The Minneapolis harem

He loved them, exploited them, molded them, used them, exalted them, pitted them against one another. It's hard to imagine the career of Prince without also thinking of all the wonderful women who accompanied him, artistically and otherwise, over the years. A passion for the feminine universe that bordered on obsession, an exploration of his own feminine side (immortalized in the gorgeous "If I Was Your Girlfriend", not coincidentally performed by his imaginary alter-ego, Camille) or, for some, the exorcism of a repressed homosexuality. During his first fifteen years of career, Roger Nelson built, first in his Purple House and later in the sumptuous headquarters of Paisley Park (both in Minneapolis), a kind of extended family with which to make music nonstop and give vent to his unstoppable creative output. A purple family in which women were often the linchpin, whereas figures like Morris Day, future producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis (all part of theensemble The Time) and guitarist Dez Dickerson faced greater competition instead with their far from easygoing bandleader.

Those were years in which his songs were covered by artists looking to freshen up their careers (Chaka Khan, Mavis Staples and Patti Labelle), to reaffirm them (Cyndi Lauper, the Bangles, the now-forgotten Martika and even Celine Dion), by stars of equal fame and less malleable (Madonna and Kate Bush) but above all by a whole series of fascinating protégées who influenced, directly and indirectly, our man's career.

Italian-American Jill Jones was probably the most patient, consistent and essential of Prince's collaborators during his golden period, even though she often remained in the shadows, working behind the scenes on the prolific musician's various parallel projects. The two met in 1980 during the "Dirty Mind Tour": she was just eighteen, singing backing vocals for her cousin Teena Marie, who was opening for the Prince's shows every night. He was immediately struck by her talent, her beauty and her drive: it wasn't long before the two began an intermittent (and never public) relationship, and above all a fruitful collaboration meant to serve as a springboard for her solo career.

Having moved to Minneapolis, she joined the original core of the Revolution as a backing singer and took part in the making of most of the tracks on that "1999" destined to turn Prince's career around; she is the seductive and uninhibited "Lady Cab Driver," just as it's her voice (alongside Lisa Coleman's) that opens the famous title track. The two had such great chemistry in the studio that they would harmonize and record using the same microphone; her voice became practically the female counterpart to Prince's, who made her his muse, renaming her JJ and even convincing her to adopt a Marilyn Monroe-style look.

She would then take part in the triumphant "1999 Tour" and from then on would sing backing vocals (often uncredited) on albums by Vanity 6, The Time, Apollonia 6 and Sheila E., while also recording a large number of tracks meant, in theory, for her own debut album. That debut, however, would be a long time coming: Prince always needed new muses to fall in love with and be inspired by, and above all new projects to pour his prolific output into, output that Warner would otherwise have tried to rein in. Many of those songs would therefore be "given away" to other artists, but the final blow would be her exclusion from the definitive lineup of the Revolution, compensated only by a small but significant part in the film "Purple Rain," from which one of her musical performances would nonetheless be cut.

During the three years of the Revolution ('84-'86), however, JJ proved to be anything but useless; if anything, ever more determined - or simply in love (despite the insatiable Prince's various parallel relationships) - she kept working with him on B-sides (the remarkable "Hello"), remixes (the extended version of "Kiss") and live recordings ("It's Gonna Be A Beautiful Night"), and Prince, as a token of gratitude, dedicated to her what is probably the finest of his many remarkable B-sides, "She's Always In My Hair" (the single being "Raspberry Beret"), essentially an ode to his backing singer's loyalty.

It was 1987 when Jill Jones's long-awaited, self-titled debut album finally saw the light of day, just a few weeks after the release of "Sign O' The Times," and yet the two records couldn't be more different. Where Prince's album is a sprawling, brilliant pastiche of different musical styles, born as a summary of three previously aborted projects, "Jill Jones" is instead a cohesive, thoroughly modern affair blending synthetic funk, soul and jazzy arrangements.

JJ had reinvented her look, her spellbinding voice oozes sensuality like never before, and Prince's pen and hand are everywhere, unmistakable on the lead single "Mia Bocca" (with its memorably sultry video directed by Jean-Baptiste Mondino), essentially a new "Kiss." And yet the album already looks ahead, even toward the New Power Generation sound of the early '90s: "G-Spot" flirts with house beats despite the horns, "With You" from 1979's "Prince" is stripped of all its preciousness, "For Love" is almost a blueprint for the future hit "Cream," "Violet Blue" is a lush, chill-inducing jazzy mini-suite, and the languid "Baby, You're A Trip" is one of the finest ballads to ever come out of Minneapolis.

