made me feel good about my art. It made be a "go-getter" in life.

  ?: How do your family and friends feel about your love for Prince?

  LS: They respect it. (My brother) knows how long I have been a Prince fan. (The last time I saw Prince) he brought my (concert) ticket, drove from Atlanta to Augusta, Georgia and drove us to Columbia, SC. We went there and had a great time.

  ?: What are you looking forward to as a Prince fan in 2013?

  LS:  I hear that he is coming up with something different in 2013. I would like to see him come back to Columbia, SC or Augusta, Georgia and maybe make a painting of him and give it to him myself. I doubt that, but, there's always hope.

 ?: What would you say to fans who may have recently discovered Prince?

  LS: That his music still has a better message (than most music today). They can expect good music from him...you can get so much from his music. I think young people could learn how to stick with instruments, produce better music and stay in the game like Prince... (They can learn to) do right by music, keep music alive and not just throw music out...

Stay beautiful, Kristi

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Lead photo: Linda Steele.

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The Question of U: Jill Jones Talks 2 Beautiful Nights

   

  When it comes to questions about her life and career, Jill Jones is not afraid to say what's on her mind.

  Jones met Prince in 1980, on the Dirty Mind Tour, when she was doing backing vocals for R&B legend Teena Marie, who was the opening act. She was already honing her chops and is listed as co-writer on two Teena Marie songs “Young Girl in Love” from the 1980 album Lady T and “The Ballad of Cradle Rob and Me” from It Must Be Magic, released in 1981.

  She later moved to Minneapolis around 1982 and worked with Prince in various capacities for more than 10 years. She eventually signed a contract with Prince's Paisley Park Record label and released a self-titled album in 1987. However, the release was not the success she had hoped for, with the album and all three singles failing to chart on either the U.S. Billboard Pop or R&B Charts.

  Jones and Prince started work on a second untitled Paisley Park album in the early 1990s, and three tracks were recorded:“My Baby Knows How to Love Me,” “Flesh and Blood” and “Boom Boom,” with a music video being shot for the last song. However, differences of opinion led to the plans for the second album being abandoned and Jones moved to New York to quietly let her contract with the record label expire in 1993.

  For many Prince fans she has left an inescapable legacy: her iconic voice can be heard on Prince songs such as “1999,” “Pop Life” and “Hello,” among many others; she was featured in two movies starring Prince, “Purple Rain” in 1984 and “Graffiti Bridge” in 1990 and she was memorably showcased in Prince's breakthrough video for  the single“1999” – wearing just lingerie and a captain's hat.

  She also did vocal work, sometimes uncredited, for associated artists albums' such as Apollonia 6, Vanity 6, Mazarati and more. It has also been said that she inspired Prince's “She's Always in My Hair,” which is the b-side of “Raspberry Beret,” one of his biggest hits.

  In addition, she has worked with other artists including Ryuchi Sakamoto, and Nile Rogers and Bernard Edwards, of Chic. She released her second album Two in 2000 and more recently in 2009, she released the dance music single “Living for the Weekend”.

  Jones recently agreed to speak with K Nicola Dyes for “Dyes Got the Answers 2 Ur ?s” by telephone in a free-form interview to reflect on her life and career in her own words:

  My childhood...half of my childhood was spent in Ohio where I lived with my grandparents. The other half my childhood was spent in LA, where I went to live with my mother and stepfather...

  My teenage years were surrounded by the music industry. My mom was with the Motown family. My stepfather was Fuller Gordy (brother of Motown Records Founder Berry Gordy). I had everybody's albums... I did not want for music in the house. Everybody was stimulating and creative...not really eating dinner at 6 o'clock so much.

  Teena Marie was the sister I never had. My mother was her manager and she lived in our house. She took me everywhere. We drove up the (California) coast. She took me to school. I hung out with her and her friends. She was very supportive of my craft and music. (She taught me to) get my own style. I could imitate Barbra Streisand perfectly. She taught me about songwriting. We would go up to the house and see Smokey (Robinson) and Marvin (Gaye). (It was) a one-of-a-kind lifestyle, especially coming from Ohio.

