Dez Dickerson — original member of Prince’s early band and guitarist during the Dirty Mind, Controversy, and 1999 eras — joins Musicians Reveal with Joe Kelley to share firsthand stories from the beginnings of Prince’s rise.

Dickerson reflects on auditioning for Prince, the early Minneapolis music scene, and what it was like building one of the most groundbreaking bands of the era. He also discusses his contributions to The Time, including writing lyrics for “Cool,” and recording the iconic guitar solo on “Little Red Corvette.”

The conversation dives into life on the road, Prince’s intense work ethic, legendary moments like opening for The Rolling Stones, and the realities of being part of a band on the brink of global success.

Dickerson also shares insights from his book My Time with Prince: Confessions of a Former Revolutionary, offering a thoughtful and respectful perspective on one of music’s most influential artists.

🎙️ A must-listen for Prince fans, musicians, and anyone interested in the origins of the Minneapolis sound.

Really excited to finally have him on.

He is a founding member of one of the top bands in the original part of the Minneapolis music scene, which a lot of people know.

He has a new book called My Time with Confessions of a Former Revolutionary.

And without further delay, we're going to welcome to the Upper Room with Joe Kelly, Mr. Des Dickerson.

So how you doing, Des?

I'm doing good.

How you doing?

I'm doing fine.

And you know, you got a book out.

I got to ask you first off the bat, what's it like on a book tour and promoting the book as opposed to being just a regular musician?

You know, it's interesting because on the music side, it's kind of like, you know, things kind of gear up and then there's this big circus for three months, months, however long it is, and then it's over.

But books just kind of go on and on and on, and our approach to it has just been, you know, take every opportunity we can to meet folks and talk and tell them about the book.

And, you know, so it's just.

It's a different thing, it's a different vibe.

But I really love it.

I'm enjoying it now.

I understand.

And I guess this is good news.

The first pressing, actually, you had to go for another one, right?

Yeah, we did, we did.

I mean, and we started out small.

I mean, it's not on the New York, you know, Times best sellers list yet.

But it's been.

The response has been phenomenal and we're really excited about it.

Now take us to the decision to actually write this book.

And what was it like composing and how did you do it?

Well, you know, it's funny because way years ago back in the day, I got all sorts of offers from people to write like a tell all book in the days directly, you know, after I left the band.

And I just.

There was no way I would ever consider doing that.

And at the time, I felt that writing a book would have been somehow, you know, exploitive on my part.

And part of that, I think, was just, you know, youthful ignorance.

And part of it was, you know, genuine in its quality of character or whatever.

But over time, as this thing has become more of an issue of history and perspective, it seemed more and more that it was the right thing to do.

And I guess it was last.

Late last summer, you know, my wife and I were just sitting, talking one day and she said, you know, you ought to write that book now.

And it just, the bell just went off.

It just felt like, yeah, you're right, it's time.

And once I did, once I actually sat down and started writing, it was pretty incredible how quickly it all came back.

I mean, literally I wrote the book in three weeks and remember details that no human being should be able to remember.

But it all worked out well.

I guess it helps that you had your mind on straight for most of the ride, so that's cool.

Oh yeah, that definitely helps.

Right.

So, you know, I got to give you a lot of credit because, you know, right in the introduction you state that, you know, this is just a picture of how, you know, it was when we were making music together and not a tell all book.

And that you're not out to rip anybody apart.

What's the pressure like to not add the juicy stuff that people out there kind of would love to hear and make it still readable?

I mean, and definitely interesting.

Well, it's interesting because our society, our culture is kind of bent toward the negative and the sensational.

And if you want to sell a lot of books or if you want to sell a lot of movie tickets or a lot of records or whatever, then controversy is the way to go.

At least that's the common train of thought.

I just felt from a personal standpoint, because I'm just not that way personally, that it was important for me to share an insight that no one has had the opportunity to get yet.

Because nobody that was really in the middle of that thing has written a book or has had the opportunity to write a book.

So I felt I had something unique to offer.

But at the same time, and I mentioned this in the forward of the book, as you know, it's not a tell all.

There's some things that I'm not going to tell.

There's some things I'm going to go to the grave and only me and the other people that were there are going to know.

And I think that's the way it ought to be.

You know, for me it's just a matter of, hey, these are my memories and these are the things that I want to share with you.

And like anything else, you know, there are some things that are private and they're going to stay private.

So one of the great bonuses of this book is some really behind the scenes photo of DEZ Dickerson's career as a musician before he started working with Prince and Andre and, and all the Cats in the Prince's Camp and.

You know, I gotta ask you, when.

When's that box set for Romeo coming out?

You know, it's funny because we've been getting a lot of requests and I'm actually kicking around.

It's just a matter of having the time to put it together.

Right, right.

Just some kind of a retrospective thing with.

With, you know, old demo tapes going all the way back to the day, through the time, the period after I left the band where I was touring with Billy Idol and doing some things and some stuff that was unreleased from that period as well.

So if you just tune in to the Upper Room with Joe Kelly and wvof, Des Dickerson is our special guest right now and original member of Prince's first band and guitarist and confidant all through these years and his new book, My Time with Prince, Confession of a Former Revolutionary.

You can just order it up at your bookstore, Omnipublish express.

Go to desdickerson.com.

would that be the best way through your website or.

Yeah, through the website.

Because right now it's not available at retail at all.

It's exclusively available online@desdickerson.com.

okay.

And probably for the next, you know, six, eight months, it's going to be exclusively available only there.

So you're on Oprah Winfrey, right?

Exactly.

That's right.

Oprah will bust after that.

Right, right.