If, stylistically speaking, the album is a triumph — arguably the one with the best-defined identity among Prince's various female side-projects — unfortunately success on American soil will not follow, despite excellent reviews; in fact, the record will turn out to be a genuine flop. Even the sales of "Sign O' The Times" fall short of expectations in the United States, and Prince's star, weighed down by overexposure and a market saturated by the previous years, begins to shine a little too dimly to properly launch a new protégée into the firmament. Things will go decidedly better in Europe (and especially in Italy), where Prince's fame at the time is brighter than ever (if somewhat delayed); both the album and "Mia Bocca" will enjoy a fair amount of success there.

Jill Jones, however, doesn't lose heart, and toward the end of 1988 starts planning a second album, again under Prince's wing. A handful of songs are recorded, and for the proposed lead single, the pounding "Boom Boom" (built on the beat of "Batdance"), a proper video is even shot — but when it comes time to release it, Jones decides to pull the plug on everything. She isn't happy with the songs Prince has offered her, which she considers too frivolous and unable to showcase her artistic growth. It's the beginning of the rift between the two: she has already left Minneapolis to live in Europe, but her contract with Paisley Park Records, running until 1993, won't let her cut all ties. Ironically, it will indeed be a bridge — the one in "Graffiti Bridge," the 1990 film and would-be, disastrous sequel to "Purple Rain" — that will definitively seal the end of their decade-long story. Prince asks her to reprise her role from the earlier film, and her brief appearance, in which during a public quarrel she pulls off her underwear as a gesture of defiance and independence, will remain the film's only memorable scene, and above all their last appearance together.

Despite subsequent collaborations with Nile Rodgers, Ryuichi Sakamoto (hers is the voice on "You Do Me" from 1990's "Beauty") and Bomb The Bass, her career will never take off, and she will only manage to release new albums in the following decade. For more than twenty years the paths of Jill Jones and her mentor will not cross again, and the two will only reconcile in 2016 — by a twist of fate, just a few months before Prince's sudden death.

Sixteen-year-old Susan Moonsie, born in Trinidad but raised in Minneapolis, meets Prince in 1980, and the two immediately hit it off, to the point that for nearly two years she will be officially considered his girlfriend. As in a script that will repeat itself constantly from then on, Prince wants to launch his new flame into show business, but since she isn't particularly gifted vocally, he envisions her instead as part of a trio (alongside her sister Loreen and an employee of his manager, later replaced by Brenda Bennett) that in his mind should reinterpret, in an erotic synth-funk key, the classic girl groups of 1960s Motown. Prince already has a name in mind for the group, "The Hookers," along with the look they should perform in, consisting essentially of provocative guêpières, but he stalls on finding the right moment to have them debut.

Susan's fate, both professional and romantic, will however change drastically the moment actress and model Denise Williams enters Prince's life; he will appoint her as the new leader of the trio (renamed Vanity 6), leaving Moonsie with a less prominent role. Despite being sidelined, Susan will still manage to carve out her own space, remembered for her exotic beauty, her lolita look with white lingerie and the oversized teddy bear always in tow, but above all thanks to her hypnotic delivery on the trio's steamiest, most robotic, new-wave-leaning tracks, such as the sensational "Make Up" and the single "Drive Me Wild".

Among all of the 1980s protégées, Brenda Bennett is undoubtedly the most unusual. The wife of a lighting technician on Prince's early tours, she starts out working as a wardrobe assistant on his shows before being asked to join the trio The Hookers, later renamed Vanity 6. Rather far removed from Prince's usual aesthetic ideals, not especially striking but nonetheless at ease in the sultry role the project required, blonde Brenda had one trait that set her apart from her two colleagues: she could actually sing, and sing well. The daughter of country musicians, she had been part of the ensemble Ken Lyon and Tombstone, which had opened several American dates for Mott The Hoople and Queen.

With no romantic connection between them, Brenda often stands up to Prince, who enjoys calling her the trio's punk soul. And the character she is called on to play within the group is indeed that of the bad girl, sullen in tone and with a cigarette permanently in her mouth. She's given the most rockabilly moment ("Bite The Beat") on their debut album, as well as a large part of "If A Girl Answers (Don't Hang Up)," which represents the Minneapolis sound's first foray into rap. On her voice (and that of Apollonia) Prince will also model the famous "Manic Monday," later handed over to the Bangles, and "17 Days," which he will keep for himself as the B-side of "When Doves Cry," while still retaining Bennett's backing vocals.

