News Station Finds Hidden Gem with Video of a 11 yo Prince Being Interviewed
A Minnesota television station was simply looking for some old archived footage for a story. What they found is a priceless piece of music history.
WCCO, a CBS station in Minneapolis, was searching through archived footage for a current news story when they accidently came across a hidden gem. Hidden in a long-forgotten film from over 50 years ago was an interview with a young boy. That boy would grow up to be none other than music genius Prince.
According to WCCO, Production Manager Matt Liddy was looking through old footage of a Minneapolis teacher's strike back in April of 1970 for a story on a current strike in the same district. Wading through pictures and footage, one particular interview with a young student at the time caught his eye immediately. It was the look the young boy had...and he just knew.
“I immediately just went out to the newsroom and started showing people and saying, ‘I’m not gonna tell you who I think this is, but who do you think this is?’ And every single person [said] ‘Prince,’” Liddy said.
Now, I have to say, the second I saw the video, I knew it too...that was Prince. Although the child never identified himself as Prince Nelson, it was pretty easy to see it was The Purple One himself.
Being news professionals, the team at WCCO set out for positive confirmation, even meeting with Kristen Zschomle who is a historian and archeologist specializing in research of the Twin Cities, and die-hard Prince fan. Through Zschomle, WCCO was able to connect with someone to confirm if the young boy in the interview was in-fact Prince.
Childhood friend, and former early bandmate, Terrance Jackson immediately identified his old friend, who he called Skipper, from the video clip.
That is Prince! Standing right there with the hat on, right? That’s Skipper! Oh my God!”, he told WCCO.
According to Zschomle, the find is somewhat priceless since there really aren't that many videos of Prince as a pre-teen that the public has access to. The smirk, the voice, even back then Prince had something special shining through.
Take a look at the video below. Cool right?
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