So, you know, let's get into some of the early days of yourself as a musician and growing up.

You grew up in St. Paul, right?

Yeah, sure did.

Yeah.

You know, what made you gravitate towards playing music?

You know, I actually, I grew up in a musical home.

My dad was a musician.

He actually, you know, he played in a dance band.

It's funny, he's originally from a little town called Clarksville, Tennessee.

I guess it's not that little.

Probably about 150,000 people or so.

And he moved from Clarksville to the Twin Cities, you know, before I was born.

You know, married.

My mom moved her up and then, you know, all these years later, I moved from there and moved back down here.

But he played in dance bands all through, you know, the south, the Southeast, when He was like 11, 12 years old, and then gave it up to go into the Navy and then raise a family.

And I just grew up around music.

You know, one of my earliest memories is waking up in the middle of the night as a 7, 8 year old kid and hearing music down in the living room and I'd go down the stairs and there'd be like four or five guys standing around playing saxophone at two in the morning.

Wow.

So I was just around it.

I grew up, you know, he listened to a lot of, you know, great jazz and blues and different stuff that, you know, influenced me.

But for me it was always.

What always caught my ear was rock and roll.

For some reason it was like I appreciated the musicianship of the other stuff.

But you know, when I heard something like Beatles or like Zeppelin, that was what really caught my attention.

And then you played in a bunch of bands, you know, throughout the years and you know, you've been actually pretty fortunate full time working musicians since you were in your teens, right?

Yeah, I actually started playing at 14, went full time at 18 and never looked back.

And I have been very blessed and very fortunate.

I mean it's just.

And you know, the nature of the business is it's up and down.

I mean, there are times, there have been a few times where I've been like, man, I should have gone to another line of work.

But knowing that this is what I'm made to do, I just feel very fortunate that I've been able to do it literally all my life.

So then when you were around that age and you saw that ad in the newspaper for a guitarist for up and coming guy who was signed to a big label, right?

Yeah, yeah.

Basically I was playing in about my 8th or 9th kind of local regional band.

I had fronted, put together and fronted a bunch of bands from junior high school on.

And I was in, you know, at the time, a band that I put together that was called, what were we called?

Romeo.

That's what it was.

And you know, we'd gone through the prototypical, you know, the bass player like went psycho on us and we had to fire him and we hired another guy.

And the guy that we hired was worse than the guy we fired.

And you guys were all living together, right?

Yeah, we lived in a band house.

It was crazy.

So I was at the point where I'm like, man, this thing has implode after.

You know, if you've been in eight or nine bands, you recognize the signs, the warning signs.

So I saw this ad in this local paper and thought, you know what, this sounds interesting.

I think I'm going to call about this just in case, right.

And you went to the audition and I think a lot of musicians out, because we got a lot of musicians that are out there, could take a little bit of advice on how you audition kind of just fit in instead of going off with the crazy solos.

Right?

Yeah, you know, that's the thing.

I mean, the thing about a band is it's a team, you know, and you have a place, you have a part to play, but you're not the team itself.

And I think that, you know, especially for a lot of young cats that are trying to impress people, sometimes the attempt to impress someone actually is your undoing.

And what ended up happening in my audition is I just went in and just kind of played rhythm and tried to get a feel for what, you know, Andre and Prince and the other guys were doing.

And when, you know, Prince would give me the nod and have me solo, I'd kind of solo, say what I wanted to say, you know, play my best stuff, and then kind of go right back into playing rhythm and not overstate it.

And it turned out that's what made the difference.

He had auditioned over 100 guys on both the east coast and the west coast, and every single one of them tried to blow him away.

I was the only guy that actually tried to fit in.

Wow.

So musicians, take Des Dickerson's words on that might help you get a gig.

Right?

Absolutely.

Worked for me.

Right.

How about back in the early days, guitar style, when you were listening to you and Prince?

What were the big differences and how did you blend on stage together with two.

Two outstanding guitarists?

Well, I think the big thing is, and Prince really recognized this, he was really brilliant when it came to putting pieces together and finding different elements that were, in some cases, almost opposites, making them work together.

And in terms of our styles, I mean, I had come, you know, just from a straight up rock background.

And I had learned to play guitar by imitating people like early Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page and Jimi Hendrix and Mark Farner of Grand Funk Railroad.

All these guys from the 70s and Prince's influences, some of them were the same.

He was a Grand Funk fan and that kind of thing.

But he also was into Santana and a lot of classic kind of 70s funk stuff, and even going back to James Brown.

So what we did was we just kind of blended those styles.

I mean, he kind of had the funk thing bordering into the rock thing a la Carlos Santana.

But.

But I had the rock thing and I picked up the funk thing from him.

And we just ended up kind of with our own stew, so to speak.

And you guys continued on, you got the job.

And I know I'm going to skip a few years talking, but we'll get back to all the great stuff.

In between that.

But, you know, the time which, you know, great friends of ours here on the Upper Room, you were involved with Prince and Morris and stuff that I really thought was enlightening in the book.

In fact, your contributions to this record, some of our listeners may not know.

And how deep did you get into the first record?

And maybe we'll spin a track off that one.

Yeah, pretty deep, actually, the way it all came about, you know, Morris and Prince had known one another from earlier days.

When Morris was in a band called Grand Central.

Essentially, Morris kind of started hanging out just on a friendship basis with us.

And actually ended up on the payroll.

And there was a point in time where Prince, you know, kind of cut this deal to kind of build a band around Morris and make this record on Warner Brothers.

And at the time, he came to me, and obviously, it's all in greater detail in the book, but he came to me and said, you know, I'm looking for some songs for this record that we're doing on Morris.