When Canadian model Denise "Vanity" Matthews first meets Prince at the 1982 American Music Awards, she is Rick James's girlfriend; by then the two musicians are openly rivals, each claiming to have come up with the idea of creating a female trio reminiscent of the Supremes, but reworked for the 1980s. Between the two rivals, Prince wins out: he's the first to debut the female trio he had in mind, and he steals James's girlfriend, appointing her not only as the group's leader but also as the first lady of his growing harem. And Denise, in return for the honor, makes him lose his head. It couldn't be otherwise: she's gorgeous, sensual, and while she doesn't have an outstanding voice, she possesses a magnetic stage presence, able to draw all eyes to herself with feline, elegant movements unlike anyone before her. Prince projects his feminine side onto her, and would like her to take the stage name Vagina, but she manages to negotiate a more modest Vanity, from which the trio's name will derive: Vanity 6.

The first single released by the trio, out in June 1982, is the peppy "He's So Dull," full of sixties references, not unlike the Go-Go's formula, though it's a track hardly representative of the sound that will permeate the forthcoming album, being the only song on the tracklist not written by Prince but by his guitarist Dez. "Vanity 6" is, in fact, closely related to the contemporaneous "1999," rich in synthetic funk and spacey, lascivious atmospheres, and it above all contains the trio's real trump card: the celebrated "Nasty Girl". Irresistible, jagged, sweaty and damn sexy, it's the first truly great single that Prince decides to hand over to a female voice. Despite its raunchy lyrics, which will get it banned from several radio stations, the track will reach number one on the American dance chart and will pull the whole album up to number 45 on the Billboard 200.

On the tracklist, Vanity's voice will also take the lead on "Wet Dreams," which sounds as though it sprang from the sessions for "Controversy" and manages to hold its own next to the lead single, and finally on the solemn sensuality of "3 x 2 = 6," the one romantic moment on an otherwise fizzy album. Sealing the project's success, Prince invites the trio to open for the "1999 Tour," and the three perform, scantily clad as ever, a short but blazing set behind a darkened curtain: behind it, The Time play every note while Jill Jones covers any vocal gaps.

Meanwhile, the press starts growing curious about the relationship between Vanity and the increasingly famous Prince, who, though quite reluctant to discuss his private life, decides to pose with her on a famous and, for the time, daring cover of Rolling Stone, effectively making their relationship official. Once the profitable tour wraps up, the two immediately get to work on a new album for the trio, and above all on writing a film script, titled "Purple Rain," meant to fictionalize their love story, with Vanity and Prince obviously set to star, should they ever find a director willing to turn the film into reality. But once a director is actually found, Vanity, likely worn out by his infidelities, by his never-truly-ended relationships with Jill Jones and Susan Moonsie, and irritated by the possibility of receiving a smaller fee than Prince, walks out on her partner, on Vanity 6, and on the "Purple Rain" project just weeks before filming is set to begin.

From that moment on, Vanity's life begins to take on darker shades, no longer purple. Despite a Motown deal that produces two moderately successful albums, "Wild Animal" in '84 and "Skin On Skin" in '86, several (largely unmemorable) film and TV appearances throughout the 1980s, and much-talked-about relationships with Adam Ant, Billy Idol, and a devastating one with Mötley Crüe's Nikki Sixx, her star begins to fade. Denise, in fact, has a new obsession: crack. Her addiction will repeatedly bring her to the brink of death, and only after a near-fatal overdose in '94 will she gradually manage to get clean, becoming a near-fanatical Christian preacher and renouncing her former successful life.

Denise comes to identify Vanity as a puppet in the devil's hands right around the time that the far-from-angelic Prince uses her previously recorded moans (from the never-released 1983 track "Vibrator") to build the embarrassing "Orgasm," from "Come," without ever officially revealing his partner's identity. The abuses and excesses of her past will continue to haunt her like a demon: she will have to undergo endless, exhausting peritoneal dialysis sessions right up to a liver transplant. Vanity will die of kidney failure in February 2016. Devastated upon hearing the news of her death, Prince will dedicate an entire concert to her during an Australian stop on his final tour; just a few months later, he too will lose his life, due to an overdose of opioid painkillers.

Patricia Apollonia Kotero, a model and little-known actress, daughter of Mexican immigrants, would prove to be a true stroke of providence for Prince, the one who would allow him to complete his most ambitious project, destined to bring him to the peak of fame and success. It's 1983, and Denise Matthews has suddenly abandoned Prince, leaving the upcoming film “Purple Rain” without its female lead, and the Vanity 6, who are supposed to appear in a musical number in the film, without a leader. Prince's management immediately sets out to find a possible replacement, and after several auditions the choice falls on Kotero, who at that moment was starting to gain some visibility because of her extramarital relationship with David Lee Roth.

