Prince 1958 - 2016

Prince died today.

Born Prince Roger Admiral Lord Nelson, he was a singer, a songwriter, guitarist and famously big a big fan of The Color Purple starring Whoopie Goldberg, and the reverend Ian Paisley.

Prince was born in Minneapolis to John and Mattie Nelson, the former being the leader of a jazz trio using the stage name Prince Rogers. As a child, Prince was nicknamed Skipper, due to his resemblance to a bush kangaroo, largely because it was so confusing having two people known as Prince in the house, although that never stopped the Windsors.

Musical from an early age, Prince released his first album in 1978, on which he wrote all the songs, sang the songs and played all the the instruments. The eventual release was entitled For You, a clever ploy to keep all his many girlfriends happy.

Prince had a minor success from the album, a tribute to Mr Whippy entitled Soft and Wet, which reached #92 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. His breakthrough, though, came in 1979 with an album named after his father, Prince, from which he had a hit with I Wanna Be Your Lover, reaching the #11 spot. Prince followed this up with Dirty Mind, which featured songs such as Head, Uptown and Do It All Night, a trilogy telling of Prince's years in central Minneapolis working the nightshift. After this came 1999, released in 1982 due to a mix up in at Warner Brothers, which sold over 3 million copies.

Next came Controversy, followed by Purple Rain, a combination album and movie about pollution from the garment industry, winning Prince an Oscar for best original song score. This album scored Prince his first number one hit.

After this, Prince was a veritable fountain of hits, releasing memorable albums Around the World in Eighty Days, Parade, Razzle and Sign O' The Times. 

Around this time, Prince became interested in conservation and green energy production, supporting new power generation methods and cleaning spraypaint from public structures.

In 1992 as part of a spat with his label, Prince changed his name to...

... which was pronounced 'Prince', 'The Love Symbol' or 'Twat' depending on context. It was also at this time that he took to writing the word SLAVE on his face, presumably to remind himself to work really, really hard.

Prince was married twice, once to Mayte Garcia, a relationship that lasted four years, and again for five years after he married Mario Testino in 2001.

Through it all, Prince released album after album and, over the course of his career releasing thirty nine studio albums.

Sadly, there will be no more. Sometimes it Snows in April.