Did you know that Prince performed "Yankee Doodle" — yes, that "Yankee Doodle" — at the peak of his career?

It's true. Onstage in Syracuse, New York, during the Purple Rain tour in 1985, the seven-time GRAMMY winner and his Revolution bridged the lascivious "Take Me With U" and "Do Me, Baby" with the goofy schoolyard classic. As the wheedly melody gave way to shimmering drones, he delivered a voice-of-God monologue: "Can you see me?" he asked the audience with a hint of vulnerability. "Can you hear me?"

By now, almost everyone in the Western world has seen and heard Prince. As Revolution drummer Bobby Z. puts it, Prince has become the legendary Purple One — "this mythical, immortal character." But vaunting Prince as such threatens to do a disservice to one of the hardest-working people in showbiz — by making him some kind of deity.

"Everyone knew him as kind of this odd guy. It's a mystery that he became the coolest guy in the world, you know what I mean?" says Z, a two-time GRAMMY winner himself. What brought this odd duck to the zenith of rock-stardom? A vanishingly rare confluence of brain-breaking talent and the mother of all killer instincts. And those qualities are blindingly apparent on Prince and the Revolution: Live.

That's the name of the newly released Prince and the Revolution live album, culled from that very Syracuse show and released June 3 — four days ahead of what would have been his 64th birthday. (Although, it must be said, he didn't celebrate birthdays.) Featuring classics from "1999" and "Little Red Corvette" to "Let's Pretend We're Married" performed at a head-spinning velocity, the collection is a treasure worth beholding.

What separates it from the other spectacular Prince live releases, like 2018's Piano and a Microphone 1983? His most famous band at full tilt, which allowed Prince to be the most himself he could ever be. Yes, the genius who wrote "Darling Nikki" is here, but also the lovable nerd who could somehow get away with a sexy soliloquy over "Yankee Doodle."

Prince and the Revolution: Live presents The Artist in all his multitudes — the hornball poet, the compositional savant, the born bandleader, the guitar firebrand, the odd duck determined to prove himself. And once its two hours have passed, you'll be reeling from a full Prince immersion. He may have been royalty among rock stars, but he was also incontrovertibly human.

GRAMMY.com sat down with Bobby Z. about what fans will hear in Prince and the Revolution: Live — and what he believes is the most misunderstood thing about him.

When a fan picks up Prince and the Revolution: Live, what are they holding in their hands? What are we dealing with here?

What we're dealing with is basically: The Purple Rain tour had done 105 shows, and it was then time to decide what Prince wanted to do about Europe and Japan. To everyone's chagrin, he was already ready to move on. Before we even hit the stage in Detroit for the first show of the Purple Rain tour, Around in the World in a Day was already in the can. Mixed, mastered, ready to go.

And that was Prince! For him, it was like a secret: He was already on to the next thing, even though the public was still reveling in his music. So, the end of the road was coming, and there was going to be a break, and they were going to ship everything to Europe, and he said, "No."

His compromise was the relatively new invention of pay-per-view. Cable was just forming and things were just getting started. Satellites were starting to be available for commercial use. So, they came up with this innovative way to broadcast to Germany and then throughout Europe. They picked a couple of weeks before the end of the tour, which was Syracuse, New York, on March 30, 1985.

The [Carrier] Dome was a great location. He was fired up, and we performed live for the world. We recorded on tape, and now, Sony has expertly remixed and retooled and restored and brought this amazing show back to life.

It seems to have this quality that the greatest live shows have: unrepeatability. There were many superb Prince concerts, but there's only one of these.

Yeah. This [incorporated] many, many cameras and many, many angles. Any Prince concert shot well would be a memorable experience from his performance alone. But, I agree. The thing about Prince was that music was life and death. You can't move; your eyes are riveted. You are literally in suspended animation. It takes you to another place.

Whether he wanted it to or not, Purple Rain became a diamond because of the pressure, and the pressure was time. We now know that Prince would release an album per month if he could. He just had music flowing out of him. But we had to write the movie, rehearse the movie, shoot the movie, rehearse the tour, and then the record… there were many steps to this that created compression of time.

He had songs competing against each other. "The Beautiful Ones" kicked out "Electric Intercourse," which was a fantastic song that we recorded. The movie kicked it into high gear, and the tour was definitely the most ambitious, crazy thing to date.

I have to stop and give credit to LeRoy Bennett, the lightning designer who's now with Paul McCartney and Lady Gaga. He designed this amazing stage with elevators and Vari-Lites, which were the first versions of lights that move to the music. We called him the seventh member of the band. His genius made it even more spectacular.

What are your favorite moments on Prince and the Revolution: Live?

"Yankee Doodle" makes me chuckle. Any costume change, or when he would leave the stage, we had to create [backing vocalist] Lisa [Coleman] a moment. There are always these moments that are not just throwaway. Every moment was rehearsed and well-thought-out.

I loved just sitting back there and watching him play piano. I don't know if you saw the Beatles' Get Back; Ringo just watches McCartney. I kind of related to that. I just got to watch Prince's genius — sit there, take a breather and come in on cue. I had the best seat in the house.

That's what got me started — Ringo, and, of course, Buddy Rich on "The Tonight Show." It became interesting because I became a muse for electronic, playable drum machines unwittingly. 

Prince and I had a tech background. In the beginning, we were very unfamous together. I was working at his first manager Owen Husney's office as a driver and delivery boy. Prince would disrupt the office business and just ride around with me all day and do photocopy deliveries.

And we would shop for cassettes! Cassettes were so crappy that finding one with less hiss was [paramount]. So, the technical aspect really carried through. And when the Linn[Drum] happened — the drum machine — it was all new and pioneering. It was a far cry from Buddy Rich banging around on "The Tonight Show"!