You know, write some stuff.

And so I did.

And really, it kind of was the beginning of a collaboration, so to speak, Where a lot of times he'd call on me lyrically and he'd give me a title.

He'd just call me up and say, hey, Des, here's the title.

And I'd put together some lyrics, call him back, you know, 20 minutes later, half hour later, whatever, say, boom, here you go.

And that's really.

That's how the song Cool came about.

From the first record.

He called with the title.

I said, yeah, yeah, I got it.

I get a vision for it.

And called him back literally 20 minutes later, and that was it.

And talking, actually reading through the book, you made mention, you know, I mean, credits weren't necessarily on the liner notes and stuff, but you seem to roll with it.

And, you know, what's it like as a musician?

I know others had problems with that.

But yourself, what was your mindset for that?

I just always had the sense that my day would come.

And I had kind of.

Partially because I had been a working musician for nine years before I even got together with Prince and became part of what he was doing.

So the need to kind of have my name out there and be recognized, don't get me wrong.

I mean, it was still important to me.

But in this particular instance, it was.

It became a business thing.

Okay.

The writing of music for other people was more a business arrangement for me.

And because I was the only guy in the band that was married, I just kind of Had a different perspective on it.

It was business, you know, it was good income for my family.

And you know, the fact that my name was or wasn't on it just wasn't that big a deal for me.

And at the time, I guess you were the only one in the band saving money, right?

That's exactly it.

And they laughed at me at first, but the laug stopped after I showed up with the house the first.

Yeah, yeah, that'll make things change.

So.

So why don't we give a listen to it?

Des Dickerson contributing lyrics on this one, right?

Yeah.

Cool.

Right?

Yeah, Absolutely.

Yeah.

This is the time we'll come back and speak more with my special guest, DEZ Dickerson, right here on Minneapolis Music Month.

Right here on wvof in the upper room with Joe Kelly.

The music, the magic coming out from the Twin Cities back way, way in the day.

But you know, dez, I gotta tell you, and I tell this to a lot, you know, you listen to songs like that and you can't put a time stamp on it.

That's right.

It's just, it sounds fresh.

And you can't say, wow, that was the 70s or 80s sound.

And when you, when you look back at, you know, what you guys created and the particular things you've done, do you realize how special, you know, like a P Funk kind of thing and the Minneapolis sound that it was just, you know, one of a kind.

You definitely, as time kind of goes on, you gain more perspective on that.

You know, I think the interesting thing is that as it was happening, I mean, I kind of had this, this vague sense that, you know, what this is.

This is bigger than any of us thought it was going to be.

I mean, we talked about it being big, but I don't think we really realized.

But then as time goes on, you get a greater sense of perspective and you realize, man, you know, this is really something that has a place in history.

And that's something that's very humbling because you recognize that, you know, how did that happen?

How did we get there?

Right?

And you know, just to refresh our listeners, Des Dickerson is an original member of Prince's band and went on to form his own band and toured with, you know, his own project on tour with Billy Edel.

Yeah, yeah.

So that's cool.

And now he is and has been for the last 10 years record owner of Absolute Records.com out of Nashville, Tennessee, which is Christian music primarily.

Right?

Yeah.

We call it faith based music that approaches, you know, the world from that kind of a worldview.

And, you know, I think it's real timely.

I mean, with the movie the Passion of the Christ and all that's going on right now, where people are just becoming aware that, man, there's a whole.

There's a whole world within the world we live in.

And people are investigating, in some cases, reinvestigating spiritual truth and, you know, not just goofy things and flying saucers.

And, you know, I'm not talking like woo stuff, but I'm just talking about the reality of there is a God, you're not him, and it's a good thing to have a relationship with him.

Well, I thought it's.

You know, the last few years have been really interesting looking back.

Yourself and Sheila E. And Denise Matthews, before known as Vanity and Prince, some pretty highly publicized spiritual journeys from back when everything was kind of in a different flavor with all the sexual energy in the lyrics, at least.

But how do you see it, musicians really changing in that direction?

And have you been taking note of that?

Absolutely.

And I think that, you know, to a great degree, because creative people are always looking to push the envelope.

They're always reaching for something more and, you know, to try to find something else to express something else to write about.

It's only natural that creative, and especially musically creative people end up having to deal with what I heard Bono once called the big question, you know, the big question again, is there a God?

And if there is, what am I going to do about it?

And I think that it's only natural for people like Prince and like others to just kind of come around to that place of recognizing man at some point.

There's more to this than sex, drugs and rock and roll.

At some point, there's more to it than just writing another song about dancing, money or ladies, you know?

Right, right.

Do you think it's tough for musicians such as Prince, you know, when the groove is so funky, yet the lyrics were obviously something they don't want to sing about.

To not do that song, you know,

I think that it's an individual.

It's an individual choice, an individual decision for myself.

It just.

It came to a place a number of years ago where nothing else mattered.

If I wasn't being true to myself in terms of the changes that were going on inside of me and the desire for me to decrease, so to speak, and for me to let that place in me that the God that I grew up with needed to fill, nothing else mattered.

Hit songs didn't matter, you know, sold out concerts didn't matter.

The Only thing that mattered was my life being in alignment.

And I think again, that for a lot of folks, especially like Prince, who have achieved so much, there comes a time when it's like, what difference does it make if you sell five more records?

You know what I mean?

What difference does it make if you have another number one?

Not that all of us don't love that stuff, but at the end of the day, a billion years from now, in eternity, I don't think we're going to turn to one another and go, man, remember Purple Rain?

I just don't think it's going to happen.