  Songwriting is the escape. The place where you can vent. The place where you can say anything you want, (that) you can't say in real life. You can work things out. Sometimes I just want to pay tribute to certain things and certain people. I've since taken up writing as well and I find that to be the same thing. Having things fictionalized a little bit helps.

  It all changed when I moved to California, because I originally wanted to get into law...the practical side of me always fancied being an attorney, because we had a family friend who was an attorney. When I came out here it brought out the creative side, it also brought out the competitive side, because I attended Beverly Hills High School. It really changed after touring with Teena, working with Rick James and touring with all those people.

  Rick James could be very sweet. He was very intelligent. Based upon the fact that he knew me when I was a teenager, he was always pushing education, always asking me why I wasn't in school. I would bring my friends to hang out at his house when I was supposed to be in school... My stepsister Iris Gordy was pretty instrumental in putting together his first album. Rick was a bigger-than-life person and he enjoyed being that way; that was his personality. After I started working with Prince, he would always take the piss out of me when he saw me...

  I met Prince on tour with Teena, on the Dirty Mind Tour. I think it was in Florida... We had left Rick (James') Tour and I was singing backing vocals for (Teena Marie).

  Life on the road... Oh, I love it! I love being in a different place everyday. I (didn't) have to clean, I barely packed. I didn't have a problem with being on the road.

Jill Jones on coming of age: I definitely got over any kind of hang ups. I'm not (going to be) rolling around with a lot of wrinkles on my face doing threesomes... I remember that being on tour, the old guys who would try to pick you up. And I'd be like “ yuck, he's 32!” and (my) mother is saying things like, “you know he has a jet.”



Jill Jones and Lisa Coleman in the music video for "1999"

  I learned so much... I don't know, I'm still learning so much... I learned a lot about being independent and about being overprotected because (when you're on tour) you are in a capsule and surrounded by a chosen few. I learned that even when you don't feel well, you still have to perform, but, once you're out there you feel a little bit better. I learned a lot about men on the road. I learned about women, too. They sold themselves really cheap. I do know that I learned a lot about how women can be and that everybody wants to be special... at least for one night... and learning that they may not be. It's a really bizarre situation...

  I used to think that Prince and I would have been friends during the duration, during our whole lives. Because we had a really strong friendship... You can be with people for 10, 12 years, it's phases of your life, you just close the book and you just put it on the shelf. So, it's so bizarre when people ask anything about him, it was just a phase in my life. It's nothing in particular, it's just my point of view of certain phase in my life. It's always in retrospect. I used to say, when I got older, if I was on the Swiss Alps and I was milking cows, there would be somebody that would come across the hill that asked about Prince!

  I've never tried...Ooh, let me think for a second. Let me think. I've never tried... parasailing? (Laughing). I would say skydiving. Never tried that. I've never tried on a size 4 shoe. I've tried on a size 5. I guess some of those crazy things like jumping out of a plane...I've never drunk dialed President Obama.

  I don't understand why the political arguments going on today, are the same ones that were going on when Abe Lincoln was president. I don't understand why (there are) Republicans, who are broke as shit, who don't want a minimum wage increase. I don't get the Republican mentality when people are broke! I don't understand how best friends can go out with your exes...

  I hate when people ask, oh, I don't know if I hate anything anyone asks me. I guess it's okay people for to ask me, I just don't have to answer. I think that when people ask your age, they associate that with your demise and what they think you should be doing. I think when you're newly married,  people shouldn't ask when you're having kids. Because you don't know what their deal is and I think it's personal.

  People would be surprised that I have a really, really crazy temper. Maybe they wouldn't be surprised at a hot temper. They would be surprised to know that I am trying to learn German right now. My husband is German and (the language) is really, really hard. People would be surprised to know that I want to live in Germany.

  I love my family. I love that the universe has given me many opportunities to have a family. Even going back (to being) on tour I liked having a family. I adore my husband, when I was getting married I just looked at him and I thought "what took you so long to get to here?" I love that everyone gets along. My family. My cats and all my pets that I've ever had.

Jill Jones on Tipper Gore (and the Parents Music Resource Center): Tipper Gore was on our ass. (MTV) banned my video ( for the single "Mia Bocca"). They would only play it in the middle of the night, at 3 am... She directly impacted my life, she actually did in a weird way...

