Following the death of Prince at the young age of 57, his first manager, Owen Husney, spoke to NPR about the legend.
According to Husney, Prince was far beyond his peers even at the tender age of 18. Prince was so new on the music scene when he was first placed in Husney’s care that he still went by his given name, Prince Rogers Nelson. Husney would know best of the artist’s precociousness, as he was one of the first people to work with him.
Husney said to NPR, “You know, he had just turned 18, and it was very much a co-working atmosphere between he and I at that point. Once he went on to his second album and all the subsequent albums, obviously, he became Prince, and he was very much in charge. But he was very willing to listen to me and to take my direction, which I think is probably the only time that ever happened, to be honest with you.”
The former manager went on the speak of the determination that Prince had from the start, and the guts to go for doing everything his own way. He additionally recalled an incident to NPR about the challenge he faced of convincing a label to give complete creative control over a record to a teenager that they had yet to work with.
He further said, “When we signed the deal with Warner Bros., I had the great job of going to the chairman of Warner Bros. and saying that an 18-year-old artist, who has never made an album before, is going to be producing his own album and having complete creative control. I didn’t relish that meeting!”
Husney is just one of the many that reacted to his death in the music industry following the discovery of Prince unresponsive in an elevator. He was found at his Paisley Park home this past Thursday (April 21) and never regained consciousness. Prince’s death came shortly after his tour plane made an emergency landing in Illinois for an ailment described as the flu. The Purple One also cancelled a string of shows in Atlanta for health concerns, but had a party as his house shortly thereafter.
