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Prince Tour

1979/80

We used to go on stage in our underwear.

Following his first live shows, performed at the Capri Theatre in Minneapolis on 5 and 6 January 1979, the Warner executives attending did not agree Prince or his backing band were ready to take the For You album on the road. Prince, aged 22, was so shy he hardly looked at the audience. They were given a year to hone their act. Prince and the band spent ten days in July 1979 isolated in Colorado to become a tighter unit. Prince’s tour debut was therefore in support of his second LP Prince released three weeks before, so named the Prince Tour.

Prince’s first touring band comprised Andre Cymone (bass), Dez Dickerson (guitar), Gayle Chapman and Matt Fink (keyboards), and Bobby “Z” Rivkin (drums), with Prince sporting a Gibson LS6 electric guitar. Keen to give his backing band a name, during the Colorado sessions that July, Prince mulled over naming his band The Rebels but during rehearsals this idea was dropped. For the live act, Prince gave each member a character so to create a rebellious and avant-garde front: Prince wore bikini briefs or spandex, Fink doctor’s scrubs, Chapman babydoll nightgown with stockings and suspenders, Dickerson tight leopard-skin trousers, and Cymone transparent trousers. It made a bizarre sight.

The tour launched at the Roxy Theatre Los Angeles on 26 November 1979. It was backstage at this show Prince was introduced to Bob Marley. The staging was basic – black backdrop with Prince’s silver logo suspended in front, and the drum riser. Prince Tour was performed over two very distinct phases. The first was as a muddled run of shows as a headlining club act played to a few hundred nightly over eleven US cities in the winter of 1979, the venues far from filled. Following this, Prince played three shows warming up for Kool & The Gang on 4 and 5 January 1980 (performing two on the 5th), booked as last minute replacement for Sly Stone’s slot on the bill. The first leg was scheduled to be a longer ran but nine shows were cancelled when Prince caught pneumonia in LA on 3rd December 1979, some dates rescheduled to the second leg the following February.

To boost promotion, on 16 December, Prince and the band made their first appearance on TV, performing on the popular show American Bandstand, aired on ABC on 26 January 1980. It was too soon. Lip-syncing his way through a confidence performance, when the interview followed straight after Prince was struck with nerves. It was an awkward moment and Prince could barely answer host Dick Clark’s questions. It was an experience so wounding, Prince only performed on TV only five times throughout the 1980s in the peak of his fame.

With Prince back to full health, the second phase of the Prince Tour launched in Minneapolis 9 February 1980, renamed Tour ’80. The shows returned with a bang, filled with energy. Within two weeks it evolved into a wholly upscaled affair with Prince signed as ‘special guest star’ for Rick James and his backing band Stone City Band for their Fire It Up Tour of 1980, staged at arenas with up to 9,000 in attendance.

Averaging 40 to 50 minutes in length, Prince’s shows were filled with energy and received better audience responses than James’ main act. Tour ’80 also showcased a new track Head, during which Prince and Gayle Chapman performed provocative acts. The shows were risqué and far removed from the image presented in the material of his current and previous albums. Chapman, a Christian, found this incredibly difficult and quit the band following Tour ’80 over a moral conflict at having to sing the androgynously Head, and that the band was heading in a direction she was not comfortable with. A new keyboardist was sought and that replacement was Lisa Coleman.

Prince Tour 1979 — Photography by Richard E. Aaron

Rick James support act

The careers of Rick James and Prince both start in 1977. Each issued their debut albums in April 1978. James released his third LP with Motown, Fire It Up, on 16 October 1979, three days before Prince’s self-titled second album. On hearing I Wanna Be Your Lover and noticing its crossover appeal for black and white audiences, James invited this up-and-coming artist from Minneapolis to open for him on the tour.

By 1980, Rick James had established himself as the leading figure in punk funk and was backed by his Stone City Band. Fire It Up peaked on Billboard at number 35 and was certified Gold by RIAA. Its promotional tour was James’ first as headlining act and began in Texas on 22 February 1980. Fire It Up Tour was staged over 42 dates and ran until early May. Throughout its run, James and Prince would watch each other’s performance and copy elements to mould into their own part of the show. An intense rivalry grew and each continuously ramped up their performance to upstage the other, which soon saw the music press dubbing the tour ‘The Battle of Funk’. James’ band was mixed race, so was Prince’s. James’ band had a name, so Prince thought to name his. James’ band would wear outrageous costumes, so did Prince’s. Because Prince performed first, it gave the perception it was James copying Prince.

I can’t believe people are gullible enough to buy Prince’s jive records.

Jealousy intensified when Prince started to steal the limelight, and reached a head one night in the dressing room when James grabbed Prince’s hair and poured cognac down his throat, upsetting Prince immensely. At a party during the tour, model Denise Matthews who was at the time Rick James’ girlfriend, left that evening with Prince.

Matters almost came to blows when Prince refused to give James’ mother an autograph and his manager Steve Fargnoli had to step in to de-escalate the moment. Tensions worsened following the tour, when Prince took James’ protegee artist Teena Marie with him as opening act on the Dirty Mind Tour that December. And when James came up with the idea to form an all-female group named Mary Jane Girls in 1981, Prince had Denise Matthews front Vanity 6. When Prince then launched The Time, James retaliated by creating a spin-off band named Process and The Doo Rags.

James found his hit record in 1981 with Super Freak but slid into obscurity while Prince was in the ascendency to global fame. They did not work together ever again.