So those are the words of my special guest, and it's a real honor to have him on the show.

His name is Daz Dickerson.

His current book, My Time With Prince, Confessions of a Former Revolutionary.

And it's available.

You go to desdickerson.com and you can order the book through there.

Also, besides all the great background and anecdotes.

And, you know, then you guys, total rehearsal.

I mean, you get into it.

Which you kind of grew to dislike after a while, right?

Yeah, I mean, we had that, you know, sort of stereotypical Midwestern work ethic thing going on.

And we all.

I mean, I think one of the strengths of the band was we all had this serious work ethic.

We all had this serious vision of being the biggest band in the world.

Excuse me.

So as a result, hard work was not something that any of us were foreign to.

But the thing was, Prince had this work ethic that was like, you know, on steroids.

And so we would rehearse and rehearse and rehearse.

I mean, I was a customer.

I came from a background where I was always the guy cracking the whip on the rest of the band and trying to drag everybody else along.

Come on, we got to get better.

We got to work harder.

Well, this was the first time I'd been in a situation where there was actually somebody who was more of a maniac than I was.

And it reached a point where we.

We worked so hard at it that it stopped being fun after a few years.

And part of that was just.

Just me.

I mean, part of it was just, you know, my time was drawing to a close.

But we would rehearse, you know, eight, ten hours a Day.

And that was just the way it was.

And I'll give you.

You probably know, but he's still doing it that way.

I had Greg Boyer on the show, Horn Player with him now.

And Prince opens up his tour tonight.

But, yeah, you can see him going that way until he stops playing music, right?

Oh, yeah.

I mean, that's just him.

That's the way he is, and that's the way he's wired.

And, you know, if you're gonna roll with him, you gotta roll that way.

And I definitely, you know, I was down with that for the season.

I was in the band and understood and respected it.

You know, you guys at first did some showcases out in Minneapolis and, you know, didn't get a full tour rolling for a few years, right?

Yeah, it ended up in the beginning.

You know, we rehearsed and prepared for several months and then did a showcase that the Warner Brothers folks flew in from Burbank to check out.

And they felt at the time that Prince wasn't ready yet.

They're definitely excited about the potential that he held as an artist and obviously believed in him.

They put their money where their mouth was, and now with the addition of the band, they believed in the band, but they felt that Prince as a frontman, as a performer, as a star in waiting, so to speak, was not yet ready.

So they told him they wanted him to do another record and just get more prepared.

And so that's what ended up happening.

He went back and did the second record, the Prince record with I Want To Be youe Lover and some other cuts on it.

And.

And we toured after that record was out.

Now, how difficult as a musician for yourself, you guys tour with them all the time, but not necessarily recording on all the stuff.

That was tough in the beginning because unlike the songwriting thing that came about with the time later on, I mean, who we were was performing musicians.

So to not play on the records and only kind of be involved as, you know, as band members on stage, that was kind of tough.

But again, we knew that that was part of the deal, and we knew that we were getting the opportunity.

The trade off was Prince had already blazed the trail.

He'd gotten the record deal.

He had begun to, you know, work at establishing his reputation and his position in the marketplace.

So we were benefiting from that.

So while it was tough, we still understood that that's the way the situation was.

Wired now.

It was pretty cool reading about, you know, your love for going to New York because, you know, we love New York here.

And just the bottom Line because, you know, we've gone, which has just closed up, by the way.

But your experience going in that club and, you know, knowing everybody played there, but then kind of looking like, is this all there is?

Right?

Yeah, it was something.

I mean, and it was an experience that ended up repeating itself, as I mentioned in the book.

But, you know, the bottom line, I mean, that place was legendary and will always be legendary.

And I had come up, you know, I read all the.

Especially the rock fan magazines like Hit Parader and Rolling Stone and some of the others, and always read about, you know, this artist playing the Bottom Line and that artist playing.

And that was.

It seemed like the bottom line was the place where, you know, legends were born.

And so when we got the word that we were going to play there, man, I was just like, you know, I was pinching myself.

And then when we rolled up the day that we were playing there and walked in, it was like, man, this is.

This is kind of a dive.

I mean, you know, all respect and everything.

Yeah, this place is kind of a dive.

There's a big old pillar in the middle of the stage and, you know, it was like, man.

And you're not gonna find too many clean bathrooms at those clubs either.

No, man, not at all.

You know, not at all.

Dressing rooms were, you know, left something to be desired.

But, hey, we were there.

Yeah.

And, you know, the camaraderie when you finally got rolling on tour with the band.

Talk.

Talk a little bit about.

You made mention about a month on the road as a band, and you guys finally get the groove going.

And what's that like?

What takes place for bands with tours like that?

Well, I mean, to me, it's like there's something that happens.

There's this critical mass that you hit after about a month on the road, you know, and it's funny because a lot of times young bands now will, you know, they'll talk to me and say, well, we're going on tour.

Oh, yeah, tell me about it.

Yeah, we're going out and.

And we're playing like eight dates.

That's not a tour.

That's a weekend.

That's a long weekend.

There's something that happens after you've been out for at least a month and playing anywhere from four to six dates straight every week.

And you get into this groove and you get into this place where the band gets tighter.

A band grows more in a month on the road than six months of rehearsing.

There's something about.

You just get into this rhythm and this Tempo of it that just.

It takes you to another level.

And after that first month is over, then it starts to just fly by then, you know, whether you're out for three months or a year and a half, it all kind of blows by, you know.

When you were out on tour, was there a lot of testing out new material for feature albums and some of those jams, Sound checks.

Yeah.

