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Galpin Blvd Home Studio

We got a disturbance on Galpin

Owing to the tremendous success of Purple Rain, on 26 November 1985 Prince stepped into his Galpin Blvd home for the first time when returning from France with filming having wrapped on Under The Cherry Moon. 7141 Galpin Blvd was a sprawling three-storey yellow painted mansion, built atop a small hill and sited within 30-acres of private woodland that looked down onto lake Ann, in the rural suburb of Chanhassen, Minnesota. Not only was this larger than his previous home and studio 9401 Kiowa Trail, 5 miles to the south, the new property even boasted a security hut at the head of its gated drive to guarantee privacy. As with his previous home studio, a recording facility was likewise installed on the ground floor of the new property, this time the studio was a far more professional arrangement.

Galpin Blvd was where Prince also chose to set up home with Susannah Melvoin to whom he was recently engaged. She prepared the house when Prince was in France and designed the studio’s rear wall stained-glass windows – looking out onto wide open parkland – as well as painted a mural onto one of its walls. Galpin Blvd is thereby fondly remembered as Prince’s homeliest home.

While awaiting the studio’s installation, Prince relocated to LA from December 1985 to March 1986, to record Parade at Sunset Sound in Hollywood, soundtrack to his newly completed movie. Work on the home studio continued until March 1986, under the supervision of his indentured recording engineer Susan Rogers. The new studio was large enough to accommodate greater array of large instruments, including a purple acoustic piano. Its adjoining sound locked control room boasted an isolation booth and a custom fitted Soundcraft TS-24 console with 24-track recorder, on which Prince mixed the studio’s inaugural track, The Ballard of Dorothy Parker, on 13 March 1986. The song was followed by additional material for what would later form the Sign O’ The Times album after passing through several configurations laid down at Galpin Blvd; first named Dream Factory, then Crystal Ball and then Camille before settling on the final and iconic double album. Galpin Blvd was a hive of activity throughout 1986 and 1987, witnessing also the recording of The Black Album and projects for Shelia E, Madhouse and Jill Jones – all within the space of a year.

You’d look out the back windows and it was just expanse, and it’s beautiful.

The Galpin Blvd studio being just about large enough to accommodate a full band, was presented its first challenge on 19 March 1986 with the full band live recording with Prince and The Revolution plus trumpeter Atlanta Bliss for the track Power Fantastic. With not even enough headphones to go round, Prince was squeezed into the studio’s corner to put his vocals to the track (Prince never liked anyone in the studio, even sending out the sound engineer, when adding his own vocals). Because of this space constraint, Prince rented a warehouse at Washington Avenue in the suburb of Edina during this time, where he could conduct tour rehearsals as well as use as a larger scale studio when needs demanded.

Prince liked the studio’s console so much (a custom-made copy of the type he used at Sunset Sound built by Frank DeMedio) he had it transferred into Studio B in 1987 in the newly completed Paisley Park Studios, his $10m custom-built recording complex a mere 2 miles away within the same district. Galpin Blvd remained Prince’s primary home until 2005. Prince had the exterior repainted every few years and even purchased a BMW in the matching colour; in the early 1990s the house was yellow, and when he married Mayte it was repainted white.

Remarried in 2001, Prince continued living at Galpin Blvd with his second wife Manuela Testolini, sharing with her also a home in Toronto. When they divorced in 2005 Prince finally moved out of the property and from then on, the second floor area of Paisley Park became his principal home. Harbouring too many memories, the Galpin Blvd home was demolished in 2006, leaving only the main entrance guard shed standing. The land remained under Prince’s ownership until the time of his death in 2016. That year, his estate managers sold the plot to make way for a $16m housing development of 169 homes, named The Park. The roadways within this estate are named in tribute to Prince: Purple Parkway, Paisley Path, Alphabet St., Pearl Drive, Dove Court, Raspberry Road, and Mattie Circle after Prince’s mother Mattie Shaw Baker.

Albums recorded at Galpin Blvd

Madhouse 8 (1987)

Madhouse 8

January 1987

Sheila E (1987)

Sheila E

February 1987

Jill Jones (1987)

Jill Jones

March 1987

Sign O' The Times (1987)

Sign O' The Times

March 1987

Madhouse 16 (1987)

Madhouse 16

November 1987

The Black Album (1987)

The Black Album

December 1987

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