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In the mid-1980s, not long after Prince conquered the rock world with Purple Rain, a middle-aged Bob Dylan admiringly called him "the boy wonder." Though stylistically different, Prince has turned out to be remarkably Dylanesque: eloquent yet mysterious; prolific but eccentric; given to peaks and valleys and twists and turns; sparked by a prodigious, almost flammable, talent yet built to last. Now 50, Prince long ago left Dylan -- and such forebears as James Brown, Sly Stone and Jimi Hendrix, as well as peers like Madonna and Michael Jackson -- somewhere in the purple pixie dust of his own crazy trail.
"He's an inspiration because he loves music so much and he believes that if you just keep going, you'll be able to reach people," says Los Angeles - based photographer Randee St. Nicholas, who has photographed Prince on and off for nearly two decades. "Even if the record industry and radio are changing, he's always tried to invent new ways to connect. One of the ways that's very powerful, of course, is live music -- and in that he has always excelled. When Prince plays, he sells out."
Though shy and unpredictable offstage, Prince has remained a hot performer and a shrewd businessman with methods behind his madness; even his adoption of an unpronounceable glyph as a stage name for much of the 1990s turned out to be a creative power play with his label, Warner Bros. He emerged from that battle in 2000 with the bulk of his own publishing rights and his formerly-known-as name intact. Prince's 2007 halftime show at Super Bowl XLI -- complete with a rainstorm during "Purple Rain" and a titillating silhouetted guitar solo in which he out-Jimied Hendrix himself -- left no doubt to more than 140 million viewers that his stage skills were undimmed.
Prince followed that triumph with an unprecedented 21-night stint at London's O2 Centre in the summer of 2007. He invited his friend Randee St. Nicholas to document the engagement, onstage and off, giving her rare access to his private world. "I thought, this is a very exciting time for him, and he's going to be in one city for all that time," St. Nicholas recalls. "And he's not going to be able to leave -- so he'll actually show up for me to photograph him!" she adds with a laugh.
The result is a lavish new photography book, 21 Nights: Photography/Poetry/Music/Lyrics (Atria Books, $50), which sold out its first 400,000 pressing through advance orders online. A chunk of the modest price is justified by the book's enclosed CD, Indigo Nights/Live Sessions, with 15 songs performed by Prince at after-show gigs in London -- an amalgam of R&B, funk, blues, jazz, Zeppelinesque riffs, and crooner ballads that shows off the singer and his band in rare form.
But equally unusual is the interplay between Prince's poetry and St. Nicholas's photos, which paint the star as glamorous yet quietly mysterious and (despite an entourage of collaborators and beautiful companions) a solitary artist. "Now I can't even go outside no more," Price quips during a humorous monologue called "Just Like U" on the CD, "or some crazy fool will come up to me with a camera." Yet he willingly welcomes St. Nicholas's lenses. "Prince is funny and charming and entertaining and talkative -- when he feels like talking," she says. "And he stirs things up in a way that inspires you." Here St. Nicholas shares more insights and anecdotes from this unique collaboration.
Jack Crager: How did this project come about? Was it your idea or Prince's?
Randee St. Nicholas: Well he called me one day and said, "I want us to do a book together. So come up with an idea, and let me know what you want to do." I had just photographed him in Los Vegas, and I knew he was going to go do this "21 Nights" thing in London, and I thought, "Instead of doing a typical book...." You know, every amazing musician, from Bruce Springsteen to John Lennon, there have been books on them that are retrospective volumes with a similar format: songwriting, and little notes, and candid photographs. I wanted to do something different.
So I put together a little online presentation of visually what I'd want it to be. Not just photos of him, but also other things I'd shot, fashion stuff. He'd already gone to England, and I was still in L.A. on another job. I sent it to him, and he called me and said, "When can you come?" [laughs]. "Let's do it." I told him I had all these jobs to do, but I told him the day I was free. Then at 7 in the morning the day I was free, someone called from a travel agent and said, "We've got tickets for you on a 4 o'clock flight to London, today -- how many people are you bringing?" So I got my people together and we went and took the flight.
JC: No messing around, huh?
RSN: Nope. He's a very spontaneous guy, and very intuitive. It was an amazing experience, because it was exactly what was going on in Prince's life at that point. And as glamorous as the photographs are -- because I wanted it to have a fashion twist -- it was a very reclusive, I would say introspective, time in his life. Because although he didn't party he would go out to clubs, and he'd play maybe four or five nights a week, and other than that there was a lot of solitude.
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