I mean, some of the stuff that, you know, later on were hits that everybody's familiar with, were songs that we played in, you know, the back of the bus, songs we played in soundcheck, you know, I would die for you, Raspberry Beret.

I mean, on and on and on.

There were songs that were born in soundchecks and hotel rooms and in the back of the bus.

So a lady who was, you know, you've been together with for a long, long time and really dear to your heart and supportive of, you know.

You guys work on the record label together, too.

Your wife, right?

That's right, yeah.

Becky, right?

That's right, yeah.

Yeah.

How is, you know, now things have changed.

Your self torn.

All this rock and roll lifestyle.

But being a musician and getting married, I guess, a somewhat young age.

What's that like, and what was that like for your wife?

Well, you know, for us, I mean, we've been together from an extremely early age.

We actually met in high school, and we've been together, you know, since then.

We've been together 31 years.

So we grew up with that.

I mean, you know, a lot of people grow up with, you know, they.

They grow.

They kind of grow up through the college experience or they grow up through some other.

For us, we literally grew up through the rock and roll experience.

So, I mean, our first date was.

Was me taking her to somebody else's prom because I was playing, you know.

Right.

So that whole thing was just kind of a natural progression.

And I think at the point where we got married, I mean, we literally.

I came home from the Dirty Mind tour directly.

Directly from.

We were in Europe.

I came directly from the airport after flying, you know, 14 hours overnight, not getting any sleep, went directly to our wedding rehearsal and got married two days later.

And that's just kind of the story and the flavor of our relationship.

You know, after we got married, my wife started going on the road with me.

After I left the band, she actually became my road manager through the time that I was on the road with Billy Idol and doing all the solo stuff.

And, you know, when I started the record company, she started working with me.

So that's just kind of the.

That's the tempo of our lives.

And it's been, at times, extremely difficult.

It's not an easy lifestyle, especially the uncertainty of it.

And there are times when, you know, because.

And, you know, don't send me any letters about being chauvinistic, that men are from Mars and women are from Venus.

And there's some differences.

I mean, for my wife and for most women, that aspect of knowing where your home and your security is kind of constantly up in the air because music's just not a stable business.

But she's a special lady, and, you know, she's known that that's kind of what I'm about from the beginning.

She's, you know, much to her credit, rolled with it all these years.

So if you are just listening to the show, Des Dickerson is my special guest right now.

That's the first tour I actually saw you guys in, which was really cool.

It was a great tour.

Yeah.

And, you know, and then he has a new book, My Time With Prince, Confessions of a Former Revolutionary, which is available directly through Des's website, desdickerson.com D, E Z dickerson.com and he's based out of Nashville, Tennessee, right now.

And how about moving down to Nashville?

What was the decision to go down south?

You know, it's wild.

I was in 87.

I was working with a young guy named Judson Spence who was being pursued by a number of major labels, and an agent friend of mine asked me to just, you know, come out and.

And tour with him.

Just, you know, he needed somebody that could help him to establish some legitimacy, and they needed a name, so to speak.

And for whatever reason, they called me up.

But in the process, we were kind of based in Nashville for a couple months, and I got the flavor of the town and kind of, you know, offhandedly thought, you know what?

I could live here.

I mean, I'd never leave the Twin Cities, but I could live here.

And a few years later, you know, my wife and I, and I can't really describe it any other way, we just kind of felt this kind of divine tug on our hearts.

Like, well, you know what?

To whatever degree I'm able to understand, you know, God's will, I think we're supposed to move.

She agreed.

And right about that time, I got offered an executive position with a record label that was based here.

And that kind of sealed the Deal.

And we've been here ever since, so

it's cool down there.

And your son's involved in music too, right?

Yeah, son's actually, he's in a band that's on our label.

Actually.

He started out in a band called Squirt that was on our label.

Started out very young, you know, 10, 11, did a couple records and now they've kind of morphed into a new thing, a band called Lenny.

And we're just starting pre production on a new record with them and really excited, very talented young guys.

So, you know, why don't we get into another song as we chat and come back and talk some more.

And you guys, you did it right.

And the tour followed right after that.

But a lot of people know you from the videos that came out of this record, Little Red Corvette, and your guitar, which, you know, brought to mind.

It's really cool how you guys recorded that and your guitar.

Take us into the recording process for that.

Well, like a lot of things, you know, we would do things in kind of bits and pieces and stages, you know, with Prince kind of being the guy that was at the center of it all along.

And the rest of us were kind of, you know, brought in and out of it.

But Prince called me up one day and wanted me to come over and hear some tracks that he'd been preparing for the new record and had some stuff he wanted me to play on.

And when I got to the house, you know, he.

He put up the tracks for Little Red Corvette and said, you know, I want you to do a solo on this song.

First of all, he kind of wanted to know what I thought about it.

And I just told him, man, I think this is the most commercially viable song that we will have ever put out.

And I just kind of plugged in and he started just letting the tape roll and I just started playing some stuff and we kind of did, you know, we took two or three different passes at it and.

And recorded all of them and ended up doing what we call a comp, where you take parts of different solos and you assemble them into one solo.

And I probably played again, total of maybe 20 minutes, half hour, something, and that was it.

We got what we needed.

And ironically, years later, I guess it was about three, four years ago, Guitar World magazine named it one of the 100 greatest guitar solos of all time.

It was kind of like I just rolled in and Played and left.

Right.

Well, you know, I think you might have made mention it was almost impossible to replicate.

Right?

Yeah, it was difficult.

I had to relearn it because essentially I had played at least three different solos, as I recall.

And, you know, each solo has its own sort of train of thought, its own kind of beginning, middle and end.

