Gold Experience

Following Prince in the ’90s

By: Jim Walsh

Narrated by: Ron Butler

Throughout the 1990s, Prince feuded with his record label, Warner Bros., over his rights as an independent recording artist - and made some of the most brilliant music of his career. During that time, Jim Walsh covered Prince for the St. Paul Pioneer Press and wrote about him passionately, thoughtfully, exhaustively. Here, in real-time, is that coverage: a look back at Prince in the '90s. Walsh's newly unearthed interviews, essays, columns, and reviews make Gold Experience an essential slice of history for fans, scholars, and latecomers to the Minneapolis-born musical genius Prince Rogers Nelson.

Join Walsh at the 1994 NBA All-Star game afterparty and release bash for the single "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World". Accompany him to the after-hours clubs Erotic City, Glam Slam, and, of course, Paisley Park. Meet Prince's wife and bandmate Mayte (and while you're at it, take in the wedding and reception and enjoy a two-hour sit-down interview with Prince). This is Prince as few have seen him, reported as only Jim Wash can: a portrait of the artist from a dizzying array of angles, captured in living color for all time.

©2017 Jim Walsh (P)2017 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books

YESSSSSSSS

I’ve had this for a while and couldn’t bring myself to listen as I’ve been grieving with the rest of the world. I ha e to say this was so damn good. I absolutely loved the reading, the writing, the stories from someone who was there. Lucky people who lived there and could just drop in at Paisley...wow. I miss the spontaneity of life that P gave to my life. Thanks for this
It was fantastic.

Pure Gold

This is not another Prince retread. But an intimate behind the scenes look at a genius who is trying to make sense of his life the 90s. Never before has a book not only provided insight inside of the music, but the man himself.

As a longtime fan, I highly recommend this to the faithful and to the casual fan who thought that Prince dropped off long before his departure. After digesting the wonderful nuggets of The Gold Experience, I assure you that you will be pleasantly surprised and will want to hear Prince's ENTIRE 90s output.

Jim Walsh went mining for gold and the experience expressed within this book is a treasure to behold. This time around, everything that glitters is GOLD.

Reader did a disservice to the book.

What did you love best about Gold Experience?

The book itself was good. Many things I didn't know about Prince from that time, mostly because I only listened to his music at that time. I wasn't allowed to go to shows!

What did you like about the performance? What did you dislike?

I'm going to guess the reader wasn't a Prince fan. And perhaps he'd not been to Minnesota before. I cringed every time he mispronounced a song, place, album. Of the things mispronounced include: the album Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic (he pronounced Rave You Unto the Joy Fantastic), the song Anna Stesia (he pronounced anesthesia - like the medicine), the venue next to First Avenue (I can't remember how he pronounced that) and the way he pronounced the city Chanhassen (his emphasis in the -hassen...it was just weird).

Any additional comments?

There were a few times I wished Walsh had gone more into the stories surrounding...the stories he published. For example, he mentioned a time at Paisley that Prince asked if he brought his shoes to play ball. He hadn't. But did he ever? Did Walsh ever play ball with Prince? What was that like?

Another example, Walsh said very little about when Prince & Mayte lost their child. I wasn't looking for tabloid gossip but he was around when she was pregnant, he commented on Mayte's role in the band many times, and even the wedding, what was it like around Paisley during her pregnancy? It would have been nice to even acknowledge that huge moment in their lives.

Some errors, but very cool

Rhonda Smith referred to as a guitarist more than once. He doesn't know the band members at all. As a massive fan of Prince for the last 40 years, I'd say I do... while the author was a music critic in MPLS yeah he got to see the shows and knows of the bootlegs. but he doesn't cover the controversial issues of the time. Why Mayte and Prince split? Why did Prince become a JW? Then stop being a JW prior to his death? Why was Larry Graham always around influencing Prince's behavior? There is so much that could be added to this book by someone who was supposedly there. Instead it's a love letter. That's cool. I dug it. I agree with him on a lot of the book, but again there are many mistakes and things missing. Also calling 3 chains of gold silly is downright wrong. I'm not going to ruin this for someone else reading it. but to say that the band that was on the jam of the year tour was better than the real NPG with Tommy Sonny Hayes and Michael B is flat out idiotic