  My first album was a very long pregnancy, good God, it took so long get out. It was a really ace album, but, the timing was way off. I don't think everyone was ready for it. Radio wasn't looking for it. There's a rap convention in Atlanta that I went to and people came up to me saying “you're Black? I didn't know you were Black! I would've played your record.” I just came back to Prince, like, “should I just get a tan?” White people somehow knew I was Black and they said “I'm not playing that house Negro on the radio.”

  The album was dead in the water. Then, I went to a function and I think I was crying. A Warner Brothers executive (Rob Dickens, CEO of Warner Brothers UK) saw me and he put money into the project to do promotion in Europe. We made the (music) video (for the single "Mia Bocca")...They (Europeans) always liked Josephine Baker, that whole thing always worked. I was discriminated against in my own country. I opened for Jody Watley in LA and, seriously, the crowd just stood there whole time with their arms crossed. I was angry dancing. I was singing “G-Spot” and I was like “I'm not going to shake my ass.” I know (on past tours) I would go out in my bra and panties, but, then I put on my trench coat and I'd leave. I just threw the mike down and walked off the stage. Prince came to me and said “is that it, are you done?” Maybe he created the diva in me.
  I think the album was a very intellectual album. We made a decision to take a lot of the poppy songs off. Once Clare Fisher puts the strings on it... I wanted to leave them on... That's where I sealed my fate to never have a hit record...(Prince) could have given me "The Glamorous Life". Sheila E. would come to the studio to play basketball and I did not know that the child was going in (to the studio) late at night and singing the songs...

  The second album... My mother passed away in '95. When she was diagnosed in cancer in '94, I had a deal with London Records. Steve Fargnoli hooked me up with them. My contract expired with Prince in 1993 on April 15... which I remember because it was seven years to the day. When my mom passed...I didn't want to sing. I don't think I handled it as professionally as I should have. I wrote a letter to my manager that said “You're just too busy going through the corporate world, because you don't know what the fuck you're doing.” And I faxed it. And we were dropped... I (later) recorded (the album Two) with Chris Bruce and it was cathartic. I had a new boyfriend at the time and that was a nightmare. (I) just had to get it all out. That record came and it was supposed to come. (The song) "Gorgeous Wonder" is about my daughter and she just saved me in so many ways. I just ended up going into interior design through friends. It was very trying and tricky. I remember (one time) that I was bartending and the RZA (from the Wu-Tang Clan) came in and said “you're Jill Jones” and I was like “No, I don't understand” and I pretended like I was French. Don't let your pride swallow you up...because that is a mistake. Everything's fixable and your good friends would never make you feel bad about it...

  True friendship...learning a lot about it. I don't know what it is. I think it's the intimacy that I have with (some) people, but, it's always tested. People disappoint you. I know I tolerate a lot of other people's mistakes. I don't know. Honestly, I don't know what to say.

  I want to know how to stop over analyzing and to kind of just not take things so personally anymore.

  Can I? What does that mean, can I? Now it's at the point of why can't I?

  I wish that I did not see so many homeless people and that they had their own home. I wish that the bankers that perpetrated all this fraud would be prosecuted and in jail for a long time. I wish good health to all my friends and family. I wish everybody had health care...

  Ten years. Ten Years (emphasis added). Wasted. Yeah, ten years wasted. And I don't think fondly of these ten years, the ten years that I'm thinking of... But, I got a good song out of it.

  My musical influences, this is the thing, I hate that question...Of course David Bowie, of course Led Zeppelin, of course Billie Holiday. Even Barbra Streisand. To me Prince was a great influence...Ryuchi Sakamoto. Classical pieces. I just love Rachmaninoff. I love Radiohead. I love Fiona Apple...I love people who are actually just a little bit themselves. They have hitches and flaws...

