{"id":10393,"date":"2026-04-21T18:02:05","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T18:02:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/lightning-captured-in-a-bottle-the-making-of-purple-rain-by-prince-154056\/"},"modified":"2026-04-21T18:02:05","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T18:02:05","slug":"lightning-captured-in-a-bottle-the-making-of-purple-rain-by-prince-154056","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/lightning-captured-in-a-bottle-the-making-of-purple-rain-by-prince-154056\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cLightning captured in a bottle\u201d \u2013 The making of \u201cPurple Rain\u201d by Prince"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Originally published in Uncut Take 339<\/em> (June 2025)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Originally published in Uncut Take 339<\/em> (June 2025)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

On August 3, 1983, Prince and backing band the Revolution \u2013 with 19-year-old guitarist Wendy Melvoin making her live debut \u2013 played a benefit gig for the Minnesota Dance Theatre at the First Avenue club in downtown Minneapolis. <\/p>\n

Prince used the occasion to showcase songs that would form the backbone of sixth album Purple Rain, the soundtrack for a proposed movie. Among these was an apocalyptic ballad with a grandstanding guitar solo that became the title song of both the album and film. On hand was engineer David Rivkin (aka David Z, brother of Revolution drummer Bobby Z), instructed by Prince to record the show on a mobile unit. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt was an incredible night,\u201d he recalls. \u201cPrince had improved the band so much that he didn\u2019t settle for anything other than great. He was the most energetic person and set an example for everybody \u2013 you\u2019ve gotta be on top of it, no matter what.\u201d The following months saw an accelerated period of recording sessions, rehearsals and filming duties, powered by Prince\u2019s extraordinary work ethic. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe metaphor I like to use is a rubber band being stretched and stretched,\u201d says Purple Rain\u2019s co-engineer Susan Rogers. \u201cIt\u2019s well known that he had a really traumatic and turbulent childhood. Growing up, the pressure was enormous. So if you manage to get that rubber band to release and achieve that escape velocity, then you get out of the circumstances of your youth and don\u2019t turn around. He was very driven.\u201d <\/p>\n

The runaway success of 1984\u2019s Purple Rain \u2013 both album and film \u2013 turned Prince from Midwest R&B hipster to international superstar. At the core of his newfound reputation was the title track, which became the crowning glory of his subsequent live shows. It also closed the final gig he ever performed in public, in Atlanta, Georgia, on April 14, 2016, a week before his death. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhether or not he knew that would be his last concert is still up for debate, but the fact that he played \u2018Purple Rain\u2019 as the final song in his last ever set proves its significance,\u201d reckons prot\u00e9g\u00e9 and producer\/engineer Chris James, who\u2019s now overseen a new Dolby Atmos mix of its parent album. \u201cI feel like he\u2019s the king and we\u2019re all the crazy people that aren\u2019t accepted anywhere else in life. So it\u2019s the kind of anthem that we can all unite with.\u201d <\/p>\n

Key Players<\/strong><\/p>\n

Bobby Z (Drums)
David Z (Engineer)
Novi Novog (Violin\/Viola)
Susan Rogers (Engineer)
Chris James (Dolby Atmos mix engineer)<\/p>\n

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BOBBY Z:<\/strong> I first met Prince around 1977. The band had been through various changes, but one by one the Revolution came together. When Wendy joined, everything started to gel. It felt like we were a group who were going to conquer the world together. It started with \u201cLet\u2019s Go Crazy\u201d. That\u2019s when we knew that these songs were different. Prince was gearing towards the movie on a higher plane. We\u2019d rehearse at the Warehouse on Highway Seven and at the end of one of those exhausting 10-hour days, he said: \u201cI want to try something before we go home,\u201d then started playing \u201cPurple Rain\u201d on the piano. So we just kind of all fell in. He didn\u2019t really instruct us much at all that first time. Was it a country song, a gospel song, a rock song, a ballad, a love song, an inspirational song? It was really hard to tell where it was going.<\/p>\n

DAVID Z:<\/strong> The first time I was aware of \u201cPurple Rain\u201d was when Prince gave me a rehearsal tape of him teaching the song to the band. He was shouting out the chords, so it wasn\u2019t a complete performance at all.<\/p>\n

BOBBY Z:<\/strong> I still have that first tape and he\u2019s laughing at our mistakes. It\u2019s actually a pretty simple song, but then Wendy added these expansive opening chords, which ended up being so iconic. They\u2019re probably the most famous opening chords next to \u201cA Hard Day\u2019s Night\u201d. By the time we got to August 3, 1983, we were able to lay down \u201cPurple Rain\u201d at First Avenue.<\/p>\n

DAVID Z:<\/strong> Prince told me he wanted a really good recording of the show. It was a benefit concert for a local dance company, because [choreographer] Loyce Houlton had given him free space and taught him how to move. That was basically the premise. There was really no record truck available in Minneapolis, so I got hold of the biggest one at the time, from the Record Plant in New York. It was essentially Sunset Sound on wheels.<\/p>\n