Compared to Vanity, however, Apollonia has a decidedly less aggressive stage presence: she's less tormented and faces interviews with an unexpected comic verve. And she's just as beautiful, albeit in a more reassuring way. Prince is immediately captivated by her, reworks the film's screenplay to better suit his new co-star, making her more maternal and romantic, has her relocate to Minneapolis to begin filming, and immediately tests her sadly limited vocal skills by recording a new song with her to be added at the last minute to the soundtrack. The duet “Take Me With You”, with its folk-pop drive, works well regardless (even when it's released as the fifth and final single from the album “Purple Rain”) — after all, there's no voice Lisa Coleman and Jill Jones can't elevate in the studio. Brenda and Susan also welcome Apollonia with open arms into their group, which is then renamed Apollonia 6; with them she immediately records another heavy-hitter from Prince's catalogue of songs for women, the racy “Sex Shooter”, a shining example of throbbing Minneapolis sound that the three will perform in the film itself with a supremely sensual performance.

The summer of 1984 is marked by an unprecedented and unexpected success in the United States: the film, the album, and the single (“When Doves Cry”) all reach the top of the charts in the same week — something that had never happened before. The press goes wild; such a level of stardom had only been reserved for Michael Jackson the previous year, and some critics even consider the film the best music movie since the Beatles' “A Hard Day's Night”. Despite a storyline riddled with physical abuse, Prince and Apollonia become the couple that fans and tabloids dream about even off the big screen, but paradoxically the two will keep their relationship strictly to the cinematic and professional realm, never going beyond a sincere friendship and mutual gratitude.

In the fall, after exhausting reworkings, the new album “Apollonia 6” is also released, the acid test to gauge the trio's ability to survive the line-up change. It will only achieve modest chart success, but it still offers several reasons to stick in the mind. Understandably closer to the varied pop of “Purple Rain” than to the futuristic funk of “1999” and “Vanity 6”, the new album, besides the now-famous “Sex Shooter”, contains only two other songs to which Apollonia lends her less-than-memorable voice: a “Happy Birthday Mr. Christian” that even anticipates the sonic landscapes of “Parade”, and the Spanish-language poem recited over a Santana-esque guitar backdrop in “In A Spanish Villa”. It therefore falls to Brenda to really keep the new project going (obviously with the help of the Revolution) with songs like the jittery “A Million Miles (I Love You)”, the sinuous disco-funk of “Some Kind Of Lover”, and the new single “Blue Limousine”, essentially a less melodramatic version of “Little Red Corvette” that almost apes Pat Benatar. That leaves Susan Moonsie to lend her voice to just “Ooo She She Wa Wa”, which is nonetheless once again the most experimental, wild and interesting track of the bunch.

Apollonia 6 then embark on a long promotional tour to push both the album and the film: Prince and the Revolution are in fact already too busy planning the tour and working on “Around The World In A Day” to be able to give interviews around the world. For this reason too, Apollonia 6 will not take part in the grand “Purple Rain Tour”, except as guests on a few dates. At the close of that unrepeatable era, Prince and Apollonia know they've reached a stalemate. He's no longer interested in continuing the trio, and offers her an extremely restrictive, ironclad contract, well aware that she'll reject it in order to pursue her rather unremarkable acting career. Susan and Brenda also end their journey under Prince's wing around this time, but on fairly friendly terms. Apollonia, who will try her hand at singing once more, for one last time, with the unsuccessful self-titled album of 1988, will nonetheless remain close to Prince (and to most of his collaborators) over the years, right up to his death, her only complaint against her friend being that he never credited her as a co-writer on “Manic Monday”, “The Glamorous Life” and “Mia Bocca” (a claim never taken too seriously by the Purple One's fans).

Wendy and Lisa, the right-hand women

The female duo of the Revolution, practically a brand within the brand, are among Prince's collaborators the best known, most cited and most beloved. Certainly also the most respected for their talent as musicians and composers, and because they're less easily pigeonholed into the cliché of the “sexy bombshell Prince wants to launch onto the market after taking her to bed”. Childhood friends, both daughters of Los Angeles musicians, life partners for twenty years but above all inseparable colleagues to this day, they nonetheless begin working with Prince at different moments in his career.

Lisa Coleman is, in fact, effectively the first among Prince's musical collaborators. They meet at the end of 1979, when she's offered the chance to record “Dirty Mind” alongside his band (even though her presence on the album is limited to backing vocals on the racy “Head”). From that moment she officially becomes his keyboardist (often sharing the stage and backing vocals with Jill Jones), a role she'll hold from 1980 until the end of the “Parade Tour” in 1986. Fascinating but introverted, she's probably the most atypical of Prince's women, the most reserved but also the most down-to-earth.

It's she who invites her partner Wendy Melvoin during the recording of “1999” (on that album their voices join for the first time, together with those of Jill Jones and Vanity, in the backing vocals of “Free”), and when in 1983, during the “1999 Tour”, guitarist Dez Dickerson suddenly throws in the towel, it's Wendy who replaces him, effectively marking the birth of the Revolution.