Jill Jones on the unfinished second Paisley Park album: We (Jones and Prince) were kind of were at two different roads. The song (“Boom Boom”) was from 1982 and it seemed forced. He kept remixing it. I went to do the video, but, it was late, it was too late. And I just ended up going back to New York, got married and waited until my contract expired. During this time he called me-- and I was at a friend's house-- and said, "you don't have any charisma, you should dye your hair black and you need to get breast implants like Brigitte Nielsen." I was furious... Dickens (CEO of Warner Brothers UK) was instrumental at one point with Roger Davies, my manager, when we were trying to complete my second album alone. Without Prince. But, Prince rejected every attempt we tried.

  I've done a lot of interesting pieces of material. I've done many internal journeys, spiritual journeys...I can do a lot of things, I'm curious, everyone would be surprised by that. I've done crocheting and I have also done knitting.

  The music business is not the same as it used to be...it's worse. The music business is now just isolated by a few of the old guard and they are just picking at it like vultures. They have reduced people to this value and it's disgusting...The music business is full of spineless people who are getting 20 to 25 percent of these kids' money for licensing and merchandising...Have you looked at how many plays you need to get on Spotify just to make $3,000? What is crazy is that they were doing this back in my day. They made money on the vinyl and they made money on the plastic. But, you know, here we are.

  Pop stars can be boring. They are boring nowadays. I mean, American pop stars are boring. I love the Brits. I don't know if anybody really wants to have good content anymore. Maybe it's generational. I think it's superficial. It's synthesized. It's synthetic. They're equally as processed as the food in the grocery stores...it's synthetic and processed and it's fake.

  Nowadays, people are just in flux. Things are suspended. Nowadays, everyone has had a big pill that has them in a coma. People don't have any verve, they've just lost it. Nowadays, I don't think people go out to gigs a lot, live performances, they don't really watch them.

  My mother...amazing lady. Strong, sensitive, compassionate. But, she let a lot of people walk all over her, unfortunately, and she was a lot more forgiving than I was.

  My father... I don't know him. I had two conversations with him on the phone. When I was younger I cared, but, now I don't care anymore. I got over my daddy issues a long time ago, but, that was in God's hands and I think that worked out. He had a really salty character that might have impacted me. I think we were touring and I called my father and Prince said you should never call him again. And I said, you're right, he wouldn't even come to the show. He was just a sperm donor.

  The future...God willing, I will learn more. I will be doing a new album which I'm working on now. I want to be busy doing things. I want to be open to being more creative. I'm more interested in film things behind the scenes. I don't know, we'll see. Right now I am wrapping up a Dance album.

Jill Jones and Marcus Scott of Beautiful Nights

Check out the video for "Mia Bocca" here:

Check out the unreleased video for "Boom Boom" here:

Stay beautiful, Kristi

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The Morning Papers: Meet the writer/editor of the Beautiful Nights Blog

This is Part IV in a four-part series on the Beautiful Nights Creative Team:

   Who is K Nicola Dyes?

  The simple answer to that question is that I am the writer/editor of "Dyes Got the Answers 2 Ur ?s," The Beautiful Nights Blog; the more compelling answer is that I am a person who has discovered a renewed sense of joy in life by combining two of my favorite things: writing and Prince.

  I was literally called out of "retirement" one day in November 2012 when the phone rang and Marcus Scott, of Beautiful Nights, was on the other end. His proposition was simple: to create a blog for his new Prince fan page on Facebook and, to kick it off, he would be able to get me an interview with The Twinz, Maya and Nancy McClean. That was a little over a month and seven posts ago.

  I had not written anything, besides e-mails and greeting cards, in nearly four years. After I was laid off from my job at The Union Democrat, a small-town newspaper, in 2009 I was bitter and frustrated that I could not find another writing job. At some point, I decided it was time to move on. I have languished in different jobs for the past few years to pay the bills: cashier at a pizza restaurant, concierge at The Underground Tour, a tourist attraction in Seattle and now as a front desk agent at a hotel (however, I am currently finding a lot of satisfaction in my current job).

  But, writing was always in heart, and I did not realize how much I missed it until I started doing it again. While interviewing Scott, Alexis Wofford and L'Quita Sanders, the other members of the Beautiful Nights team, I became intrigued by own questions. I thought that maybe people might be interested in the girl who would randomly post on the page and say "read my stories". 

