Plans for Prince: The Musical?
A Prince musical could be heading to Broadway.
The 57-year-old singer was found dead at his Paisley Park estate in April and music executive Charles Koppelman – who signed the ‘Purple Rain’ hitmaker when he was head of EMI and released his 1996 triple album ‘Emancipation’ thinks he deserves to have his legacy "honored" in some way.
Charles, who along with Prince’s lawyer and manager L. Londell McMillan has been appointed to handle the singer’s entertainment assets by his estate’s administrators, explained there could be a Broadway musical or a Cirque du Soleil show featuring the star’s biggest hits.
He added: "Prince was an icon on the level of The Beatles and Michael Jackson, and his legacy should be honored. Though his name was Prince, I always thought he was the king of music."
Prince left behind thousands of unreleased songs when he died, and the businessman has promised fans will get to hear a lot of it.
He told the New York Post newspaper: "We’re going to be having a good time. There is so much to be done with this estate. There are vaults full of music."
Koppelman and McMillan were chosen by administrators Bremer Trust because they worked together at the time when Prince changes his name to an unpronounceable symbol.
But despite the ‘Diamond and Pearls’ singer’s change of moniker, Koppelman found him easy to work with.
He said: "He couldn’t have been sweeter. He couldn’t have been more real."
Recalling McMillan reminding him of the name change, he added: "I said, ‘What would happen if something was about to fall on his head? I think I would say "Prince." ’ "
Prince – who released 39 studio albums, as well as working on dozens of other musical projects – previously admitted he expected someone to release the tracks from his vault, most of which are believed to date back to the 1980s, one day.
He said in 2012: "One day, someone will release them. I don’t know that I’ll get to release them. There’s just so many."
It is believed there is so much material in the vault, it would be possible to release a new Prince album every year for 100 years.
Susan Rogers, Prince’s former recording engineer, said recently: "We could put out more work in a month than most people could do in a year or more."
