”Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to get through this thing called life…”
I was recently doing research at storied Sunset Sound Recorders studios in Hollywood for an article about Janis Joplin. In my research, I found out that Prince had recorded several tracks of “Purple Rain” in Studio 3, so I asked if i could continue my tour in that area of the main studio.
I was shown into Studio 3 and was allowed to survey the vocal booth, the piano room, the live performance room, as well as the control room. Both the piano and console were the ones used in the recording and have been well maintained over the years. Not simply because of Prince, but because the studio has recorded some of the most famous and influential artists of all time using that console and piano, including The Doors, The Rolling Stones, Van Halen, Elton John, Led Zepplin, and The Beach Boys to name just a few.
As the studio manager and I started talking about Prince, and the specific era of Purple Rain, a montage of some personal Prince moments flickered through my head: from seeing the 1999 video for the first time on MTV as a kid; discovering the full 1999 album in my big sister’s room when I would secretly go through her records while she was at work; my babysitter, Angela Pfeiffer (estranged niece to Michelle Pfeiffer), slipping me a Memorex tape containing the Purple Rain soundtrack but labeled “Michael Jackson – Thriller” so that my folks didn’t know what I was listening to (the song “Darling Nikki” had become controversial news by then thanks to right-winger Tipper Gore); to my desire to one day be purified in the waters of Lake Minnetonka; to that April day I walked into work, turned on my computer, launched the internet, and learned that Prince, the seemingly immortal purple paisley god of funk and rock, had ascended.
I asked the studio manager if he had any personal Prince stories, and he confirmed a legend I’d long heard over the years. When Purple Rain was recorded there, Prince asked him to get purple sheets, purple pillowcases and a purple bedspread to go on the bed that Prince had set up in the studio, so that he could lay down and rework lyrics when the mood struck him.
Below are shots from inside the legend that is Sunset Sound Studios.
