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
Famous quotes containing the word life:
“The sentiment of virtue is a reverence and delight in the presence of certain divine laws. It perceives that this homely game of life we play, covers, under what seem foolish details, principles that astonish.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Had Dr. Johnson written his own life, in conformity with the opinion which he has given, that every man’s life may be best written by himself; had he employed in the preservation of his own history, that clearness of narration and elegance of language in which he has embalmed so many eminent persons, the world would probably have had the most perfect example of biography that was ever exhibited.”
—James Boswell (1740–95)
“... when you make it a moral necessity for the young to dabble in all the subjects that the books on the top shelf are written about, you kill two very large birds with one stone: you satisfy precious curiosities, and you make them believe that they know as much about life as people who really know something. If college boys are solemnly advised to listen to lectures on prostitution, they will listen; and who is to blame if some time, in a less moral moment, they profit by their information?”
—Katharine Fullerton Gerould (1879–1944)