BOBBY Z:<\/strong> First Avenue held about 1,800 people. To record live in a club like that, with such an expensive multi-truck truck, was pretty rare in Minneapolis. I remember that night being so hot, with cigarette smoke everywhere.<\/p>\n

DAVID Z:<\/strong> Prince came into the truck ahead of time and introduced Sheila E, who was his new partner. He said, \u201cCan she sit in here and watch?\u201d I said sure. It was all air-conditioned, so we were away from the heat. He\u2019d paid for the truck and spent all this money. I had no idea it was going to turn into a movie.<\/p>\n

BOBBY Z:<\/strong> Prince was hyped up. He was like: \u201cWe\u2019re making history tonight!\u201d It was Wendy\u2019s first show and there were new songs. It definitely felt special. The heat and smoke maybe slowed you down a little, making you feel like you were crawling through space and time. So everything had this kind of magic. \u201cPurple Rain\u201d came at the end of the show. Of course, nobody in the audience knew the song, so they were just listening intently, trying to absorb it.<\/p>\n

DAVID Z:<\/strong> It was such an intense night. The band had rehearsed every day for a year, and you could tell. Prince had whipped them into shape. The audience wasn\u2019t moving at all, because they\u2019d never heard this music before. The version of \u201cPurple Rain\u201d on the album is pretty much exactly is it happened. This was about a month and a half before they shot the movie.<\/p>\n

BOBBY Z:<\/strong> Prince refined \u201cPurple Rain\u201d. He took out a verse about not needing money, so it became more spiritual. And it has the same end-of-the-world theme as \u201c1999\u201d: \u201cLet me guide you to the purple rain\u201d. So he\u2019s playing the leader at the end of times. There\u2019s all kinds of metaphorical stuff in it. Musically, the guitar solo is amazingly intact, the drum part\u2019s intact, everything. I think of \u201cPurple Rain\u201d as lightning captured in a bottle.<\/p>\n

CHRIS JAMES:<\/strong> The casual listener probably doesn\u2019t realise that this was a live take. Granted, they overdubbed strings and maybe a background vocal, but everything else is live, not a single edit or punch. Now, that\u2019s really impressive.<\/p>\n

SUSAN ROGERS:<\/strong> In general, he would embellish afterwards, but he really didn\u2019t do much with \u201cPurple Rain\u201d. It was intended as kind of a rock ballad. I\u2019ve heard some people talk about him wanting to collaborate with Stevie Nicks on it. I know she was on the fringes of some conversations, so it could be true.<\/p>\n

BOBBY Z:<\/strong> Prince was fascinated with Journey at the time. I think he played it for Jonathan Cain, because it was out of his element into the rock world and he thought he was maybe encroaching on Journey. We\u2019d watched Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band do big ballads like \u201cTurn The Page\u201d. So it was inspired by trying to reach a crossover audience.<\/p>\n

ROGERS:<\/strong> His philosophy was taking shape in that the way you look on stage is how you look morning, noon and night, seven days a week. He was adopting all the accoutrements of being a superstar. This wasn\u2019t an act, this is who he was. He was planning for the movie and doing a lot of rehearsals, so we ended up going back and forth between Minneapolis and LA quite a lot, because he needed to be in California for post-production. So we\u2019d work at Sunset Sound.<\/p>\n

NOVI NOVOG:<\/strong> The first time I got called to Sunset Sound for a Prince session was for The Time. I thought he was going to be kind of a brat, a little snob. But he was the complete opposite, just the sweetest. And very funny, with a dry sense of humour. For \u201cPurple Rain\u201d, they asked if I knew anyone who played cello and I thought of Suzie Katayama, because she can improvise on the spot. We arrived and David, Lisa Coleman\u2019s younger brother, was there too on cello. Lisa and Wendy were leading the session and I think Prince was on the phone from Minneapolis, listening in and then critiquing it. We kept overdubbing, so that session went on a long time. I also remember a young woman, Apollonia, being in the booth when we were recording.<\/p>\n

ROGERS:<\/strong> I think Prince intended \u201cPurple Rain\u201d to be an anthem. That was his goal. And that\u2019s why, on the Purple Rain tour, he would close the night with it and do a guitar solo for 20 minutes. It was like, \u201cThis is my flag planted on the moon of my music.\u201d The crew would take bets every night as to how long his solo would last. But you could see how that song really connected with an audience.<\/p>\n

DAVID Z:<\/strong> All we want is validity. Purple Rain the album, the movie, the song \u2013 was the biggest smash-through for Prince and it proved that we knew what we were doing. It showed that we weren\u2019t just small-town people, like we were in the beginning.<\/p>\n

