This month, 12 of Prince’s co-conspirators will descend on Melbourne and Sydney to celebrate the iconic artist in ‘Nothing Compares 2 Prince’.
Shelby J, one of the musicians featured in the tribute, spent a decade singing in Prince’s New Power Generation (NPG), and performed alongside him at Superbowl XLI. “I can’t tell you how great and how fantabulous these shows are gonna be,” Shelby gushes over the phone.
Shelby first started with NPG after she was invited to sing with Larry Graham at Prince’s nightclub 3121 in Las Vegas’ Rio Hotel. The gig was on a Wednesday. “Everybody told me 'Prince won’t be there, he’s only there on the weekends',” Shelby says.
“I’m at soundcheck… Larry’s playing ‘Higher Ground’ and I’m singing. I’m singing and [then] there’s a voice that says 'sing it one more time'. I look at Larry, and I’m like 'it must be, you know, sound or production, they’re trying to get the sound right for the room'. So Larry starts playing it, he starts singing ‘Higher Ground’ and I finish it, and [the voice] goes 'sing one more time'.
“I was like, 'man, what are they trying to get right? It sounds good to me!' But they must be hearing something I’m not hearing.
“I start singing, I finish the song and Larry leans over. He’s like 'I think that was your audition'. And then from behind the soundboard area, where you couldn’t see, comes Prince. I’m standing up there in like a jogging suit with a baseball cap, singing a soundcheck and he comes up to me, and he goes 'you’re a good singer'.”
Even though this first encounter with her mentor-to-be happened years ago (2006), the story is still fresh and animated for Shelby. She giggles when she tells me that her Mum couldn’t believe she didn’t recognise Prince’s voice. “I was like 'I’ve never talked to Prince before, I didn’t know what his voice sounded like!'”
After that soundcheck, Shelby wasn’t fazed when an additional guitar pedal appeared on stage. She hadn’t seen the show before and assumed another musician might join them later. When the audience started “going crazy”, she thought they were just getting into the show.
“But then I look around and there’s Prince coming onto the stage,” she says.
“He comes up right to my microphone and he puts his cheek next to me, sweat sweat, and we’re singing on the same microphone together. I’m like 'this is crazy!' This is day one.”
Shelby was invited back to 3121 less than a month later for a New Year’s Eve performance. After her second gig with Prince, he came to her dressing room and asked her to be in his band.
“As he was walking out the door, and I’ll remember this till the day I die, he turned over his shoulder, and he says: 'We start rehearsing for the Superbowl next week' and leaves.
“He drops that on me and leaves! I was like, 'Huh? What?'”
Shelby says her time in NPG and with Prince taught her to believe in her musical ability, and to embrace the things that make her “authentically Shelby”.
“[I’m inspired by] the experiences I’ve had; everything from heart being full to heart being broken,” she says. “To not knowing what the future holds, when you’re working so hard toward a dream, and it’s like mountains keep getting thrown at you, but still having to keep moving or keep striving towards that dream that you have.”
She credits his guidance for empowering her be a “warrior for the light”, spreading love and joy through her music, and is “beyond” excited to perform his songs again for Australian audiences. “We all have that purple thread going through us and to come together to play his music is going to be so special.
“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing. I’ve learnt from Prince that when you get that call, just like when I got that call to come out and jam with him, there’s some things you just don’t say no to. I said 'I’m all in' [for the Australian tour].”
