Crave: New Book Revisits Prince in the 90s

In "Gold Experience," author Jim Walsh shares interviews, reviews, and encounters with The Purple One.

Walsh_Gold coverMost people know about Prince, but very few knew him personally. Jim Walsh, a Minneapolis-based journalist, covered the eccentric musician for the Pioneer Press newspaper during the ’90s, a beat he revives in the new book Gold Experience (University of Minnesota Press). From a bitter feud with Warner Bros. to the release party of “The Most Beautiful Girl in the World” single to the Paisley Park garage sale, Walsh covers the Artist (sometimes known only as a symbol) with a music critic’s expertise and a fan’s unbridled enthusiasm. Interviews, reviews, and anecdotes examine every aspect of The Purple One’s life, from his vegan diet to his marriage to Mayte Garcia to his spiritual beliefs. Though the time period captured in the book occurred well before Prince’s death from drug overdose on April 21, 2016, the stories told here feel as alive as the legend’s music does today.

Crave: Were you planning to do this book before Prince’s death or was it inspired by his death?

Jim Walsh: It was very much inspired by that. When he died, I really went into a fever of wanting to pull all this stuff together that I had written. I have some hard copies of the papers themselves, but digitally, almost none of it is online. The internet really didn’t start archiving stuff until the early 2000s. I spent about three weeks digging into newslibrary.com and finding absolutely everything I could that I wrote.

Prince and I were the same age and I had this feeling of, “I’m going to die and this is going to die with me, these stories of Prince.” People will be reading these long after you and I are gone. I wanted to make sure it was down for posterity.


Full interview.

Published in: Crave
By: Erica Rivera