  It is a little unorthodox, but, being a blogger, I think it is okay for me to be more accessible to my readers, which was not possible for me as a newspaper reporter. So, here is a little bit about me:

  
  ?: Tell me a little bit about yourself and how you became involved with Beautiful Nights?

  KD: I have been a diehard Prince fan since I was 15 years old. Although I went to a performing arts high school (School of the Arts in San Francisco, where I played in the band), people at school kind of gave me a hard time for liking Prince. I did not care, because the thing that I loved about Prince, besides his music, was that he was okay with being himself, without giving a damn about what other people thought. In turn, I felt that made it okay for me to do the same. It was a very intense period in my life and Prince music has been my soundtrack ever since. I wanted to know about everything Prince: I sought out all the albums, read all the biographies and articles I could find and went to Prince.org every single day. There was not really anyone at school to share my excitement with, so, I almost became like a "Purple Culture" scholar, amassing all this information to use at a later date.

  I graduated with a Bachelor's Degree in Journalism and Russian from San Francisco State University in 2007. I met Scott when I was doing an internship that summer at the (now closed) Kane County Bureau of the Daily Herald in St. Charles, Ill. A mutual friend was having a house party one weekend and he was there. I did not really get to know him until 2008, when I came back for one of the now legendary Prince parties at Berlin, which I did periodically. In turn, he came out to visit me a few months later, when I was living in Sonora, Calif., where I was working as a reporter, and we went to a Prince party in Berkeley. After he left, I mailed him some clippings of some of my stories.

  We have kept in touch, on and off, during the last five years and in that time I moved to Seattle. It was that fateful phone call I mentioned earlier, where I was brought into Beautiful Nights, where they were already in full gear in Chicago. He said he wanted a blog for the page, which he said would make his fan group stand out from all the others, and I was the person who came to mind when he was thinking about a writer. He added that he still had those stories I sent him all those years ago. He came up with the title "Dyes Got the Answers 2 Ur ?s," which is a play on "I've got the answers to your questions."

Courtesy of K Nicola Dyes

   ?: What area of expertise do you bring to Beautiful Nights?

  KD: I'm a writer, but, more importantly I am an interviewer; you cannot have a great story with a wack interview. My job is to make people who may not want to answer my questions feel comfortable enough to speak freely with me. I'm not afraid to get on the phone with people I never met and talk to them for hours.

  Also, from my days as a reporter, I am able to write effectively on different topics: I covered city and county government; food; travel; religion; business; health and entertainment. However, entertainment writing has always been my passion, particularly interviews with public figures. I cannot lie: I love famous people. During my career, I have been blessed enough to interview Mikhail Baryshnikov, the renowned ballet dancer; Singer and TV Personality Tony Orlando, who, before I interviewed The Twinz, had my undisputed vote for nicest celebrity ever; the late TV Producer David Gerber ("Room 222, "In the Heat of the Night"); Comedians Mark Curry and Victoria Jackson, of Saturday Night Live, among others.

  I am also constantly thinking of new ideas for the blog, all the things I ever wanted to know about Prince, but, was afraid to ask.

  ?: What is the best thing about being apart of Beautiful Nights?

  KD: I get to write about Prince! How cool is that? If there was ever a dream job, this would be it. I get to sit at home or at work or wherever and think about story ideas to related to Prince and there is already an audience in place who will read it. Friends have been imploring to write a blog for years, but, my question was always the same: "About what?" There are a lot of bloggers out there, what was going to make me different?
  Also, I like the fact that this is not a newspaper. There is structure, but, I am no longer governed by a set of rules that, in my opinion, are becoming outdated in as the speed of news increases every moment.

  ?: What would you like to improve about Beautiful Nights?

  KD: Nothing about Beautiful Nights, the group is great, but, I could use a bit more time management and organization on my end. I work full time (including two nights of graveyard shift) and between interviewing, editing and posting, it sometimes feels like there are not enough hours in the day. I want this endeavor to stay fun for me, I never want it to feel like a job. So, I know that the key to that is to get on top things now.

  ?: Who is your favorite protegee and why?

