It’s a sure sign I’m aging when the music I grew up with is now classified as “oldies.” Yet, I always seem to slip back into my youth when I hear the sounds of my teen years, particularly from the early ’80s Minneapolis funk rock era, the heyday of Prince, The Time and their cohorts.
The film “Purple Rain” was a right of passage for me. It was sexy, rocking and a bit dangerous. Because of its success, Prince was firmly placed on his rightful throne, and the soundtrack will go down as one of my all-time favorites.
But it was someone else who arguably stole the show from Prince in the movie. That was Morris Day, frontman for The Time. It’s a performance that still holds up to today.
His image of a primping, sometime-comedic gigolo with mike in hand and a glide in his step helped solidify ’80s R&B hits (“Jungle Love” and “The Bird”) into crossover pop successes.
These days he’s still performing and recording, and I had a chance to talk with him before one of his Atlanta stops several years ago.
Q.: So what’s the difference between your onstage persona and the real Morris Day?
A.: The onstage image is a culmination of everything energized and shrunk down to an hour-and-fifteen-minute package. ...I like to think that that side of me is the up side and the side that likes to have a good time. ...But of course as with anybody, there’s all the personal facets and other sides. A lot of people get disappointed when they see me in public because I’m not sliding sideways into the room and doing “The Bird.” That’s the person they want to see. They don’t want to see a person who’s got something on their mind and on a mission to get the car serviced.
Q.: Could you ever have imagined that “Purple Rain” would be remembered as an ’80s pop culture classic?
A.: It was such an innocent effort on everybody’s part. Prince was like, “We’re going to make a movie.” And everybody was like, “OK.” He started lining up acting classes and dancing classes. ...And I got kicked out of acting classes for always cutting up just like back in my school days when I’d get kicked out of class for the same kind of thing. And it turned out that that kind of cutting up is what worked for me in the film. So that was kind of my revenge to the acting teacher who kicked me out of class.
Q.: How did your life change after the movie?
A.: For us it was just a complete life-changing experience from the way people treated us. You hear that probably a lot from musicians who get a hit record. In a town like Minneapolis where nobody knew who you were and you were broke and everything costed you money, all of a sudden everybody’s letting you in for free and giving you free drinks. And when you finally have a little money in your pocket, you don’t need free stuff anymore. Then everybody’s trying to give you free stuff. We had hundreds of extras on the movie. I did alright meeting women, but I had to work to get a girl interested. Then all of a sudden we walked past all of the extras and folks are going crazy. The whole game just kind of flipped overnight from the start of the movie to the finish of the movie when it took off and was a hit. Then all of a sudden our songs are all over pop radio around the clock. The whole thing was a life-changing experience.
Q.: Looking back would you have done anything differently?
A.: Had I known it was going to be a big hit, I would have asked for more money. I didn’t get paid much. And most of the money I got paid, I ended up paying my band in salary to keep them. So I think contractually I would’ve definitely done some things differently, but other than that it was a good time and just a segment of my life. I’m an individual who believes things go as they should go. And I think I’m on a course, and I feel like there’s still great things to come.
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