Publication: The Nashville Banner [US]
Date: August 22, 1997
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Title: "Dez Dickerson; Prince Guitarist Takes Long, Hard Road to Freedom"
Written By: Michael Gray

Thirty seconds after he began playing with Prince, Dez Dickerson knew what it felt like to work with a genius.

But, like Prince, it took the Nashville-based musician-businessman the better part of his career to find out what it feels like to be emancipated.

Here is the story of Dickerson's early days with The Purple One and the path he took in finding freedom -- not from Prince, but from himself.

"The band had a vibe from day one," Dickerson reflects, nearly 20 years after his audition with Prince. "It was downright mystical right from the beginning."

Dickerson, who played guitar with Prince from late 1978 to 1984, can remember those days in the Twin Cities when locals asked: "Have you heard this kid yet?"

A few years later he was sharing lead vocals with Prince and fellow Revolution member Lisa Coleman on 1999, the hit which firmly established His Purple Highness in the white rock market.

One of the first black faces commonly seen on MTV, Dickerson, sporting his trademark Japanese-stamped head bandanna, is featured in the videos for 1999 and Little Red Corvette, as well as in Prince's blockbuster film Purple Rain.

The St. Paul-bred musician also wrote and produced songs for Prince spinoffs The Time and Vanity 6, and, in 1985, he played guitar on Aretha Franklin's Grammy-winning Freeway of Love.

And just as The Artist has newfound freedom, Dickerson also knows what emancipation feels like.

Now a fixture on the contemporary Christian music scene, Dickerson will release his first solo album next month on Absolute Records, the Brentwood label he owns and operates with his wife, Rebecca.

Still on good terms with his former boss, Dickerson plans to be on hand tonight when Prince -- known these days as The Artist or by an indecipherable symbol -- plays the downtown Nashville Arena.

The megastar, making his first local appearance in well over a decade, is said to be performing past favorites such as Do Me, Baby and When You Were Mine, songs Dickerson played nightly when they were new.

The sly young Prince

Prince, the touted one-man band, put together a working unit after the release of his debut album, For You.

Like Sly Stone a decade before, the first group Prince formed with Dickerson, Andre Cymone, Bobby Z, Dr. Fink and Gayle Chapman was uncommonly multiracial and gender-mixed.

Dickerson made a living playing in local and regional bands in Minnesota -- groups indebted to hard rockers Cream, Grand Funk Railroad and Led Zeppelin -- nine years before seeing a newspaper ad which read: "Warner Bros. recording artist seeks guitarist and keyboardist."

"I thought I knew who it was, because there was only one person within 500 miles of the Twin Cities who actually had a major-label record deal," recalls Dickerson.

"My younger sister had the first Prince album. I heard the record and I heard the buzz around town. A lot of people in the biz were like, 'Have you heard this kid yet?'

"So, I called and arranged an audition. I was on my way out of town to play a gig in South Dakota or someplace. Meanwhile, Prince and his folks were 2-1/2 hours late after getting tied up on their way to the audition.

"I only had 15 minutes to spare before I had to leave, so I asked if I could please go first, and they were gracious enough to let me do so. We jammed, and then Prince and I talked for a few minutes afterwards. As it turned out, they had auditioned people in L.A. and New York -- they went through something like a hundred guitar players.

"I was the first guy that had come in and basically just played rhythm until Prince nodded for me to solo. And that was the thing that caught his attention, the fact that I was willing to come in and just play and not show everybody how bad I was."

Dickerson became a Christian two years later, in 1980 -- the same year, ironically, Prince released his third and most lewd album, Dirty Mind.

Released a decade before 2 Live Crew's controversial As Nasty As They Wanna Be, the record was full of adult material that was shocking and graphic.

If that wasn't enough, the album cover showed Prince dressed only in black briefs, a scarf and an open raincoat with a studded right shoulder and, pinned to the left lapel, a badge bearing the phrase "Rude Boy."

"It just proves God has a sense of humor," Dickerson says of the timing.

"We took a two-week Christmas break from the Dirty Mind tour, and while I was at home I had this sovereign, powerful encounter with God on Dec. 22, about 11:30 at night.

"I had grown up in 'church,' but it was one of those things where I could have just as well grown up at the Moose Lodge. I am convinced God had a plan for my life, and he just decided at that particular point in time to invade my life.

"It was an inner-voice saying, 'Dez Dickerson, this is your life. You're doing what you have always wanted to do, but you're miserable. What you're doing is running from Me. The minute you stop running from Me is the minute you'll have peace and the minute you'll begin to know what it means to be whole.' I knew I had to give my life over to God.

"When I went back on the road, I'm sure people thought I was a raving lunatic, because it was just this incredible experience I had to tell everybody about."

"Looking back, the time I spent in the band was necessary time. Had I been rushed into contemporary evangelical culture, folks would have told me to quit right away. A lot of the things that are possible right now, including this interview, wouldn't have happened if I would have left before there was enough notoriety to propel my career."

