Still Thriving on Home Turf

By JAY COCKS

Scott Fitzgerald put Minnesota on the literary map. Bob Dylan put it on the musical map, then redrew the boundaries. But Prince, born and bred in Minneapolis, brought the music back to town, inspired what is now a $650 million local business, and kicked back to watch the revolution -- and play with the Revolution, which, as all Prince fans know, was the name of his touring band.

Of the many differences between Prince and his predecessors (he's shorter, he's a better dancer), one thing stands out: Prince stuck around, working all his wizardry on home turf. Fitzgerald and Dylan took off for the East and the high life. Prince stayed put and made high life right there. He's a local boy who's still on the scene. In fact, he is the scene.

Many talented rock musicians and funksters are at work in Minneapolis, but Prince dominates them all. He's had the hits, grabbed the attention and held the hot center since his 1984 album Purple Rain burst onto a complacent music scene. "There is no established music hierarchy here, no single right way to do things," says Chris Osgood, who once played guitar with a lively outfit called the Suicide Commandos and now heads the Minnesota Music Academy, which offers free business assistance to local musicians. "But the Minneapolis sound is really Prince -- some parts straight-ahead rock 'n' roll mixed in with rhythm-and-blues sensibility."

When Prince introduced his carbolic combination of Jimi Hendrix guitar overkill and contemporary dance rhythms, he seemed like just the man to take the musical past into the future. Recently, though, he seems stuck in his own deep groove. Graffiti Bridge, his newest album, is by turns intrepid and retrograde, bold and silly. That's not necessarily an unusual mix for Prince, but what's new -- and increasingly troublesome -- is his reliance on retreaded riffs and shopworn memories. Graffiti Bridge, the movie for which the album is the sound track, looks loopy, narcissistic and generally dispirited. It continues Prince's unrequited love affair with the cinema that began with his 1986 flop Under the Cherry Moon.

Graffiti is a bridge to nowhere, unless you consider another safari through Prince's quasi-mystical subconscious a trip worth taking. Shot entirely in Minneapolis, mostly on the sound stage of Prince's $10 million music- and film-production facility, Paisley Park, the film looks like a skein of rock videos strung around a badly frayed plot line. It has something to do with Prince's falling in love with an angel. Also something to do with Prince's playing his music his way and with his vanquishing the forces of musical vandalism.

Prince's crony Morris Day appears, quite amusingly, as the headman of the vandals, and the producers Jimmy (Jam) Harris and Terry Lewis show up as a couple of his henchmen. Harris and Lewis were pals and musical rivals of Prince's back in junior high school, and have gone on to some substantial success of their own by producing the last two top-selling Janet Jackson albums. But in Graffiti Bridge they are called on to re-enact the old adolescent competition. Prince bests them, natch. As a colleague explains, "Prince wrote the script, pulled in the money, directed and used his own studios. How could we expect a different ending?"

The impression grows that Prince's energies are elsewhere, either in feeding tales of his romantic exploits with the likes of Kim Basinger to the p.r. machine, or in his turning into a full-blown entrepreneur. Minneapolis' newest club, called the Glam Slam, is run by Prince's bodyguard Gilbert Henderson, with a rumored $1 million in financial backing from the boss himself. Prince keeps instruments at the club, in case he should want to drop by and jam. (Maybe tonight!) The place looks just like the Glam Slam club in Graffiti Bridge. Stepping inside (cover charge: $8) is not only like plunging into the movie but also like taking a nose dive straight into a Prince fantasy. You can even dress like the little guy. The world's first Prince boutique is on site, where you can buy memorabilia, shirts, jewelry, even a suit (price: $2,500- $3,000) tailor-made by Prince's own wardrobe department.

Paisley Park itself, located in the western exurbs of Minneapolis, just 10 minutes from Prince's country estate, seems as much like a monument as a working studio. The proprietor's favorite black-and-white '67 T-bird can often be seen in the parking lot. But he likes to keep out of the way, partly from personal inclination and partly from business savvy. He doesn't want anybody, according to one aide, "to feel like they've walked into Graceland" when dropping by Paisley Park. He keeps his various awards, including those for his four gold and eight platinum albums, locked in a basement room. But next to it, almost like tablets in a tabernacle, are tapes of an estimated 100 unreleased songs, plus two complete albums -- enough to keep Prince in royalties for years, even if he never writes another note. (Not much danger of that: he turned out 21 more songs during his three-month European concert tour this summer.)

Paisley Park, which showed a loss during its first two years, is now a thriving facility. The sound stage has been used for everything from rock videos to Hormel chili commercials. The recording studios are state-of-the- art, and so too, in its way, is Prince's private office, which features three beds (king, round, day), one mirror (over the king), sofas, chairs and a desk -- all built large-scale. "In the long run, the fewer trappings we're + surrounded by, the more basic and honest the public's perception will become," says Alan Leeds, who runs Prince's Paisley Park record label. "My only advice to Prince is to continue to be as honest with his music as he's always been. He could be this generation's Duke Ellington."

A fan's advice might be a little different. There is, contrary to the title of a Graffiti Bridge tune, no lasting Joy in Repetition. Prince needs to open up and shake himself loose the way he once shook up the music. He can't just go for a stroll in the Park.

With reporting by William McWhirter/Minneapolis