Every decade has music that resonates and music that doesn't. To you, why does Prince's music endure?

Just like Lennon and McCartney, it's words and music. When you distill those songs — like he did at the very end, ironically, with Piano and a Microphone — and just take them and play them as songs with lyrics, they're beautiful, exquisitely-written songs.

When you add a powerful band behind it that's well-rehearsed and choreographed and lit and costumed and everything, it just enhances that. Prince had an unreal ability to write songs, and that's it right there.

So, it doesn't matter what the vibe is, or the flair, or the aesthetic — without a great song underneath, it's all bound to topple.

So many of them! And he's maybe the most prolific writer in all of history.

I met him, let's just say, in 1977. I knew him for 43 years. If you just say a song a day, you're probably not far off. You're talking about 14,000 songs. Cut that in half and it's 7,000 or 8,000 songs. I mean, this guy did that! And a great many of them were just incredible — and hits, on top of that!\
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By the numbers, it's staggering. But by theory, melody, as a percussionist — he did things on the three and two of a bar, unpredictable dots and pushes on a four-bar measure. There are only four bars and 12 notes in rock 'n' roll — sometimes it deviates — but what he could do with 4/4 time is incredible in its variation.

To embellish what we were talking about just a second ago, the recordings live on because of the nuances in these measures. In his repetitiveness, there's change constantly, which is known as ear candy, I guess. He could decorate a song in a way that keeps you listening and hearing new stuff every time you hear it.

It's easy to take ultra-prolific artists from Prince to Stephen King for granted, but every artist's prolificity is driven by something. What internally drove Prince to create such a prodigious body of work?

It's really hard to say. It goes back to the beginning. I used to think, "What would happen to him if this didn't happen?" because everyone knew him as kind of this odd guy. It's a mystery that he became the coolest guy in the world, you know what I mean?

When you meet the fans, [you realize] he attracted a different kind of person. He saved a lot of lives, in terms of giving people hope and direction. I think his hope was just a combination of DNA and a unique ability of music being like air, water, food. Just a strange adaptation of life in the music, in that it was just everything.

And performance was everything. Everything. Life was on the line. And he laid it out in a way that was just different from other musicians. I used to say he was like the Muhammad Ali of rock 'n' roll. He was after everybody, in a humorous way.

Do you think part of what drove him was plain old insecurity? Being the odd duck he was, I wonder if he felt that burning need to prove himself.

He wanted to prove himself over and over. And as a businessman, he did. The business became frustrating to him, the way the major-label system worked. He changed that. "The Artist" sold a hundred thousand albums out of his trunk, meaning on a website.

In so many ways, he gave artists a voice that still resonates to this day — about owning your masters and freedom and not giving away your rights in a very bold way. His challenge to the business is still giving artists confidence today — to speak up at a time when it was difficult to do that.

I think he evolved in so many different ways. We're talking about a little bit more innocent time. Syracuse was a dream realized. The movie, the album, the tour… it was definitely a long way from that '74 Pinto I was driving around doing photocopies.

For me to take him with him on that journey is something I will appreciate forever. He saved me from a normal life!

Prince aside, what's going on in your career? What else are you working on lately?

I've enjoyed producing records and assembling digital playlists for different labels. I really took to the streaming era and enjoy listening and spreading music in any way I can.

I ultimately enjoy playing with a band. We kind of resurrected the band after Prince passed. COVID stopped us, but we even played on the GRAMMY tribute to Prince, [which] was a fantastic evening. We got to play and honor our leader.

From your perspective, what's the biggest misunderstanding about Prince?

That he wasn't human. That he was this mythical, immortal character. In the early days, he was a band member. He was the leader, of course, but he had to be in a band. People got hungry; they wanted to go back to the hotel. He had to go through the motions at the beginning.

His work ethic was legendary, but at the same time, he had a warm side. He was funny. And the camaraderie was appreciated. He was kind of a binary character. Questions would be answered with questions. Sometimes, you couldn't get to the heart of the matter.

It would always be your choice on a musical part. You were right in his eyes or wrong in his eyes, but he appreciated the effort you put in. It's a big life lesson. He knew how to push people, but at the same time, he was a humorous, funny guy who enjoyed a good laugh.

He enjoyed a good concert. He was a fan. He loved being impressed by songs. He loved music. He loved other people's talent. He loved the whole thing about music, concerts, recording. He loved to learn about it and he loved to give it back.

I'm sure you miss him as much as ever.

Yeah, I do. I mean, the guy's intense. There's no doubt that having him in your life is a focus. My wife and I were talking the other day; he was great friends with her and loved her and gave us his blessing. But he's kind of more important than your parents sometimes!

He's really a presence in your life that you have to deal with. It's an honor and a privilege. It is sad that he's gone, but I definitely feel like it's important while the five of us are still alive, to carry this on and talk about his genius and his stage presence and skills as a bandleader.

It's critical. Life is short. And once we're gone, can anybody speak of it in the first person like this? They'll watch this thing, but it's great that people like you and others are pushing this and getting a whole new generation to see what Prince was.

I'll just say this: there's a lot of hubbub about the court, and who owns what, and how he passed, and the ending, and all that stuff. But what was all the fuss about to begin with? It was this. Just watch Syracuse; this is what the hubbub was. 

This is why Prince was Prince: because he was a figure skater up there. An unbelievable dancer, singer, performer, guitar player, bandleader. It's history, and there's nobody else like him.

Anything else you want to express about Prince and the Revolution: Live before we get out of here?

Just sit your kids down! And cover their eyes sometimes.

But, definitely, watch a real show, with real musicians playing real music. And watch some hard work in action that we loved giving back. He fired us up every night. At this particular show, he was frantic. He knew we were making history. He said it over and over again. And we did.

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