Unlike Lisa, Wendy is decidedly more outgoing and feisty, and because of the role she holds in the band, she becomes Prince's right hand, almost taking on the role of his deputy. She'll appear alongside him in the famous video for “Kiss” as the only member of the Revolution featured, and — an even more unique case in the Purple One's discography up to that point — she'll have the honor of being the lead voice on one of the songs from the three albums they release together (“I Wonder U” from “Parade”). Besides making the three landmark albums credited to Prince & The Revolution, Wendy and Lisa also take part in the recording of various side projects, such as The Time and Apollonia 6. They're also a force in the live shows, accept the Oscar for Best Original Song alongside Prince for the “Purple Rain” soundtrack (in which, of course, they also appear as actresses), pose with him on the cover of Rolling Stone, and above all assist him in writing memorable songs like “Computer Blue”, “17 Days”, “America”, “Mountains” and “Sometimes It Snows In April”, persuading him to infuse his music with more pop and jazz influences.

And yet, at the height of success, cracks start to show: the two aren't particularly happy with the expanded line-up of the Revolution accompanying Prince on the “Parade Tour”, fearing that the direction the band is taking is straying from the pop-rock they favor in favor of increasingly soul- and funk-driven sounds. At the same time, Prince too begins to grow impatient with their involvement in the making of the band's fourth album, “Dream Factory” (on which Lisa is also supposed to sing a solo song, “A Place In Heaven”), and so at the end of the tour, exhausted or simply looking for new stimuli, he disbands the Revolution, not without considerable internal ill will, and shelves the by-then nearly finished “Dream Factory” (which in the following months will morph into the triple album “Crystal Ball” and later, under pressure from Warner, will be trimmed down into the double album “Sign O' The Times“).

Wendy and Lisa will then embark on a career as a duo, releasing three albums without the Prince's supervision (“Wendy And Lisa” in '87, “Fruit At The Bottom” in 1989 and “Eroica” in 1990), but, just like Jill Jones, they'll find more success in Europe than in their home country, thanks to moderately successful singles like “Waterfall”, “Are You My Baby”, “Satisfaction” and “Lolly Lolly”, remixed by Prince as their final collaboration and a sign of reconciliation ahead of an unexpected reunion several years later. In 1999, in fact, the imminent return of Prince And The Revolution is announced for the making of a new album, “Roadhouse Garden”, containing previously unreleased material. The project, however, collapses almost as soon as it starts due to disagreements among the three, and is quietly shelved.

After other self-produced albums that went largely unnoticed, and TV soundtrack compositions that earned them a few Emmys, the two will finally join Prince and Sheila E onstage at the 2006 Brit Awards for the launch of the album “3121″, and the following year they'll take part instead in the recording of the not-quite-as-memorable “Planet Earth”. After Prince's death, they'll reunite the Revolution to keep playing live the songs written during that unrepeatable period of unmatched creativity.

Susannah Melvoin is Wendy's twin sister and, naturally, falls for Prince the moment her sister joins the Revolution. By this point he's already at loggerheads with Vanity, who will soon leave the purple family for good, giving him free rein to court the woman he probably sees as the straight female equivalent of his new right-hand man. Unlike Wendy, Susannah doesn't play any instrument professionally, but she's a decent backing vocalist, one whom Quincy Jones has already taken notice of, and Prince never misses a chance to recruit her for his various projects.

Her first job, in the summer of 1983, is recording “Baby I'm A Star”, from “Purple Rain”, and for the next three years her voice can be heard on several Revolution tracks (her most famous appearance is perhaps in the video for “Girls & Boys”), although she never officially becomes a member of the band, except during the 1986 “Parade Tour”, before their breakup. Prince, in fact, has other plans in mind for her: The Time, his “puppet” band led by Morris Day, has just broken up, and he wants to create another one with some of the members who remain under his wing. Melvoin is cast as the co-lead alongside singer St. Paul Peterson, and thus The Family is born, releasing their self-titled, one-and-only album in 1985. The record couldn't be more different from the contemporaneous, psychedelic “Around The World In A Day”; as with The Time's records, the shiniest, most party-ready funk takes center stage, and “Mutiny” will often find a place in Prince's live setlists. Standing apart from the overall mood are the not-too-memorable single “The Scream Of Passion”, a “River Run Dry” that sounds like a dress rehearsal for the future hit “Thieves In The Temple”, and above all the bloodless “Nothing Compares 2U”, which will dominate the charts in 1990 when Sinéad O'Connor delivers an incredible, heartfelt cover of it. Susannah's vocal presence, however, is almost imperceptible, overshadowed by St. Paul's, and she stands out mostly for her beauty and the silk pajamas she wears.

