Prince’s Fascinating Life and Tragic Death

Driving a “Little Red Corvette” in the “Purple Rain” of the afterlife is surely what the artist forever known as Prince is doing now, as fans continue to mourn his tragic death. Prince Rogers Nelson, born in Minneapolis in 1958, was a mega personality, singer and musician, popularly known from the ’80s for hits like “Purple Rain,” “When Doves Cry,” “Raspberry Beret,” and “Kiss.”

When Prince was found dead on April 21, there was widespread confusion and sorrow. People wondered if he was really dead, and if he died of a drug overdose. The circumstances surrounding his death, as reported by CNN and Vanity Fair, were that Prince was found by his employees alone in an elevator at his estate in Paisley Park, with no obvious signs of trauma.

According to CNN, Andrew Kornfeld, the son of Dr. Howard Kornfeld, “a California pain and addiction specialist,” was sent on a “life-saving mission” to see Prince before he died. He was at Paisley Park when Prince was found, and he had buprenorphine in his backpack, an opioid class drug administered to help people addicted to these dangerous pain medications.

Less than a week earlier, according to multiple reports, Prince’s health issues caused him to take a detour on his flight home from a special performance in Atlanta, so an “unresponsive male” (NBC News) could be rushed to an Illinois hospital. The Atlanta shows had been rescheduled from earlier in the year due to the musician’s ill health.

People often are shocked when news like this occurs because they think that they know the famous person, and may hold them to an impossibly high standard. Several Abington High School, faculty members commented on Prince’s passing. Mrs. Karin Daisy, a health teacher and the adviser for the Gay-Straight Alliance, said she was in “total shock” when she heard of Prince’s possibly drug induced death.

Prince’s popularity was at its greatest during his Purple Rain Tour of 1984 and 1985, selling over 1.7 million tickets. Yet, he was captivating for so much more than his musical talent. Mrs. Kristin Ferioli, a Prince super-fan since the ’80s, and current director of guidance at AHS, describes Prince as “larger than life.” She compares her adoration of Prince to that of today’s teen’s devotion to artists such as Kanye West or Justin Bieber.  Like them, she would wait on edge for every new song.

Ferioli went to her first Prince concert as a teenager in 1985. She was impressed that he was capable of playing 25 instruments, and said that “his music was 75 percent of what she liked, while his persona was 25 percent.” She said when she thinks of Prince she thinks “funky and fun.” She found his androgynous look, with eyeliner, “cool.”

In 2014, just a year and a half before his passing, Ferioli attended a second Prince concert with a good friend.  When Prince died this spring, Ferioli said her phone “was blowing up with texts from friends” because they knew she was such a big fan. In fact, she pulled some concert memorabilia out of a closet and fashioned something of a shrine to the deceased icon.

Although he played just about every instrument, Prince was most famous for his guitar skills. According to an article published by Michael Leonard on Gibson Guitar’s website the day after he died, Prince was “clearly the greatest guitarist of modern times.” His guitar shredding ability was he performed “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” with Tom Petty, Steve Winwood and Jeff Lynne during a tribute to George Harrison, following the Beatles guitarist’s 2004 posthumous individual induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

In addition to his music, Prince was known for his love of the color purple and his uniquely strong personality and demanding, or many would say eccentric ways. He was a true diva in both fashion and attitude. Ms. Andrea Clifford, an English teacher at AHS, said that she “immediately thought of him as a diva…I am violently allergic to those.” Clifford said that some of Prince’s lyrics, on their own, showed “some poetry,” but overall she was not a fan. She did, however, stand in line overnight in the rain at the Hanover Mall so that her sister could get tickets, but that gesture was “her trying to be nice,” and if her sister gave her the tickets, Mrs. Clifford said she would not have gone.

An example of Prince’s prima donna nature referenced by Clifford was his name change in 1993. Prince had gotten into a contractual dispute with Warner Brothers, the company that he had signed a recording contract with. His new name was an indescribable symbol that had no name or reference. Therefore, the media had to refer to him as “The Artist Formerly Known as Prince.” Fans later called the symbol “the love symbol,” but Clifford describes it as “annoying and desperate.” On the contrary, Ferioli admired it as he was “trying to stand up for himself and fight back.”

When Prince changed his name to “a symbol with no name,” Clifford says she was “over him” and thought of him as an “attention seeker” and “annoying and desperate.”

Prince was certainly a big name in the fashion industry, as he was one of the few men with the boldness to step out of fancy cars sporting high heels. Mrs. Daisy compares Prince’s outlandish fashion to that of Elton John. Even Ms. Clifford, who wasn’t on the Prince bandwagon, said that regardless of his ego, Prince was certainly someone to be seen.

Prince’s major achievements included his album Purple Rain in 1984, selling around 22 million copies, and his 2007 Super Bowl halftime show, where he sang “Purple Rain” behind a massive curtain with back lighting that made his suggestive silhouette appear larger than life.

Unfortunately, the aftermath of such gargantuan fame can lead to many downfalls. Prince was known to have difficulty keeping romantic partners. Women were in and out of his life. He was married twice, first to Mayte Garcia in 1996 and then to Manuela Testolini in 2001. He was known to also have dated countless women, including Madonna, Nona Gaye, Misty Copeland and Sherilyn Fenn, the actress who played the role of Curley’s wife in Gary Sinise’s movie version of John Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men.”

Needless to say, Prince was an accomplished singer, performer and monumental man from the start of his career to the end. Many, like Mrs. Ferioli, will sorely miss this amazing performer and icon who paved the way for future generations to shamelessly tear down gender boundaries and explore sexuality through their art.