{"id":93213,"date":"2016-04-21T16:00:19","date_gmt":"2016-04-21T23:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.geni.com\/blog\/?p=93213"},"modified":"2016-09-15T12:35:37","modified_gmt":"2016-09-15T19:35:37","slug":"remembering-prince-1958-2016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.geni.com\/blog\/remembering-prince-1958-2016-93213.html","title":{"rendered":"Remembering Prince (1958-2016)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We were shocked to hear of the sudden padding of legendary musician <a href=\"https:\/\/www.geni.com\/people\/Prince\/6000000007748317716\" target=\"_blank\">Prince<\/a> today. A musical genius and innovator, Prince was one of the most significant figures in the music industry. A pioneer of Minneapolis sound, Prince combined multiple genres &#8211; rock, R&amp;B, jazz, funk, pop, disco, soul, hip hop, and psychedelia &#8211; to create his unique sound.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center; margin-bottom: 1px;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.geni.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/prince-e1461275259180.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-93217\" src=\"https:\/\/www.geni.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/prince-e1461275259180.jpg\" alt=\"Remembering Prince (1958-2016)\" width=\"440\" height=\"320\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.geni.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/prince-e1461275259180.jpg 550w, https:\/\/www.geni.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/prince-e1461275259180-300x218.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 440px) 100vw, 440px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center; font-size: 10px;\"><em>Image: Penner, Wikimedia Commons\u00a0(CC BY-SA 3.0)\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p>In honor of his memory, we look back on some interesting facts about his life.<\/p>\n<p><strong>1. He was born Prince Rogers Nelson on June 7, 1958 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>He was named after his jazz musician father, John Lewis Nelson, who went by the stage name Prince Rogers.\u00a0He was a major influence on Prince&#8217;s music and even helped co-write several songs with his son. Throughout his career, Prince would us several nicknames and aliases, and had a time when he changed his name to an\u00a0unpronounceable symbol known as the &#8220;Love Symbol.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>2. Much of his ancestry comes from Louisiana.<\/strong><\/p>\n<style type=\"text\/css\"> iframe{ border: 1px solid #999; } <\/style>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.geni.com\/family-tree\/index\/profile-80146219?minimal=1\" width=\"600\" height=\"300\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>All of his grandparents\u00a0came from there. His great grandfather, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.geni.com\/people\/Rev-Edward-Ed-Nelson\/6000000007748585361\" target=\"_blank\">Edward Nelson<\/a>, was the son of a wealthy white slave owner in Louisiana. He later traveled through\u00a0Arkansas and Louisiana as a minister for the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church.<\/p>\n<p><strong>3. He wrote his first song at the age of 7.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Encouraged by his father to pursue his interest in music, Prince wrote his first song at his father&#8217;s piano.\u00a0The song was called &#8220;Funk Machine.&#8221; He became a prolific songwriter and wrote hundreds of songs before his death.<\/p>\n<p><strong>4. He sold over 100 million records worldwide.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>One of the best-selling artists of all time, Prince released 15 albums over the course of his career. He claimed to have played all 27 instruments on his debut album.<\/p>\n<p>Prince was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004, the first year of his eligibility.<\/p>\n<p><strong>5. He was an Academy Award winner.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Prince won an Academy Award for Best Original Song Score for\u00a0<em>Purple Rain<\/em> in 1985.\u00a0His most famous and critically acclaimed album, <em>Purple Rain<\/em> is often ranked as one of the best albums in music history.<\/p>\n<p><strong>6. Prince died on April 21, 2016\u00a0at the age of 57. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Shortly before his death, Prince had suffered from flu-like symptoms which forced him to cancel a couple of shows. He was found dead in his Paisley Park estate in Chanhassen, Minnesota.<\/p>\n<p><strong>7. Prince&#8217;s connection to royalty.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.geni.com\/path\/Queen-Elizabeth-II-of-the-United-Kingdom+is+related+to+Prince?from=6000000003075071669&amp;to=6000000007748317716\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-93214\" src=\"https:\/\/www.geni.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/Prince-is-related-to-Queen-Elizabeth-II-600x330.png\" alt=\"Prince is related to Queen Elizabeth II | Geni.com\" width=\"580\" height=\"320\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.geni.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/Prince-is-related-to-Queen-Elizabeth-II-600x330.png 600w, https:\/\/www.geni.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/Prince-is-related-to-Queen-Elizabeth-II-300x165.png 300w, https:\/\/www.geni.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/Prince-is-related-to-Queen-Elizabeth-II.png 942w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 580px) 100vw, 580px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Prince died on the day of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.geni.com\/people\/Queen-Elizabeth-II-of-the-United-Kingdom\/6000000003075071669\" target=\"_blank\">Queen Elizabeth II&#8217;s<\/a> 90th birthday. In fact,\u00a0Prince is related\u00a0to the British royal family. Prince is Queen Elizabeth II&#8217;s\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.geni.com\/path\/Queen-Elizabeth-II-of-the-United-Kingdom+is+related+to+Prince?from=6000000003075071669&amp;to=6000000007748317716\" target=\"_blank\">11th cousin twice removed<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We were shocked to hear of the sudden padding of legendary musician Prince today. A musical genius and innovator, Prince was one of the most significant figures in the music industry. A pioneer of Minneapolis sound, Prince combined multiple genres &#8211; rock, R&amp;B, jazz, funk, pop, disco, soul, hip hop, and psychedelia &#8211; to create his unique sound. Image: Penner, Wikimedia Commons\u00a0(CC BY-SA 3.0)\u00a0 In honor of his memory, we look back on some interesting&#8230; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.geni.com\/blog\/remembering-prince-1958-2016-93213.html\"><span>Read the full story<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":81,"featured_media":93217,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3751],"tags":[4598,5241],"class_list":["post-93213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fun-with-genealogy","tag-musician","tag-prince"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.geni.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93213"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.geni.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.geni.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.geni.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/81"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.geni.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93213"}],"version-history":[{"count":25,"href":"https:\/\/www.geni.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93213\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":93241,"href":"https:\/\/www.geni.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93213\/revisions\/93241"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.geni.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.geni.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.geni.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.geni.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}