Prince: A Thief in the Temple

by Brian Morton

Overview

Prince Rogers Nelson released his first album in 1978. In the almost 40 years that followed he became a superstar, a recluse, an inspiration, an enigma, a slave and a symbol. He was a master of reinvention, but the one constant in his astonishing career was his genius: as a singer, a songwriter, a performer and musician. He sold more than 100 million albums, won Grammys and an Oscar. His ability to fuse styles and genres made him one of the most unique, influential and beloved artists in music history. In Prince: A Thief in the Temple, music journalist Brian Morton reveals the highs and lows of an incredible musical life.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781782119753
Publisher:	Canongate Books
Publication date:	05/02/2016
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	224
File size:	526 KB

About the Author

Brian Morton was born in Paisley and grew up in New Orleans-on-Clyde, aka Dunoon, where he acquired a lifelong passion for jazz. He taught at university before spending ten years working on The Times and its supplements; he then became a freelance writer and broadcaster, and has had an illustrious career as an arts and music commentator on BBC Radio Scotland and on BBC Radio 3. His publications include The Penguin Guide To Jazz which he co-authors with Richard Cook.
Brian Morton was born in Paisley and grew up in New Orleans-on-Clyde, aka Dunoon, where he acquired a lifelong passion for jazz. He taught at university before spending ten years working on The Times and its supplements; he then became a freelance writer and broadcaster, and has had an illustrious career as an arts and music commentator on BBC Radio Scotland and on BBC Radio 3. His publications include The Penguin Guide To Jazz which he co-authors with Richard Cook.

Editorial Reviews

Offers up a fascinating album-by-album analysis of how Prince's revolutionary melding of white rock and black funk and soul has had a profound impact on modern music

EBOOK COMMENTARY

Cogent analysis of The Artist Currently Known as Prince. Scottish arts journalist and broadcaster Morton (The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings, 2006, etc.) traces the Purple One's musical evolution over the course of a remarkable yet strangely unresonant career. Neither a standard linear biography nor show-biz tell-all, the book is steadfastly focused on the music and the psychological and sociological conditions that informed it. Morton proposes that Prince's music is uniquely biracial, borrowing heavily from both black R&B and soul tropes and white rock and pop styles; two of his largest influences are identified here as Jimi Hendrix and Joni Mitchell. Convincingly, if at times a bit baroquely (his enthusiasm and verbal facility can lead him down some baffling rabbit holes), Morton develops the idea that this is one of a host of dichotomies that lie at the heart of Prince's work and mystique. Others include the tension between sacred and profane themes in his lyrics, his aggressive androgyny and ambiguous ethnicity and the unusual racial dynamic of his hometown, Minneapolis, a city whose overwhelmingly white population has historically enjoyed relative social harmony with its tiny black community. Morton's analysis of each album is impressively nuanced and erudite, scrupulously avoiding sycophantic apologies for weaker entries in the canon, and he makes a convincing case for his subject's status as a profoundly significant musician. And yet, Prince's infamous insularity (if not outright paranoia) also defines his work: For all his success and dazzling musical accomplishments, he's a bit of a closed loop; unlike other artists of his stature, he strangely lacks imitators or disciples. Thetrails he blazed were personal, inward and, in the main, left fallow by succeeding generations of musicians. This self-contained, self-indulgent quality is simultaneously Prince's most fascinating and frustrating characteristic-not to mention, another dichotomy. It's lonely out there for sui generis eccentric geniuses-luckily, gifted writers like Morton are able to bring them a little closer to us.

Kirkus Reviews

Offers up a fascinating album-by-album analysis of how Prince's revolutionary melding of white rock and black funk and soul has had a profound impact on modern music

Metro

Far from a conventional biography, this book by journalist, broadcaster and jazz expert Brian Morton is a scholarly critique of Prince's music in the context of the American canon

Big Issue

Sends you back to the music with fresh ears

Guardian

"Sends you back to the music with fresh ears." —Guardian

"Offers up a fascinating album-by-album analysis of how Prince's revolutionary melding of white rock and black funk and soul has had a profound impact on modern music." —Metro

"Far from a conventional biography, this book by journalist, broadcaster and jazz expert Brian Morton is a scholarly critique of Prince's music in the context of the American canon." —Big Issue

From the Publisher