And one of the things that comping does is give you kind of a unique take on.

On a solo because it ends up taking turns that you wouldn't normally think of while you were actually playing it.

And so I had to take, you know, the comp version and relearn it because it.

The phrases weren't things that I would normally put together if I was just playing a solo.

So we'll give a listen to it right now.

And we will talk one more with Des Dickerson, a few moments right here at wvo.

Great guitar solo on there.

My special guest, Des Dickerson.

And want to thank Des for spending part of his afternoon with us here.

And that's Little red Corvette.

And Dez Dickerson, original member, working with Prince.

Andre Simone, Dr. Fink, Gail Chapman, Lisa Coleman, Bobby Z. Rivkin.

And, you know, I gotta ask you, how much, you know, you've been away from Minneapolis music and how much do you stay in touch and follow up on Prince, Prince's music and some of your old comrades back there?

Do you get a chance?

Yeah, a little bit.

You know, I try to stay somewhat on top of what Prince is up to.

And, you know, Bobby Z and I talk, you know, several times a year.

He's probably the one that I stay in contact with the Most.

Talked to Dr. Fink, talked to Matt a few months back, and he's doing well.

And, you know, it's one of those things where I guess it's kind of like being in the army to get or something.

I mean, there's that.

There's that bond that you'll always have.

And even if you don't talk to one another for, you know, 10, 15 years, when you do talk, it's like it was yesterday.

So how about yourself and Prince?

Do you guys ever stay in contact or.

You know what, it's funny.

I definitely am diligent to at least be in touch once or twice a year.

We have not talked directly, like an actual conversation face to face since back before I left the Twin Cities, which is now, you know, going on 14 years, I guess.

But we're in Contact through intermediaries.

I mean, we've.

A few years ago when I was working on a solo record, you know, we were in touch about him possibly coming in and doing something on the record.

But we never spoke directly.

We spoke through his assistant and it's.

It's kind of the way he prefers to communicate it seems these days.

But you know, like I said, I mean, it's one of those things where I'm committed to staying in touch and doing my part.

Make sure they have a guitar ready for you in case in Nashville.

Right, Absolutely.

The guitar and some rust oleum because I don't play that much anymore.

Right.

Yeah, but that would be cool.

You know, you never know.

So, yeah, talking about, you know, I guess I was going to ask you about your own music and do you still do a lot of writing yourself?

Are you basically involved with the overseeing of your own record company?

The big thing for me is it's overseeing the label and being involved in developing.

Biggest excitement now is drawing out of other people what's in them.

So it's not so much about me playing or me singing or me writing as helping other people to become the best that they can be.

And I still, I'm planning to start another second solo record here probably toward the end of this year into early next year.

And I'll still every once in a while do something when I feel I have enough songs that need to be heard.

But yeah, I tell people I play the telephone more than anything.

How about.

Let me ask you about this because there's some legendary stories which you touch on in the book My Time with Prince from DEZ Dickerson, one of them.

You clear the air and you were there.

So I think you have the right, right insight into this, the Rolling Stones double show experience out there.

And you know, I guess to refresh our listeners, you guys played two shows with a day off in between.

Right.

And the first night was a bit rough, right?

It was.

We played two shows, a Friday afternoon and the second one was scheduled for Sunday afternoon.

We were.

The first act on the bill was us, George Thorogood and the Destroyers, the J. Giles Band and the Rolling Stones.

And you know, we went on like early afternoon and that first day, I mean really after the first song, I will never forget the sound of it.

I mean there were 110 plus thousand people at the show at the LA Coliseum.

And the ovation after the first song was amazing.

I mean the sound of that many people making that much noise is something you never forget.

During the course of the set, though, because obviously, if you look at that bill, you look at George Thurgood, Jerry Giles, the Stones, there's a common musical thread that kind of runs through all three of them.

We were kind of the odd man out in terms of just our style and our vibe and everything about us.

And there were some people that got it, but I would say most people got it, but there were some people that didn't.

Now, statistically, they say that in any given public setting, at least 5% of the people you encounter will decide right off the bat, out of hand, that they don't like you.

Now, take that and apply it numerically to a crowd of 110,000 people.

And that's over 5,000 folk, right?

That's a sizable amount of people that have decided they don't like you.

And in our case, because of the fact that we hadn't.

We, Prince as a frontman and as an artist, hadn't faced a hostile crowd.

You know, we as a band, at least in this band, had not played in front of anything but adoring fans up to that point in time.

So at the point where there's, you know, there's some folks that definitely don't want you up there, even though the majority, the vast majority do, you're faced with a decision at that point, and that's what ended up coming down.

And Prince left the arena, flew back to Minneapolis.

Yes, he did.

You know, throughout the book, you spoke on Prince actually turning to you as a confidant and really asking you for advice and kind of setting him straight.

And you were.

You were the one, despite all the manager and Mick Jagger getting him back for the next show.

Right.

What happened during the phone calls?

Well, you know, it was just.

It was something that I was always very, again, humbled that he had that kind of confidence in me.

But I guess I kind of played almost like an elder brother role in the band because, you know, I just.

I'd been around the block, I'd done it for a while, and I just wanted to be there to lend whatever help I could to make things go smoother.

And in this particular instance, what had happened is, you know, he left the Coliseum, flew home, wasn't going to come back, and, you know, his managers called him, tried to convince him he wouldn't come back.

Mick called him and tried to convince.

Convinced him he wouldn't come back.

And one of the management people called me in my room because, you know, we were just hanging out in la, hoping he'd come back.

And they asked me to call him.

So I called and we talked for about 45 minutes, man.