  KD: Jesse Johnson, as a solo artist. But, I would not call him a protegee, I would call him an associated act. I think he is baddest musician to ever come out of Prince's camp. All you need to do is listen to his guitar solos on "Fool's Paradise" and "Lovestruck" if you are not convinced. I'm also a fan of the work he has done for other artists, including Janet Jackson, Vanity, the song "Nights Like This" that he wrote for The Five Heartbeats" soundtrack and his guitar solo on "You Wear it Well" by DeBarge. I do not think he ever got the credit he was due, because people were always comparing him to Prince.

  I also want to give a shout out to Margie Cox, one of Jesse Johnson's protegees, the lead singer of TaMara and the Seen, who also worked with Prince on the unreleased MC Flash project. She is a very talented and underrated singer. I love them both.

  ?: Who would you like to see host the next Beautiful Nights party?

  KD: I would love to meet Jill Jones. I am a big fan of her 1987 album and I have also had the pleasure of listening to some of the cuts of her unreleased second album. In my opinion, she is another artist from the Prince camp who never got her due. In addition to that, she had worked with two of my favorite artists, Teena Marie and Prince and I would love to ask her some questions about that.

Drawing by Clayton Ballard

?: What is the most unique piece of Prince memorabilia you own or have owned in the past?

  KD: I don't just have one! This is a three-part answer:
  A) The first one is a framed charcoal drawing of Prince that a friend of mine drew for me and gave me on for my 29^th birthday. What really made it so cool was that he gave it to me right before we went to go see a Prince concert at the Tacoma Dome in December 2011.
   B) The summer I did my internship at the Daily Herald in 2007 was the same year that the Chicago Bears went to the Super Bowl and Prince did the halftime show and, of, course, the paper sent writers and photographers down to Miami. For my going away present at the end of my stint there, the staff presented me with two framed photographs that the photo editor at the bureau, Rick, had taken himself during the halftime show. One was Prince by himself and the other was him with The Twinz.
  C) My grandmother's late second husband worked as a banquet waiter in some of San Francisco's best hotels for many years. In the early 1990s, he was working at the Clift Hotel when Prince was in town on tour. When I was in high school (around 1998), at the height of my Prince madness, he gave me this very small jar of honey that had a black label with gold letters that said: Prince, Scandalous Sex Suite, featuring Kim Basinger. He said that someone working with Prince had given it to him. He had kept it on his dresser until he gave it to me. I had it on my dresser from that moment all the way through college, until I moved out to accept that internship. I left that jar of honey behind and have not seen it since. In her haste to clean out my old room, so my younger brother could move in, a LOT of things came up missing and that was one of them. When I came home three months later to get my things, I could not find it. I asked her about it and she acted like she had no clue what I was talking about. I eventually forgave her and moved on, but, I am getting a small twinge of sadness just writing about it now
  ?: What would you like see happen with Beautiful Nights in the next year?

  KD: I hope I get to go to the next party! It is kind of difficult being in Seattle, when the rest of the team is in Chicago, but, I am going to find a way to make it work. I also want to expand the readership for "Dyes Got the Answers 2 Ur ?s" and I am working on ways to expand my fan base. I love promoting Beautiful Nights, because I really believe in it; it is essential to have a place where Prince fans can come together in a positive way.
  I have an interview wish list, too: Margie Cox, Jill Jones, Mazarati and, of course, Prince, although that might be a long time coming. I also have a more large-scale story in mind: an in-depth feature that would be a critical history of Prince.org, from the beginning until now, because that Web site truly fascinates me.
   I also hope that readers at some point become comfortable enough to reach out to me and suggest story ideas. Part of the reason Scott came up with the name "Dyes Got the Answers 2 Ur ?s" is because we, at some point, want more member involvement and interaction. I am just the vessel to assemble information for the fans.

  ?: What message do you have for fans of the Beautiful Nights page?

  KD: The fact that people are reading my blog really warms my heart. All the time I spend writing means absolutely nothing if no one is reading. Do not be shy about telling me what you think about my posts-- good, bad or indifferent-- leave comments on the blog, post on my page, inbox me. I would love to hear from you.

Stay beautiful, Kristi

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Lead drawing by Clayton Ballard.

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