Ep. 30: Mixing Prince and Heartland Rock and Roll in Minnesota

This particular podcast episode found its inspiration in one of the Spotify-exclusive Rock Pop and Roll Radio Shows that we've made. They live on Spotify and were created to give me a chance to make an old-school radio show. Listen for 90 minutes to one and hear stories plus the whole song, something we don't do on the podcast. A callback to the great radio of the 70's and 80's.  

I was working on a podcast about Minneapolis roots rock/heartland rock bands and how they were oddly influential in the 1980's musical landscape.  Then I remembered this Prince Spotify radio show I produced and thought - hey - this is part of the story.  How Prince - who music listeners know is from Minnesota - and a bunch of white kids with guitars could exist and, in a sense, inspire each other.

Prince was a mashup of what he heard growing up.  That was his secret to crossover success. Filmmaker Philip Priestley, who made a 2008 documentary comparing the careers of Prince and Michael Jackson, said that growing up in Minneapolis helped Prince to create a new sound. "He grew up listening to a lot of radio which was other stuff than black soul music and rhythm and blues," Priestley said. “He was listening to rock -- white rock -- which explains why he was so unique musically. "He fused a black American tradition -- rhythm and blues, soul, funk, jazz -- with white rock." 

That's what we peel back here, trying to figure out the connection between it all.  

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Read Rob's current and archived writing at rockforward.wordpress.com

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