{"id":384710,"date":"2026-04-17T20:20:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T20:20:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/384710\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T20:20:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T20:20:11","slug":"he-hummed-the-initial-melody-for-when-doves-cry-into-my-answerphone-saying-dont-erase-this-so-hed-remember-it-prince","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/384710\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cHe hummed the initial melody for When Doves Cry into my answerphone \u2013 saying, \u2018Don\u2019t erase this!\u2019 \u2013 so he\u2019d remember it\u201d: Prince\u2019s Purple Rain co-star recalls the moment he had the idea for one of his greatest songs"},"content":{"rendered":"

For Prince fans, 21 April 2026 will be a bittersweet day. This will mark 10 years since the star\u2019s death, aged just 57<\/a>, and will be a moment to reflect on not only what we\u2019ve lost, but also the remarkable catalogue of music and memories that Prince left us.<\/p>\n

To mark the occasion, The Guardian<\/a> has been speaking to a raft of Prince\u2019s friends and collaborators, and they paint a picture of a man consumed by his desire to play and create music.<\/p>\n

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Take his cousin, Charles \u2018Chazz\u2019 Smith, who played drums in Prince\u2019s first band, Grand Central. He says that they were inspired to form the group after going to see Sly and the Family Stone at the Parade stadium in Minneapolis.<\/p>\n

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\u201cHis dad got him a guitar and the next day he came back playing Black Magic Woman by Santana, note for note,\u201d says Smith. \u201cHe was obsessed with being great at guitar, writing songs, playing rock, funk, ballads, everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

Apollonia Kotero, meanwhile \u2013 his co-star in Purple Rain, and the lead singer in Apollonia 6, the girlband that Prince created \u2013 recalls the urgent moment when he came up with the seed of an idea for what would become one of his greatest songs.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne time, he hummed the initial melody for When Doves Cry<\/a> into my answerphone \u2013 saying, \u2018Don\u2019t erase this!\u2019 \u2013 so he\u2019d remember it,\u201d she recalls.<\/p>\n

Someone who would eventually work on this track \u2013 and across many of Prince\u2019s greatest albums, in fact \u2013 was engineer Susan Rogers<\/a>, and she reaffirms just how demanding he could be, particularly in his desire to record at any time of the day or night.<\/p>\n

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\u201cHe once said: \u2018Susan. You have no friends,\u2019\u201d she recalls. \u201cHow could I have a friend when I worked for him?\u201d<\/p>\n

Elsewhere, Revolution drummer Bobby Z<\/a> reflects on how uncomfortable Prince was around other celebrities, but there was the odd exception. \u201cWhen he met David Bowie at Paisley Park it was a warm moment, because he felt that they were equals,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Alongside these happy memories, there are some darker ones. Notably, several of the people interviewed discuss how frail Prince looked in the years before his death, and highlight the toll that his intense career took on his body and mind.<\/p>\n

Perhaps Prince always knew that it would be this way, though: \u201cWhen he was about 26 he told me he didn\u2019t want to live past 35,\u201d says Leroy Bennett, his former lighting director and friend. \u201cWe\u2019re all lucky that we had a couple more decades with him.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For Prince fans, 21 April 2026 will be a bittersweet day. This will mark 10 years since the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":384711,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[156,157,111,139,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-384710","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-music","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-newzealand","12":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=384710"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384710\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/384711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=384710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=384710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=384710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}