Having spent seven years researching and writing about Prince (and another year updating the book), I spoke to as many people who worked and lived with him as I could. While my book is rich with information gleaned from interviews, alongside my own analysis, there were a few people who didn’t talk to me. Of the above, I did talk to Dez Dickerson, but the others were holding off (presumably because their own books were in the works). All the books below work as perfect compliments to mine and are all must-haves for any Prince fan’s purple library.
Famously reticent and perennially controversial, Prince was one of the few music superstars who remained, largely, an enigma—even up to his premature death on April 21, 2016. This revised and updated second edition of this meticulously researched biography is the most comprehensive work on Prince yet published.
Unlike other Prince books, this one eschews speculation into the artist's highly guarded private life and instead focuses deep and sustained attention exactly where it should be: on his work. Acclaimed British novelist and critic Matt Thorne draws on years of research and dozens of interviews with Prince's intimate associates (many of whom have never spoken on record before) to examine every phase of the musician's 35-year career, including nearly every song—released and unreleased—that Prince has recorded
Prince was different things to different people and one of the things you’ll discover through these books is that they work as a mosaic showing different sides of him. Only two people will ever know what it was like to be married to Prince, and Mayte is one of them.
In The Most Beautiful, a title inspired by the hit song Prince wrote about their legendary love story, Mayte Garcia for the first time shares the deeply personal story of their relationship and offers a singular perspective on the music icon and their world together: from their unconventional meeting backstage at a concert (and the long-distance romance that followed), to their fairy-tale wedding (and their groundbreaking artistic partnership), to the devastating losses that ultimately dissolved their romantic relationship for good. Throughout it all, they shared a bond more intimate than any other in Prince's life. No one else can tell…
One of the few musicians who continued to interact with Prince (on and off) from the beginning to near the end of his career, Morris Day was well-placed to write an account of the musician. Written in collaboration with the excellent biographer and music writer, David Ritz, this is an interesting (if whacky) book.
To tell the story of Morris Day is to tell the story of Prince. Not because they were inseparable or because their paths never diverged, but because, even when their paths did diverge, they always intersected again. Each artist lifted the other up, pushing one another to be something bigger and better than they thought themselves capable of. There was plenty of one-upmanship and some (un)healthy competition, but the respect Day and Prince had for one another never wavered, from the time they met in junior high until His Royal Badness's untimely death in 2016.
It was one of the great strokes of good fortune in Prince’s career that one of his earliest engineers was a brilliant musicologist.
Of course, the reverse is true too, and Rogers’ extraordinary knowledge of music is brought to life (at least in part) by the time she spent alone in the studio with Prince, in the middle of the night, at Christmas, whenever he called.
This Is What It Sounds Like is a journey into the science and soul of music that reveals the secrets of why your favorite songs move you. But it's also a story of a musical trailblazer who began as a humble audio tech in Los Angeles, rose to become Prince's chief engineer for Purple Rain, and then created other No. 1 hits ,including Barenaked Ladies' "One Week," as one of the most successful female record producers of all time.
Now an award-winning professor of cognitive neuroscience, Susan Rogers leads readers to musical self-awareness. She explains that we each possess a…
Dickerson’s book was the first book by a Prince associate written while Prince was still alive.
Given how carefully his former boss guarded his history, it must have been nerve-wracking to write. But it’s impossible not to imagine Prince being charmed by this sweet account of their early years of making music and their adventures on the road.
I’m told by those who knew him that the book sounds exactly as he used to talk. This provides an essential insight into one of Prince’s most productive periods.
Many books have been written about the illustrious career of pop superstar Prince, but none was ever written by a member of his band. In this first-hand, eyewitness account of the meteoric rise of this pop icon and his early days, original Prince guitarist Dez Dickerson tells his story. As a man who was on the inside from Prince's legendary early concerts all the way to his massive breakthrough with "1999", Dez has a story to tell that has yet to be told. Tracing Dez's involvement with the band from his first audition in 1978 until his departure in 1983,…
This isn’t an exhaustive list by any means and there are other books written by more prominent associates also worth tracking down, but this is one of the most fun accounts written by a Prince associate, with a title taken from one of the Purple One’s most notorious (and mysterious) songs.
What happens when a novelist with a “razor-sharp wit” (Newsday), a “singular sensibility” (Huff Post), and a lifetime of fear about getting sick finds a lump where no lump should be? Months of medical mishaps, coded language, and Doctors who don't get it.
With wisdom, self-effacing wit, and the story-telling artistry of an acclaimed novelist, Elizabeth Benedict recollects her cancer diagnosis after discovering multiplying lumps in her armpit. In compact, explosive chapters, interspersed with moments of self-mocking levity, she chronicles her illness from muddled diagnosis to “natural remedies,” to debilitating treatments, as she gathers sustenance from family, an assortment of urbane friends, and a fearless “cancer guru.”
Rewriting Illness is suffused with suspense, secrets, and the unexpected solace of silence.
By turns somber and funny but above all provocative, Elizabeth Benedict's Rewriting Illness: A View of My Own is a most unconventional memoir. With wisdom, self-effacing wit, and the story-telling skills of a seasoned novelist, she brings to life her cancer diagnosis and committed hypochondria. As she discovers multiplying lumps in her armpit, she describes her initial terror, interspersed with moments of self-mocking levity as she indulges in "natural remedies," among them chanting Tibetan mantras, drinking shots of wheat grass, and finding medicinal properties in chocolate babka. She tracks the progression of her illness from muddled diagnosis to debilitating treatment…
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