No matter — Prince has already cast her as the female lead of his new film set in France, “Under The Cherry Moon”, the story of an unrepentant gigolo. Yet, during a trip to France to scout locations for the film, he changes his mind, perhaps fearing yet another abandonment (after all, Susannah has already put up with his much-discussed flirtation with Madonna and Sheila E.'s increasingly intrusive presence); he no longer wants his partner to become the star of the new project, and will replace her instead with actress Kristin Scott Thomas, in her film debut. In exchange, he'll ask her to marry him and dedicate “Forever In My Life” to her, a genuine marriage proposal set to music.

The film will be both a critical and commercial flop, and things won't fare any better for his engagement, which by now is public knowledge; after the breakup of the Revolution, Prince will in fact try to keep his partner away from Wendy and Lisa, who were ostracized at the time. For Susannah it's all too much, so she decides to break off the engagement and leave Minneapolis, though she maintains a friendly relationship with him until the end. The last musical testimony of their love story will be the only song they wrote together, the delightful "Starfish And Coffee" from "Sign O' The Times"; their mutual promise to work together again, in fact, will never come to pass. Melvoin's name will only resurface later in a collaboration with William Orbit, ironically transformed into Madonna's "Candy Perfume Girl" (from "Ray Of Light"), and when in 2007 she reforms The Family under the name FDeluxe.

Among Prince's key, most steadfast and prolific collaborators, the talented percussionist Sheila E. Escovedo (a musician's daughter and Tito Puente's godchild) holds an important record: she was in fact the only one to enjoy solid chart success for nearly five years. The two met in the late 1970s, when she was a full member of George Duke's influential jazz-funk band and could already boast prestigious collaborations with Marvin Gaye, Herbie Hancock, Diana Ross and Lionel Richie. They immediately promised each other they'd work together, yet it would take a few years before they finally met in a recording studio, in 1984, to cut that little synth-funk gem "Erotic City", the racy B-side of "Let's Go Crazy", which would also enjoy decent radio airplay. The artistic chemistry between the two is instant, so they get straight to work on an album designed to showcase Sheila's talents.

"The Glamorous Life" is a record with the typical Prince-ian sound of that period, synthetic and dominated by the Linn drum; paradoxically, what ends up diminished is precisely Sheila E.'s specialty, her skill as a percussionist, which in such a context isn't always fully appreciated. The goal, however, is something else entirely: turning her into a pop star, and the mission succeeds almost immediately. The lengthy title track is in fact an instant classic, an infectious ride carried by a sly sax line that will reach the top ten of the best-selling singles charts in the States, earning her huge popularity and a Grammy nomination. Fame reaches Europe too thanks to the even poppier "The Belle Of St. Mark" and the gorgeous ballad "Noon Rendevouz", among the most hazy and enchanting of his career. Not every track is up to par, and the album loses its way a bit in some of Prince's oddball kitsch detours, like "Next Time Wipe The Lipstick Off Your Collar", which still hasn't quite found its footing (a balance miraculously achieved two years later on "Parade"). Sheila E., though, despite a voice that's not exactly razor-sharp, has charisma to spare, especially on stage; she's confident and particularly ambitious. Prince is well aware of it, invites her to open for the triumphant "Purple Rain Tour", and she begins to study him: styling her hair like him, dressing like him, moving like him.

By the time the second album made with Prince, 1985's "Romance 1600", comes out, she has practically become his female alter-ego. Without abandoning the sound of the previous record, the overall mood is more varied and playful, as shown by the first single "Sister Fate", the choral title track, as colourful as "Around The World In A Day", and the amusing "Dear Michelangelo", on which Prince's voice is even more audible than the album's namesake. There's also room for the jazzy "Yellow", basically an ancestor of "Strollin'" from Diamonds And Pearls, the (in)evitable circus number "Merci For The Speed Of A Mad Clown In Summer", and a more soul-inflected ballad, "Bedtime Story", on which Sheila E. reveals unexpected vocal chops for the first time. The record initially falls short of commercial expectations, but quickly bounces back when the massively famous "A Love Bizarre" is released as the second single, essentially a part two of "The Glamorous Life", even longer and practically a duet with Prince. It becomes another huge hit, followed a few months later by the single "Holly Rock", made for the film "Krush Groove" (about the birth of Def Jam Recordings), in which she is one of the stars.

By the dawn of 1987, Sheila E. has become the queen bee of the purple family, Susannah has by now left Minneapolis, and Jill Jones is busy with her upcoming album debut. Her relationship with Prince is no longer so hidden and is crowned by his request that she officially join his new band, not just as a percussionist but also as artistic director of the lengthy promotional tours behind "Sign O' The Times" and "Lovesexy". The two also collaborate on the parallel free-jazz project Madhouse, and around the same time a new album comes out, "Sheila E.", though Prince's contribution is limited to only half of the ten tracks on the tracklist. Compared to the two previous records, this one leans back into her Latin American roots, but the response from the public is decidedly cooler, and what stands out most are the more typically Prince-ian tracks, though more workmanlike than in the past, such as the hypnotic, rap-driven single "Koo Koo" and "Love On A Blue Train", which foreshadows the soul-funk drift of "Lovesexy".

