Anderson
When Prince left his father’s house in 1972, he moved in with his strict Aunt Olivia Nelson. He was no happier there than at his father’s—and without a piano. John let him use the piano on occasion and bought him a guitar that Prince quickly taught himself to play.
From Aunt Olivia’s, Prince drifted to Bernadette Anderson’s house in 1973. If there’s any hero in the early Prince narrative, it’s Bernadette, who added Prince to a house with six kids but without a recently departed husband. As Prince sang in “The Sacrifice of Victor,” “Bernadette’s a lady” who taught him that education’s “more important than ripple and weed.”
Prince’s connection to Bernadette was through her son, Andre “Cymone” Anderson, who attended third grade and Seventh-day Adventist services with Prince. At first, Prince and Andre shared a room, but Prince grew tired of Andre’s clutter and moved into the basement. Along with the burlesque hall and the Playboy magazines, the basement is mythically considered an essential element of Prince’s erotic outlook. In reality, according to Prince’s cousin Charles Smith, the basement flooded, and Prince couldn’t wait to leave it.
At this time, Prince joined his first band, Soul Explosion, which was soon renamed Phoenix, after the 1972 Grand Funk Railroad album. Soon the band was re-renamed Grand Central, in part after the local high school. Grand Central rehearsed in the Anderson basement, the same place Prince slept—a proto–Paisley Park.
Grand Central was the brainchild of drummer Smith. The band featured Prince on guitar, Andre on bass, his sister Linda Anderson on keyboards, and later Terry Jackson on percussion. The group played out frequently, performing covers of bands like Kool & the Gang and Earth, Wind & Fire. They also performed originals, such as Smith’s “Danger Lover” and Anderson’s “Funk It Up,” plus Prince’s “Machine” (aka “Sex Machine”) and the trio’s “Do You Feel Like Dancing?”
In 1974, after winning a Battle of the Bands, the group entered Cookhouse Studios and recorded four tracks: Prince’s “Whenever,” Anderson’s “You Remind Me of Me,” and covers of Love Unlimited’s “Love’s Theme” and Carole King and Toni Stern’s “It’s Too Late.” As Grand Central became better known, the band evolved. What was a democracy was becoming Prince’s band. The other members wanted to add sax player David Eiland of rival group Flyte Tyme, but Prince nixed the idea. This panned out when, after attending a Sly and the Family Stone concert, Prince hit on the idea of having Linda play horn parts on her keyboards. A sound is born.
Around the same time, local drummer Morris Day was pestering Cymone about joining the band. Prince and Jackson, meanwhile, wanted to replace Smith with their own drummer: Keith King. But Prince and Jackson caught a bus to Day’s house instead of King’s, heard Day jamming on Tower of Power’s “What Is Hip?,” and hired Morris on the spot. Prince was either blamed for the firing or asserted responsibility for it, depending on who’s telling the story. Either way, Prince was now the band leader.
LaVonne Daugherty
While the band had a musical leader, as teenagers they needed more guidance. That came in early 1974 in the form of LaVonne Daugherty, Day’s mother. Daugherty viewed Grand Central as her stepping-stone to success and encouraged the group to become more professional, even having them wear matching suede jackets with zodiac signs on the back (Gemini for Prince, of course). The group, now augmented by percussionist William Doughty, signed a contract and changed their name to Grand Central Corporation.
In addition to an air of professionalism, Daugherty also brought Linster “Pepe” Willie into the mix. Willie was married to Prince’s cousin Shauntel Manderville. He had returned to Minneapolis to form a band, 94 East, and had an air of exotic New York City about him when he caught Grand Central Corporation playing at a ski party. He observed the band’s rehearsals, offering advice and being peppered with industry questions from Prince.
Willie was so impressed with the band, especially Prince, that he invited them to record as his band. The group recorded five tracks on December 4, 1975: “Games,” “I’ll Always Love You,” “If We Don’t,” “Better Than You Think,” and “If You See Me.” All tracks feature Prince on guitar and mark the earliest recorded Prince music to be released. The tracks have been repackaged multiple times, most interestingly on 2011’s The Cookhouse Five, remixed by Dr. Fink. “Do Yourself a Favor,” Prince’s 1982 recording of “If You See Me,” was released on 1999 Super Deluxe.
The three-piece Grand Central Corporation (Prince, Cymone, Day) soon entered Minneapolis’s ASI Studios to demo six original compositions. They emerged with Prince’s instrumental “Whenever” and “Machine” (again), Anderson’s “39th St. Party,” and the trio’s “Lady Pleasure,” “You’re Such a Fox,” and “Grand Central.” Daugherty shopped the songs to Isaac Hayes and his Hot Buttered Soul label. The feedback was so positive that Cymone quit high school. Prince refers to the impending release in his first interview in the February 13, 1976, Central High Pioneer. Even though he longed for stardom and hated school, as is clear in the article, Prince remained in school. Although it might not have mattered in the long run, he made the right decision in the short term, as Hayes went bankrupt.
After the Hayes disappointment, Daugherty and Pepe Willie began to fade into the background. Prince began to write his own songs and record them on cassette recorders borrowed from school. These 1976 home recordings produced eighteen tracks. Of these, six are complete songs (“Wouldn’t You Love to Love Me?,” released in 1987 by Taja Sevelle and 2019 by Prince; “Nightingale”; “I Spend My Time Loving You;”; “Rock Me, Lover”; “Don’t You Wanna Ride?”; and “Leaving for New York”), one is a cover (Chaka Khan’s “Sweet Thing”), and the balance are brief instrumentals or song ideas, such as “For You.” Setting precedent, Prince played all the instruments on these tracks.
Chris Moon
In the spring of 1976, Grand Central Corporation became Shampagne. Sham-pagne put their gig money toward sessions at Chris Moon’s Moonsound Studios. As when Pepe Willie watched the band and saw something, Moon watched Shampagne and was impressed with Prince’s demeanor and discipline. A lyricist in search of music, Moon approached Prince with an offer of open-door studio time in exchange for songwriting. Prince hesitated but relented. He jettisoned the band and, effectively, his friends. Shampagne evolved into Shampayne, and by early 1978, they were no more.
Although working alongside Moon and learning production and engineering, Prince was now a solo studio musician (although no longer a live performer). Moon and Prince have cowriting credit on six tracks recorded during America’s Bicentennial summer: “Aces,” “Don’t Forget,” “Don’t Hold Back,” “Fantasy,” “Surprise,” and “Soft and Wet.” The latter was rerecorded on For You, as were the Prince-only compositions “Baby,” “I’m Yours,” “Love Is Forever” (renamed “My Love Is Forever”), and “Jelly Jam,” which was the instrumental portion of “Just as Long as We’re Together.” “Since We’ve Been Together” and the rerecorded “Leaving for New York” were never released in any form, but “Make It through the Storm” was released on the B-side of protégé Sue Ann Carwell’s 1981 single “Let Me Let You Rock Me” single.
Prince graduated from high school in 1976 on his birthday and continued to be supported by Bernadette Anderson. But he wanted more. Prince and Moon assembled a four-song demo of “Soft and Wet,” “Love Is Forever,” “Baby,” and “Aces,” and Prince headed to New York in the fall to sell his wares. He stayed with his half sister Sharon Nelson in New Jersey. His phone calls failed to interest music industry reps. Admitting defeat, he contacted the equally unqualified Moon, who got nowhere until he lied to Atlantic Records about representing Stevie Wonder. It got Prince a meeting but not a recording contract, although he received an offer to sell his song rights to Tiffany Entertainment.