Life
Nelson was born in Louisiana. He traveled to Minneapolis to become a musician in 1948. Playing the piano, he used Prince Rogers as a stage name and started The Prince Rogers Trio with local musicians.
Nelson maintained on-off relationship with Vivian Nelson. With her, he had four children: Sharon L. (born 1942), Lorna L. (1943–2006), Norrine (born 1947), and John R. (born 1948). Nelson had another son, Duane, with Vivian in 1958.
In 1956, he met Mattie Shaw (1933–2002), at a show on the north side of Minneapolis. Shaw was an aspiring jazz musician who became the musical group's singer. Nelson married Shaw and had two more children, musician Prince on June 7, 1958 (who was named after his father's stage name) and daughter Tika Evene (usually known as Tyka) in 1960. When Nelson's career failed in late 1960, the couple became estranged and formally separated in 1966.
Nelson died on August 25, 2001, aged 85, in his home in Chanhassen, Minnesota.
Read more about this topic: John L. Nelson
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“Innocence is lovely in the child, because in harmony with its nature; but our path in life is not backward but onward, and virtue can never be the offspring of mere innocence. If we are to progress in the knowledge of good, we must also progress in the knowledge of evil. Every experience of evil brings its own temptation and according to the degree in which the evil is recognized and the temptations resisted, will be the value of the character into which the individual will develop.”
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