While Purple Rain is considered Prince and the Revolution’s peak, Prince never went backwards, only up, and PARADE climbed mighty heights as the Revolution’s final album together. Engineer Susan Rogers, bouncing between two studios and a mobile unit, witnessed the entire ascent. Producer/engineer David Z mixed the music for the accompanying film, Under the Cherry Moon , and lent a hand in creating the smash hit “Kiss.”
THE MOUNTAIN by Chris Williams
When and where did you first meet Prince?
and he said, “All right. I think Prince will like you, because he likes working with women.” I was fully qualified for the job as well. We discussed what my salary would be and they said okay, and off I went. I was hired before I ever met him. I went out to Minneapolis and began working for him. I first met him on the job. Westlake Audio sent me and some other people out to Prince’s house, and this was his old house on Kiowa Trail in Chanhassen, Minnesota. Ultimately, he painted it purple, and eventually he gave it to his father, John Nelson. This was the summer of 1983. Prince just wrapped up his 1999 tour. He was planning the Purple Rain movie and album. They sent me out to his house with some new equipment. We delivered a new API recording console and a few other odds and ends. The first time I ever laid eyes on him in person, he was actually in a towel and wearing a shower cap. [ laughs ] It was by accident. I was out in the driveway. We were unloading equipment off the truck, and I needed to use the restroom. Prince’s secretary named Sandy Scipioni said to me, “Oh. Just go in the house. Go in the front door.” I walked through the front door, and this little figure came flying past me around the corner and down the stairs to the master bedroom. It was Prince. He was wearing a towel and a shower cap, because he just got out of the shower. [ laughs ] I was saying to myself that this is not good, because I didn’t want him to think I was trying to embarrass him. He didn’t even see me. When I first went to work with him, I spent my first week installing a new console and repairing a tape machine in the basement of his home. So, if you can imagine a split-level house, the master bedroom was down a half flight of stairs. It was somewhat underground because the house was on a hill. If you entered the front door from the street level, it was a one-level, but his bedroom was about a half-floor down. Across the hallway from his master bedroom was another bedroom,
David Z: I met Prince in Minneapolis when he was fifteen. To make a long story short, I did the demo that got him signed to Warner Bros. Records. First, he recorded with Chris Moon, then he got a new manager named Owen Husney, and he brought him to me. We did the four songs that got him signed. Those songs ended up on his first record: “Soft and Wet,” “Baby,” and a couple other songs. This is when I first met him. He was very young back then. We didn’t know if he was going to become a star or anything. We did it because the music sounded good. His first album didn’t really sell, and his second album did a little better, then he started to hit his groove, and that is when things started to pick up. I met him before he was signed to the record label. I was twenty-nine or thirty when I met him. Susan Rogers: At the time, I was in Los Angeles working for Crosby, Stills & Nash. I was their studio technician. I had been a Prince fan, and a fan of R&B and soul music since I was a little kid. So I was aware of Prince. He was my favorite artist, and I followed his career. I saw him a couple times in concert. I saw his Controversy and Dirty Mind tours. I was just a big fan. I heard through the professional grapevine via other technicians in Hollywood that Prince was looking for an audio technician. And that’s what I was at the time. This was in the summer of 1983. As soon as I heard about the opportunity, I applied for the job. Westlake Audio was assigned the task of finding Prince a technician. So I went to Glenn Phoenix, the head of Westlake Audio, and he knew me because my boyfriend worked for him at the time. I said to him, “Glenn, I want that job! I want that job!” He interviewed me, and he told me, “Yeah. You’re perfect. You’ll do.” Then they sent me over to Prince’s management, and Steve Fargnoli interviewed me
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( opposite ) Photograph by Jeff Katz. Courtesy of Warner Bros.
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