Leaving team in '1999'

Dickerson eventually began to believe his work with Prince didn't square up with his new lifestyle, but he admits it was his ego -- not solely his Christian values -- that drove him to leave the Revolution weeks before Purple Rain was released.

"I told myself I was going to be a rock star in Jesus' name," says Dickerson. "I wanted to be as popular as Prince, and though I wanted to do some good with it, it was still self-centered. It was still about me, it wasn't about what God wanted to do with my life."

"I wanted to get on with it and see if I could reproduce my success as a solo artist. I was getting plenty of reinforcement. The press hailed me as the next big thing to spin out of the (Prince) camp.

"Plus, at the same time, I was unhappy with the direction the shows were taking. Originally, Prince wanted to be a black version of the Rolling Stones, and there was a point where we had achieved that feel in our shows where it was loose and polished at the same time. There was this raw energy, and we never knew what was going to happen next.

"But by the 1999 tour we had gotten to the point where the show was so premeditated and so scripted I felt constrained by it."

Dickerson says the collective role played by Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Coleman in Purple Rain -- in which group members felt they didn't have enough creative input -- was scripted around his his real-life situation with Prince during that tour.

His creative constraints, compounded by his spiritual tension and his pride of wanting to be recognized on his own merit, led to his departure in April of 1984. "I was at Prince's house -- in his basement studio, the place we cut Corvette and all those other things -- and he said, 'We're at a crossroads with this film, we're making a big investment. I need you to either bail now or make a three-year commitment to stay with the program. If you do the solo thing, that's cool, I'll help you do it, my people will manage you and the whole bit.'

"I thought and prayed about it, and decided I couldn't commit to another three years. I was genuinely unhappy by that time."

Prince, true to his word, kept the guitarist on his payroll "for a long time" after he left the band until he could get back on his feet. Dickerson hit the road with Billy Idol during the remainder of 1984 opening dates for the punk rocker on his popular Rebel Yell tour.

But a solo deal failed to materialize.

"When I struck out as a solo artist, the thing I heard from label people again and again was 'You're a black man playing rock 'n' roll, and it's too hard for us to market.' What I was doing was much more rock-oriented than what Prince and Michael Jackson were doing. There was a reason I was on the road with Billy; what I was doing was much more compatible with him."

God, marriage and Smitty

When he came off the road with Idol, Dickerson took some time to get his head together and his marriage in order. He began getting more involved with behind-the-scenes work of writing, producing and artist development.

He also plunged into Christian music.

His agent, John Huie, who also booked Michael W. Smith and Amy Grant, encouraged Dickerson to catch Smith's concert in St. Paul and even left him a pair of tickets at the box office.

It was a life-changing experience.

Dickerson felt a calling during the show to use his talents, like Smitty, for the glory of God. No longer was it just about himself.

His association with Nashville -- the capital of Christian music -- commenced in 1987 when he was hired by Huie to back local blue-eyed soul singer Judson Spence.

Soon he began producing and writing songs for Christian acts, and he quickly found himself interested in starting his own Christian music label.

Dickerson, who moved here in 1990, approached Star Song Communications about a distribution deal for his planned label.

In the course of discussions, he was invited to join Star Song as vice president of artist and repertoire. He took the job to learn the ins-and-outs of the Christian music business which put him in a better position when it came time to launch Absolute Records in 1994.

So far his Brentwood-based label has released albums by Paul Q-Pek, Believable Picnic, Brett Williams, Jodi Mills, Squirt and a couple of compilation discs.

Dickerson's solo pop-rock project, oneman, will be available in Christian bookstores on Sept. 18. (The album also can be ordered through Absolute Records at 661-6012 or e-mail: absobiz@aol.com)

He will perform at the Hard Rock Cafe, located at the corner of Broadway and Second Ave. N., during an album release party in mid-September. While he is there, Dickerson will contribute some of his Prince-era memorabilia to the rock 'n' roll restaurant.

His first single, Hello Again, features Phil Solem of the Rembrandts. Drummer Michael Bland of The New Power Generation also makes a guest appearance on oneman.

And just as The Artist has newfound freedom, Dickerson also knows what emancipation feels like.

"One Sunday morning as I was getting dressed for church I had this clear thought: 'Hey, Dez, did you notice that monkey is gone?'

"That monkey that was on my back all of those years of having to be noticed, having to be successful, having to do the rock 'n' roll thing. I noticed it was gone, and it was very liberating.

"But at the same time I have music in me, and hopefully I have more to say now than I did 15 years ago. There is also less encumbering me in terms of saying it now. So, I went ahead and made an accumulative work, a sum total of everything I've walked through and experienced over the past 15 or 20 years."

Michael Graymay be reached at 726-8915 or by e-mail: mgray@NashvilleBanner.com