And I just kind of said, you know, we've worked so hard and we've been through so much.

We can't let them run us out of town.

We can't let, you know, the legend, you know, get out there that, you know, an audience stared us down and won.

And I said, no matter what, we got to finish this.

And he was reluctant, but I was able to appeal because, again, there was that sense of team.

I was able to appeal to that sense of, you know what?

We're in this together.

Let's finish it together.

And he came back and you guys played it straight through the second show.

And although it was a little rough,

I guess, but, oh, yeah, it was a harrowing experience.

Right, Right.

But I loved it.

Now, another thing which is.

Which is legendary is that big food fight backstage on the Dirty Mind tour, right.

Or controversy.

Controversy tour.

What was going on that night that you guys just.

Everything broke loose?

Well, you know, it had been building in a good natured kind of way.

You know, the.

And all this is documented in the book.

But there was some tension that had built up between Prince and the time just due to the nature of the gig and their status.

They were selling records, they had some hits on the radio, and the crowds were absolutely just going crazy every night.

So there was just some good natured animosity that was building up, and it started to manifest itself in little things as we got further and further into the tour.

So it was decided that we were going to kind of blow off massive steam by having this huge food fight at the end of the tour.

And they set it all up, let the arena know what was going on, and just basically had it set so that, you know, we could do whatever it was we needed to do and they would just clean it up later.

And one by one, the time members were forcibly taken off stage, even Jesse handcuffed, so he couldn't play during the set.

Right?

Yeah.

See, originally the plan was, the stated plan was, okay, this big food fight was going to happen after the show backstage.

They were going to rope everything off, and everybody was going to clear out except for the two bands.

And we had, like thousands of dollars Worth of food we were going to just, like, battle it out with.

But we decided, no, we'd take unfair advantage.

And we started kidnapping them off stage and during their set.

Right.

And having guys replace him one at a time.

And we did actually snatch Jesse, took him back to our dressing room and handcuffed him to this coat rack and just pelted him with everything.

I mean, whipped cream pie, everything.

I mean, he was just covered from head to toe.

And that.

That it was on then.

You couldn't get Jelly Bean off the stage, right?

No, I couldn't get Jelly Bean.

I don't think you'd have that.

Yeah.

So, you know, that.

That's cool.

All the.

All the camaraderie and sometimes, you know, less than friendly things that go on the road.

But I think, you know, I think a really touching part of the book, which I got from it, is when you talk about big Chick Huntsbury and, you know, the relationship that you got and, you know, first meeting him.

And that was really cool how, you know, sidled up to him on the bus when everybody was kind of just staring at him, Right?

Yeah.

Chick was a huge man, and he literally.

He was so big that Prince was afraid at first.

I mean, I had run into Prince in the hall in the hotel earlier that day, not knowing who he was.

So who would suggest management for Chick to get the gig or.

Yeah, management would just bring folks in because they were kind of networked into that whole community of road managers and bodyguards and that whole thing.

Because the folks that managed us had managed Earth, Windows, Fire and Little Feet and all these sort of 70s and 80s artists.

And in fact, one of them had gone all the way back to, like, the 60s and the loving Spoonful, that whole kind of old school thing.

But they brought Chick in, and I got called into a band meeting after running into the guy in the hallway earlier that day.

And lo and behold, I see this big guy that I ran into in the hall sitting in the room, and he's introduced by our road manager as the.

The new bodyguard.

So we kind of had a brief conversation.

They sent Chick out, and then Prince says they need to send him home.

We need to fire him.

He scares me.

He's too big.

And they told him, well, just, you know, just give it a day or two.

And so we had a day trip that day.

We were going from somewhere in Virginia to somewhere else.

And everybody on the bus is like, you know, sitting like 15ft back from this guy.

He's sitting up toward the front in the seat all by himself.

And everybody else is sitting back like he's King Kong or something.

And finally I said, this is silly.

I just went up and sat down next to him and just said, so, man, tell me your story, you know, And.

And it turned out he was the most interesting guy.

Just friendly, just a sweet.

Just a big old teddy bear.

Just a sweet guy.

And we ended up becoming great friends, obviously, you know, not only did Prince keep him on, but.

But he ended up becoming Prince's right hand in literally every way.

Right.

And you know, Chick and I ended up being just dear, dear friends until his untimely death.

And you said you're going to see him once again.

Absolutely, absolutely.

Yeah.

Because Chick, toward the end of his life, early on, he had been a born again Christian and had a bad experience with some people that were false in what they were doing.

And he got mad at God and kind of ran the other way as hard as he could.

But toward the end of his life, he came back and he actually spent the last year of his life as an evangelist.

And you know, Chick and I had the great privilege of a couple of occasions kind of being involved together in some church services because I actually ended up getting ordained in the late 80s myself and.

Good man.

And I will definitely see him again.

So my special guest right now is DEZ Dickerson.

He is a really great musician, guitarist, producer, label owner.

And you can go to the website absolute records.com which is his record company out of Nashville, Tennessee.

But he has written an excellent book and I told him off air that, you know, he sent in the mail kindly and he.

And he signed it Life is More than a Party Des, which is real cool.

And you know, I, you know, I like to read, but I don't read that fast.

And I think you could have clocked in as the most, you know, most interesting, fastest book I read in a long, long time.

And you know, it's some great stuff.

And you said you found people been really gravitating once they get and really getting into it, right?

Yeah, we've just been really, really encouraged.

People are saying that they can't put it down once they start reading it.

And you know, that was my highest hope for the book.

I just really hoped that it would be something that would be engaging, that folks would read it and feel like they were there and experience it.

And that's what people are telling us.

