Behind The Screens: Designing Prince’s One Nite Alone Collection
I first witnessed Prince’s One Nite Alone Tour back in Chicago during March 2002. Right away I knew this was going to be something very different. Prince had just come off a more hits-oriented tour during his brief Hit’N”Run dates of 2000, but with the release of the more musically challenging and ambitious Rainbow Children album, it was clear we were getting something brand new this time around. I wound up seeing probably a dozen shows on that tour, welcoming members of the NPG Music Club to the front of the house, as well as special members-only soundchecks that started as a novelty but quickly escalated to often being the most fun part of the night.
I believe The Rainbow Children was a significant time of change for Prince. Clearly God was on his mind and he wanted to talk about it. But the music also went in new directions with that album and the following Xpectation, NEWS, and solo piano CD. This tour was a big part of that experience, and he challenged his audience to come along for the ride.
It wasn’t for everyone. You can even hear him on the Live album that followed the tour saying, “For those of you expecting to get your Purple Rain on, you’re in the wrong house! We are not interested in what you know but what you are willing to learn.” He was on a mission and I was happy to witness it in person.
Following the tour, Prince was so excited about it he chose to release his first ever official live album. “One Nite Alone… Live!” would become a 3 CD experience documenting these historic shows all across the United States, even including one of Prince’s infamous aftershows. I had been designing websites for Prince for about 4 years by then, and we were in to the second year of the NPG Music Club. I had done some CD design work here and there for him, but Prince decided this box set would be my first full album design project. Armed with dozens of photos from the tour taken by Afshin Shahidi, I got started on my first box set.
Flash forward 17 years later, it’s 2019 and we’re in a very different place. We lost Prince and the world got a little dimmer. The Prince Estate had begin reissuing Prince’s albums, continuing his legacy and keeping his music alive. I had been in touch with Sony Legacy regarding the 3 albums I was a part of designing in the mid-2000s; Musicology, 3121, and Planet Earth. As a consultant for the re-releases I got to see the care and attention-to-detail that Sony and the Estate were putting in to make sure these LPs and CDs were done correctly. And I was happy to play my part digging in to some of the past highs of my professional career. But in 2019, the time came for One Nite Alone to get the re-release treatment. And this time, Sony Legacy and the Estate decided I was the best choice to make a brand-new package for not only the box set, but the first-ever vinyl LP packages for each of the 3 albums that were about to make up the One Nite Alone Collection. Needless to say, I was all in.
This was no small task. I needed to essentially start completely over and build a new CD sleeve for 3 Albums, a sleeve for a DVD, a 52 page CD booklet, 5 disc labels, and a slipcase to house them all together. Plus an LP album gatefold for the 4 LP of One Nite Alone…Live, Gatefold for the 2 LP of It Ain’t Over: The Aftershow, and an LP sleeve for the One Nite Alone, Solo Piano and Voice album, including full-color dust sleeves and LP labels for all of them. But I relished the challenge of digging back in to the meat of a project I had enjoyed creating so many years ago. Going through all my old digital files, I played the Live album over and over to take me back to that time.
But I found some interesting feelings along the way that I hadn’t expected. I hadn’t worked on a Prince project in over 10 years. He and I had parted ways as friends years ago, but I never got the chance to work with him again like I had always anticipated. When you lose a friend and mentor so unexpectedly, you can’t help but wonder what could have been if only… if only. Yet here I was, working “with Prince” again but working without him at the same time. I was making creative decisions and moving his images around without that familiar voice over my shoulder, guiding the project and giving it his blessing. I realized I had never done this before. I’d never designed a Prince album without Prince. He was gone. In that moment of realization, I could feel that loss in a very real way I hadn’t experienced up to that point.
Another message I got while working on project was that while he was gone, his music will live on forever. Playing these albums over and over as I worked just reinforced what amazing talent he and the NPG possessed and just how special a Prince concert really was. “Real music for real music lovers!” Blackwell’s astounding drumming, Rhonda’s fantastic stand up bass, Renato’s amazing versatility, and the impossibly tight Maceo, Greg and Candy all put together something truly unique.
From a design perspective, I had an additional 17 years of professional experience looking down on what I had done in 2002. I’ll be honest, there are some choices that were made that I find cringeworthy to this day. Perhaps it was my need to make Prince happy, but it is what it is and I had to live with it. But it’s not every day you get to go back and make some much needed changes. Like George Lucas forever tinkering with the Original Trilogy, I think a lot of artist’s look at their past work and fight with the urge to “just fix it.” Now was my chance to slip in a couple fixes that have always bugged me. The original intention and vibe of the 2002 box set had to be maintained to honor what Prince and I worked on years ago, but it could be tightened up, streamlined, and get a “new coat of paint” for 2020. I truly do believe that, as an artist, Prince would never want to exactly repeat himself anyway. Art, including music, lives and evolves with the world around it. This new Collection package is a small visual evolution.
One change I got to make was giving Jake Armour his proper photography credit. Truth is, he took the photo of Prince that is on the cover, but I was always told it was Per Breiehagen. 17 years later, I got a tip that it was probably Jake. So I messaged him and sure enough, a mistake got corrected in time for the CD set. There were dozens of photos by Afshin Shahidi in the package already, but Manuela Testolini had also contributed some of the photos used in the booklet, and now she would get her proper credit too.
Some things stayed exactly the same. Primarily all the NPG Music Club member reviews of the shows that filled the original box booklet. Prince enjoyed reading them and I made sure to include everyone from the original in this new booklet. The same photos of the audience are there too. So if you were excited seeing yourself in the set last time, you will be again this time.
Completing the Collection was the One Nite Alone Solo Piano CD that Steve Parke had designed the package for with the help of Jeremy Gavin. Digging through my archives I had the original cover art Steve had created back then. It had more of a Miles Davis “Bitches Brew” vibe but did not get used. With Parke’s help cleaning it up, I got to include it inside the Piano CD package as something new for everyone to enjoy.
Another way I got to make a new contribution was to name the collection. We needed a title to tie the previous 3 CD set with the addition of the Solo Piano CD and the Vegas Live DVD. Drawing from my own experience listening to all of this great music while designing the package, I suggested we call it “Up All Nite With Prince: The One Nite Alone Collection.” If you listen to all this great material at once, you certainly will be up all nite! The name stuck.
We also needed something new for the slipcase cover to go with the title. I didn’t have any alternate shots of Prince to use, so taking some inspiration from Steve Parke’s brilliant illustration work, I digitally drew the cover photo in a high-contrast style that I could use for the cover, retail and more. Using shades of grey and a deep, dark purple color, we had our slipcase. Our collection was complete!
It’s been a trip and a half working on this project. I couldn’t have gotten through it all by myself, and the team at Sony Legacy and the Estate have all been phenomenal. I thank them for trusting me with this task, and I appreciate their constant dedication to treating Prince with the respect he deserves. And most of all I am thankful to Prince’s fams and all the past, present, future members of the NPG Music Club who make all of this possible. As long as we keep his spirit alive, we will never truly spend one nite alone.