Their apparent idyll, too, is destined to come to an abrupt end: at the close of the "Lovesexy Tour" in 1989, Sheila is struck by a pneumothorax, slowing down all her activities, but above all she doesn't agree with the stylistic direction Prince wants her to take for the next album. The two will only find peace and harmony again in the first decade of the new millennium, when they will once again share the stage, often, and Sheila will contribute to some tracks on "Musicology" from 2004, "3121" from 2006 and "Planet Earth" from 2007. New friction will follow, though, and the publication of a memoir of hers, full of private details, will greatly upset Prince, to the point that the two stop speaking until his death. Despite this, Sheila E. will rise to the role of ever-present inconsolable widow and chief organizer of events held in his honour, drawing criticism from most of her former "sisters".

The Scottish Sheena Easton is definitely the outlier among Prince's 1980s musical partners; unlike all the others, when the two start working together in 1984, she is already a more-than-established mainstream singer, despite her young age. She had in fact debuted in 1980 on one of the very first British TV talent shows, and, riding in Olivia Newton-John's wake, went on to climb the charts with decidedly adult-oriented tracks like "Morning Train (Nine To Five)", the cover of "We've Got Tonight" (duetting with Kenny Rogers) or the theme song for the Bond film "For Your Eyes Only".

Sheena, though, wants to consolidate her success in the States and make her image a bit edgier, as fashion demands. What better idea than to ask Prince for a song for her sixth album? Done and done. Eager to add a European voice to his roster of female collaborators, he immediately gives her the angular track "Sugar Walls", infuriating Jill Jones, for whose album it had initially been intended. The transformation from good girl to bad girl is instant and convincing: when the song is released as a single, radio stations censor it because of lyrics that leave little room for interpretation, but despite that it becomes a top-ten hit.

Although she never permanently relocates to Minneapolis and always denies any romantic involvement with Prince, Easton keeps working with him throughout the second half of the 1980s, recording more of his songs, including the softly paced ballad "Eternity" and the more sensual "101". The real ace up their sleeve, though, will be their duet on "U Got The Look", the most successful single pulled from "Sign O' The Times", followed by the overly saccharine "The Arms Of Orion", from the 1989 "Batman" soundtrack. That will also mark the end of their collaboration, in a career destined to run for several more years but with steadily diminishing success and media impact.

Dancer Cat Glover holds a curious distinction: among all of Prince's women, she's the first non-mixed-race Black woman to join his band. And she would often wonder why she'd been chosen, not considering herself particularly beautiful or a match for the Purple One's usual aesthetic standards. The answer is easy enough: Cat is a true stage animal, an athletic crowd-mover capable of even stealing the spotlight from him. Having found fame on a dance talent show thanks to her signature "Cat Scat" move, in 1987 Prince asks her to choreograph his upcoming tour in support of "Sign O' The Times" and to join him on stage to make his shows even more theatrical and dynamic. They turn out to be an explosive pair; the chemistry and sexual tension the two of them radiate are unmistakably palpable (because, as the dancer would repeatedly state, they were "never satisfied once the performance was over"), as immortalized in the concert film shot to promote the album in American territory, which the tour never reached.

Glover is also the only one who initially has no ambitions whatsoever as a singer. Yet Prince convinces her to come into the studio with him, rightly convinced that rap might well be one of her strengths: she is in fact the one who raps on "Cindy C" from the "Black Album" and, above all, on "Alphabet St" from "Lovesexy" (with the famous exhortation "Cat, we need you to rap!"). A possible album is also in the works, though it never materializes; Cat instead resumes her role as dancer and choreographer for the lavish 1988 world tour, and sparks fly once again (as documented in the "Glam Slam" video clip).

Once the long run of shows is over, Glover unexpectedly throws in the towel: she's at odds with Sheila E., and, as if that weren't enough, Prince wants to get rid of some band members she's become too close to, including the unfortunate keyboardist/backing vocalist Boni Boyer (who would die prematurely a few years later). But the last straw is that he wants Cat herself to fire their shared manager, Steve Fargnoli, seen as too close to the by-now-hated Warner. Having left Prince and Minneapolis behind, and no longer so sure of her decision, she still attempts a solo musical debut with the 1989 EP "Catwoman", but its failure prompts her to give up and return to pursuits more suited to her. In the years following Prince's death, hers becomes one of the loudest voices opposing the company chosen to manage the Paisley Park estate, which she accuses of being more interested in cashing in than in properly safeguarding his artistic legacy.

