Purple Snow: What came Before Purple Rain

Origin stories are in high demand. Even the early years of the extensively covered Beatles have been attracting renewed attention lately. There’s a new compilation of unreleased recordings they made for the BBC, starting with material from 1962. Which actually is relatively late: The recently released first volume of Mark Lewinsohn’s Beatles history ends in 1962, after 944 pages.

If 944 pages feels overlong, or you’ve heard enough about the Fab Four for the time being, the Numero label has quietly put together a different kind of musical origin story: the compilation Purple Snow, which explores the music that bloomed in Minneapolis in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, right before Prince exploded into national consciousness.

Read more. [Image: AP/Phil Sandlin]

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