JAMES:<\/strong> I was 10 years old when Purple Rain came out. That\u2019s a very impressionable age anyway, but in \u201984 \u2013 as a black kid in Memphis, Tennessee, and coming off the heels of Thriller Prince, Rick James and Michael Jackson were heroes for me. Then seeing Prince live just changed my world watching him play the instruments, singing and dancing, guiding the band. It was like he had a gang, a crew that had his back. It was the whole concept of everything they were presenting as a group multiple ethnicities and multi-gendered.<\/p>\n

ROGERS:<\/strong> Before being hired by Prince, I\u2019d been working in Los Angeles at Rudy Records, a studio owned by Graham Nash and David Crosby. When I left for Minneapolis in \u201983, they were all puzzled that I would leave and go work for Prince, because he was still considered kind of this weirdo. He was a star, but he wasn\u2019t yet a superstar. But he changed after the movie came out and after the tour.<\/p>\n

BOBBY Z:<\/strong> Sweating the same sweat as him, in rehearsal and on stage, you got to know him. The success of Purple Rain certainly changed him from a position of control and power. In a sense, he killed off the old guy and became Prince as the world now knows him.<\/p>\n

DAVID Z:<\/strong> He became much more paranoid, because everyone now knew who he was. So he only really trusted the people that he grew up with and that he could tell were his friends. His pet peeve was he didn\u2019t want somebody getting ahead on his coattails, which many people tried to do. That\u2019s when he got the bodyguards. But when you got him alone, he was still outspoken and he\u2019d stand up on couches and scream and yell and dance. He was a funny guy, I loved him.<\/p>\n

JAMES:<\/strong> When it came to doing the new Dolby Atmos mix of Purple Rain, there\u2019s a tremendous amount of weight and stress when you touch such a blockbuster classic. A large part of that was doing the research, talking to Susan, talking to [co-engineer] David Leonard, reading all the articles, finding out what equipment was used. At Sunset Sound, I actually got to run the multi-tracks back through the exact console and some of the equipment that was originally used. Ultimately, you just want to service the work as best you can, so that the legacy can thrive \u2013 and to make new fans.<\/p>\n

ROGERS:<\/strong> \u201cPurple Rain\u201d is symbolic and nostalgic for many people, but for younger people it\u2019s suggestive of what\u2019s possible. I currently teach at Berklee College of Music and nothing is more attractive to the students than the idea of someone who totally controls their own career, who writes, sings and plays all their own music. So they look at Prince as a paragon of how it\u2019s done.<\/p>\n

BOBBY Z:<\/strong> \u201cPurple Rain\u201d was his go-to moment. The fact that the climax of the movie is a downtempo ballad is pretty amazing when you think about it. The real legacy is how it affects people. People play it at weddings, which sums up the spirituality of it. It\u2019s like a prayer that took on a life of its own.<\/p>\n

FACT FILE<\/h2>\n

Written by:<\/strong> Prince
Recorded at:<\/strong> First Avenue, Minneapolis; Sunset Sound, Los Angeles
Produced by:<\/strong> Prince And The Revolution
Personnel:<\/strong> Prince (lead vocals, lead guitar, keyboards, string arrangement), Wendy Melvoin (rhythm guitar, backing vocals, string conductor), Lisa Coleman (keyboards, backing vocals, string arrangement, string conductor), Matt Fink (electric piano, backing vocals), Brown Mark (bass, backing vocals), Bobby Z (drums, percussion), Novi Novog (violin, viola), David Coleman (cello), Suzie Katayama (cello)
Released:<\/strong> September 1984
Highest chart position:<\/strong> 0 (UK); 2 (US)<\/p>\n

TIMELINE<\/h2>\n

August 1983:<\/strong> Ahead of the filming of Purple Rain, Prince and the Revolution play a benefit gig at First Avenue in Minneapolis, performing \u201cPurple Rain\u201d, \u201cBaby I\u2019m A Star\u201d and \u201cI Would Die 4 U\u201d, all slated for inclusion on the upcoming soundtrack album<\/p>\n

June 1984:<\/strong> Following the global success of \u201cWhen Doves Cry\u201d, Purple Rain is released, selling over 13 million copies. The accompanying film hits theatres a month later<\/p>\n

September 1984:<\/strong> \u201cPurple Rain\u201d is issued as a single. It becomes a major hit, with only Wham!\u2019s \u201cWake Me Up Before You Go-Go\u201d keeping it from topping the US charts<\/p>\n

November 1984:<\/strong> The Purple Rain tour begins at the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit, it lasts for five months, grossing an estimated $30m in total<\/p>\n

March 1985:<\/strong> Having already won two Grammys, Prince picks up an Oscar for Best Original Song Score for Purple Rain<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The post \u201cLightning captured in a bottle\u201d \u2013 The making of \u201cPurple Rain\u201d by Prince<\/a> appeared first on UNCUT<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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