When Ingrid Chavez and Prince meet at the end of 1987, she is a young single mother who has just moved to Minneapolis, while he is going through a spiritual crisis that has just led him to halt the release of the already-pressed "Black Album", which he now views as practically the work of the devil. She introduces herself to him as an aspiring musician, though in truth she's more of a poet, and he becomes captivated by the tone of her voice and the spiritual aura she radiates, immediately identifying her as a guiding spirit who could inspire him to make new music capable of redeeming his soul. He immediately brings her to the Paisley Park studios, his headquarters, and the two record poems with musical accompaniment. Thus is born "the spirit child", the narrating voice that will introduce various tracks on the future "Lovesexy", the heavenly answer to the damned "Black Album".

To thank her for the "right" kind of inspiration, Prince wants to produce an entire album of musical poems for her, and the two get straight to work, much to the displeasure of an increasingly jealous Sheila E., still stung by her failure to get him to sign Tony! Toni! Toné! to a contract. Warner isn't too thrilled about the idea either, and would prefer an album of sung tracks rather than spoken ones; the recordings therefore proceed slowly, and Prince, distracted also by preparations for the lavish world tour in support of "Lovesexy", starts to lose interest. The self-titled album is finally released only in 1991, without making much noise, and contains just five of the poems recorded at Paisley Park, including the single "Elephant Box".

Before that, though, Ingrid and Prince have one last chance to join forces. For some time now, he's had it in mind to make a sort of sequel to "Purple Rain", but aside from Cat, he can't find any female partners willing to go along with it: both Apollonia and Madonna (certainly not someone with an infallible nose when it comes to films) turn down his request. It's 1989 when Prince proposes to his new flame, actress Kim Basinger (fresh off her "breathless" appearance in "The Scandalous Sex Suite", taken from "Batman", and the never-released album "Hollywood Affair"), that they make the film together, but their much-gossiped-about relationship is short-lived, and so is their film project. Once the script is reworked, Chavez happily agrees to step in for the far more famous actress; after all, the role imagined for her, that of a guardian angel, suits her well. Born under a bad star, "Graffiti Bridge" turns out to be a disaster on every front, partly redeemed by its decent soundtrack, made up of several demos left over from earlier projects and reworked for the occasion.

Right during the filming of "Graffiti Bridge", Prince introduced Lenny Kravitz to Chavez, and the two would begin a brief relationship during which they recorded one of her poems. A few months later, once the relationship ended, that poem would become Madonna's famous "Justify My Love". Kravitz, however, "forgot" to credit Ingrid among the song's authors, but at that point it was Prince himself who urged his protégée to pursue legal action, and she won the case. Once her professional relationship with Prince came to a definitive end, Ingrid Chavez would go on to collaborate with Ryuichi Sakamoto on '91's "Heartbeat" (she provided the vocals on the title track single and on "Cloud #9"), an experience that would allow her to meet her future husband David Sylvian. She would collaborate with him on his records right up until their painful separation in 2003, which inspired the album "Blemish”.

Between the late 80s and the early 90s, plenty of other artists would have their paths, personal or professional, tangled up messily with Prince's. None of them, though, would truly manage to win over his fans' hearts, and the public came to see them more as lavish accessories to be shown off, unable to stay at the prince's side for longer than six months. So they came and went: the very young Anna "Fantastic" Garcia (muse behind several tracks on "Batman"), the talented Rosie Gaines, first backing vocalist of that New Power Generation with whom Prince would score his biggest commercial success since "Purple Rain", the dancers Diamond and Pearl, sexy bombshell (but mediocre singer) Carmen Electra, and Nona Gaye, daughter of Marvin, whose heart Prince would break by choosing choreographer Mayte Garcia instead, "The Most Beautiful Girl In The World" and muse of "Love Symbol". After several years together, the two would marry in 1996, but their marriage would soon be marked by the death of their firstborn, afflicted with a severe cranial malformation, six days after birth, and by a subsequent miscarriage. The tragedy tested them both and led to their divorce in 2000, right as Prince began finding solace as a Jehovah's Witness, a faith that would lead him to reconsider several stylistic choices of his career, as well as his relationship with women.

More relationships would follow (including his second wife, Italian-born Manuela Testolini), lasting collaborations (such as with bassist Rhonda Smith), and other artists launched onto the market to little avail (Tamar Davis, Bria Valente, the trio 3rdeyegirl…), but from that point on the well-known secrecy surrounding his private life became practically impenetrable and, all things considered, dull, making one long for the diva-like but tremendously stimulating whim that was his 80s harem.