Jon Bream remembers it was below zero, not unusual for Minneapolis in January.
About 300 people turned up at the Capri Theater that night in 1979 to see an upstart musician who was being hyped as the next Stevie Wonder take the stage.
Bream, a staff writer at the Minneapolis Star, knew of this talented kid since 1976, when a local concert promoter touted the recent high school graduate who played numerous instruments.
By 1978, Prince had inked his first contract with Warner Bros. Records. But after spending triple his budget on his debut album, “For You,” the label suits wanted some indication of his ability to perform live. So Prince assembled a band, rehearsed for a few months and on that freezing night in his hometown, performed what Bream wrote was “an encouraging debut performance.”
That was the first professional review written about Prince, which also complimented the budding superstar for his Mick Jagger-like strutting and deduced, “He was cool, he was cocky and he was sexy.”