So we're real excited about that.

Now inside the book are some photos which many of us, including myself, have never, ever seen.

And I'm sure you got plenty more to go for the next book, right?

Oh, yeah.

And in fact, we're actually kicking around the idea of doing just kind of a photo album, so to speak, and putting out a book that's just photos here.

Next.

But, yeah, they're all personal photographs.

I mean, literally, they're my scrapbook.

Through that experience, I took a lot of pictures and people would take pictures and send me pictures.

And so I have stuff that I've had for all these years that have literally never been seen outside of my immediate family.

And when we were putting the book together, we thought, wouldn't it be great to include some photographs that have never been seen publicly at all?

So you got a picture of the band playing flag football.

Who are some of the best athletes on the.

On the crew?

Well, beyond a shadow of a doubt.

I was one of them.

But actually Terry Lewis, you know, of jam.

And Lewis was a very good athlete.

Also Jerome Benton.

Very good, both of them, very good athletes, very good football players.

And I would say probably the three of us were the best out there.

Right.

At one point in time, I was kind of on the fence.

Am I going to play football?

Am I going to play music?

You know, but music won out.

So was that advisable to go hard at and on tour playing football and basketball?

It wasn't advisable, but we did it anyway because we were about half crazy.

Yeah, I mean, that was kind of our one outlet.

You know, we didn't, you know, we didn't do drugs.

There was not a lot of heavy drinking going on.

But, you know, playing ball was definitely a big outlet for us out there.

Right.

What was your mindset and how did you guys end it at that?

Take us back to those days and what was going on?

Well, you know what, everything has a beginning, a middle and an end.

And you gotta develop the ability to recognize when your end is coming from.

For me, the thing that caught my attention was the fact that I was changing in ways that were not positive.

And it really, at the end of the day, didn't have anything to do with anybody but me.

Because I knew at some level, at some unconscious level, I was just Coming to a time where it was time for me to move on.

As a result, I was not an easy guy to work with.

I was not an easy guy to be around, because I just wasn't happy.

Happy.

Anytime you start to kind of, you know, overstay your time, you'll.

You'll get at odds with yourself.

And you know, just thankfully, at that same time, you know, Prince had called to get together because he wanted to talk about what was going to happen in the next three years of the band's existence and to ask me to kind of re up, so to speak.

And that was the point where I knew, I know that I can't commit to three more years.

But he graciously extended the offer for his management people and so on to help me make my transition into a solo career.

And again, just gracious to the end.

And.

And we parted amicably.

Parted good friends.

And I left knowing that my season had served a purpose and that I had had a great time, but it was time to move on.

And you're also spotted in performing a little segment of Purple Rain, Modern Air.

And is there a full version of that song?

You know, there is, and it's funny.

There's actually pretty great demand for that song right now.

The funny thing is I don't have the master, and I don't know who does.

So we're at some point looking to track that down and make some sort of arrangement to release that song.

So if you're out there listening and you got Dickerson's song Modern Era, give it up.

Yeah.

Desdickerson.com email him and give it up.

That's right.

Part of musical history.

And I've actually heard, like, a loop version of.

I don't know if you ever heard that.

Somebody took just the movie part and just looped it for, like, four minutes.

Wow.

So they want the whole thing to hear.

Yeah, I guess by now.

Right.

So I got to thank you, Des, really, so much for.

For stopping by the Upper room with Joe Kelly and hope to have you here in Connecticut one day.

Yeah, I definitely plan on it.

I've enjoyed it, and it's been my pleasure.

But definitely I will pop in up there someday.

And most importantly for our listeners, this is a part of musical history.

Prince recently inducted into the Rock and Roll hall of Fame.

DEZ Dickerson was there at the beginning, touring, recording, and being a friend with Prince.

And, you know, It's a great perspective.

It's not a who's sleeping with who kind of dish all, you know, put somebody down.

It's a straight up talking about being a musician and on the road and what happens.

And, you know, thanks for putting it down all in a book.

Well, it was my pleasure.

And I just hope that folks enjoy reading it as much as I enjoy writing it.

So it's available directly.

And what was Prince's idea to include the band in there with the vocals?

Well, it started out he recorded us basically doing harmonies with one another, myself, Wendy and Jill and Prince.

And he had recorded everybody.

I think I was the last one to do my vocals.

And again, it started out as like a three part harmony kind of thing.

A three or four part harmony all the way through.

And when I did my tracks, that's what I heard it as.

But later on, when he did the final version of it, he instead opted to divide it up into separate, like, lead vocal lines.

So everybody kind of sang their own line in the final version of the record, which is, of course, the way we ended up singing it on tour.

But interestingly, it started out as just this big harmony.

And in the video, they reshot part of.

Part of you in there.

Right?

Yeah.

When we shot the original video, there was something that went wrong in processing with one.

One of the.

The lines that I sing in the song.

So they actually ended up bringing in a video crew on the first date of the tour in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

There's that Tennessee thing.

Yeah, right.

And.

And reshot that line and then edited into the.

The original footage, that one shot.

So if you look real closely, I think it's the line, when I woke up this morning Morning could have sworn it was judgment day.

There's a slightly different feel visually to that piece.

That's because it was shot, you know, a month later in a different city.

So we'll listen to it right now.

Des Dickerson, Prince.

And, well, Prince says he's not going to play those hits after a while, so I will have to wait and see.

Yeah, yeah.

But this is just a.

The song you never get tired of.

And desdickerson.com for the book, My Time with Prince, Confessions of a Former Revolutionary, DEZ Dickerson.

So thanks, Des.

Hey, it's been my pleasure.

Thanks.