The Most Beautiful by Mayte Garcia

Author:Mayte Garcia [GARCIA, MAYTE]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hachette Books
Published: 2017-04-04T00:00:00+00:00

But all that was off-hours. Our working relationship didn’t change. He wasn’t one for showing affection in public until after we were engaged, maybe because he liked to keep people guessing, but mostly because when he was working, he was lost in the music and entirely focused, moment by moment, on the work. Raquel Welch could have been standing there naked and he’d never notice. Prince consciously surrounded himself with coworkers who were able to find and maintain that same laserlike focus. Take a look at what he’s doing on that stage. (He kept most of that stuff off the Internet when he was alive, but now tons of footage is spilling onto YouTube.) Performers can and do get hurt when they’re operating at that caliber. Everyone has to have his or her head in the game.

About six months after Prince died, I performed “7” in a tribute concert put together by his family. I was horribly nervous about the way it was coming together. People seemed to think we could do all this without a lot of planning and rehearsal. And they were right. I was silly to worry. I should have remembered: These people are the best. No one could walk in, rehearse for one day, and put on a show like NPG, because all of us had been trained by this man who took each unique talent and pressed it to the next level.

The Act I Tour ended in April 1993. We’d be at home in Minnesota for the summer, rehearsing for the Act II Tour, so before we started, I went to Puerto Rico to see my parents and fetch Hena. When I got there, I found the most spoiled dog in canine history. She was dolled up with a little fountain hairdo, ribbons, and charms. Basically, my mother had replaced me with her. When I put Hena in her little carrier and put her in the car to go to the airport, Mama looked so stricken, I couldn’t bear to take Hena away from her.

“Mama… keep her. She’s yours.”

No argument from either of them. They lived happily ever after for many years.

Back in Minnesota, I walked into the first rehearsal and was stunned to find that the band was like a skeleton crew. Several people had been let go, including Tony, Damon, and Kirk, who’d been with Prince for almost ten years. Kirk came back later on as a drummer, and Prince tried to orchestrate a soft landing for them all with Goldnigga, an album that gave them a way forward without him. Truthfully, I wasn’t a huge fan of it—particularly the song “Johnny,” which is this crude song about condoms. The first time I heard it, I wrinkled my nose and said, “What’s up with that? My father’s name is John. Your father’s name is John. I don’t like that.”

I couldn’t understand why Prince would let TDK go. To me, they seemed like such an integral part of his vision for the band. When I asked him about it, he said, “I don’t want guys onstage with me.

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