# John L. Nelson
**John L. Nelson** (John Lewis Nelson; June 29, 1916 – August 25, 2001) was an American jazz pianist and songwriter in [Minneapolis](https://www.edgepedia.org/minneapolis), best known as the father of the musician Prince, whose full name, [Prince Rogers Nelson](https://www.edgepedia.org/prince-musician), came from Nelson's stage name and band, the Prince Rogers Trio[1](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0625484/bio/) • [2](https://entities.oclc.org/worldcat/entity/E39PBJpv64HgFJmkDGFgXbfyVC.html). In the 1980s he received co-writing credits on several of his son's recordings, including songs on the albums *Purple Rain*, *Around the World in a Day*, *[Parade](https://www.edgepedia.org/parade-prince-album)*, and the *Batman* soundtrack[1](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0625484/bio/).
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Born / died | June 29, 1916, Cotton Valley, Louisiana; August 25, 2001, at his home in suburban Minneapolis, aged 85[1](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0625484/bio/) • [11](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-aug-30-me-40168-story.html) |
| Band | Led the Prince Rogers Trio, a jazz group playing North Minneapolis clubs and community centers such as the Phyllis Wheatley House, using "Prince Rogers" as his stage name[4](https://becoming.prince.com/map/the-way) |
| Marriage | Met singer Mattie Shaw while performing at the Blue Note jazz club and recruited her into his band; they married on August 31, 1957[4](https://becoming.prince.com/map/the-way) |
| Children | Prince (born 1958) and Tyka Nelson (born 1960), his two children with Shaw, plus children from an earlier relationship, including his daughter Sharon Nelson[4](https://becoming.prince.com/map/the-way) • [5](https://apnews.com/article/11320c0b8de9032f785080a6e8474fbe) • [6](https://www.thecurrent.org/feature/2018/03/05/sharon-nelson-on-her-fathers-music-impact-on-prince) |
| Day job | Worked as a plastic moulder at Honeywell in Minneapolis while gigging nights with the trio[3](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/john-nelson-9204256.html) • [7](https://princesongs.org/2022/01/11/fathers-song/) |
| Co-written songs | "Computer Blue" and "Father's Song" (*Purple Rain*), "The Ladder" (*Around the World in a Day*), "Christopher Tracy's Parade" and "Under the Cherry Moon" (*Parade*), and "Scandalous" (*Batman*)[1](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0625484/bio/) |
| Posthumous release | *Don't Play With Love*, an album of his compositions produced by his daughter Sharon Nelson, released about two decades after his death[6](https://www.thecurrent.org/feature/2018/03/05/sharon-nelson-on-her-fathers-music-impact-on-prince) |
## Early life and the Prince Rogers Trio
Nelson was born in Cotton Valley, Louisiana, on June 29, 1916[1](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0625484/bio/). He moved to Minneapolis in the 1950s to escape the racism of the South, and, quiet and soft-spoken, he lived for his music but could not earn a proper living from it[3](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/john-nelson-9204256.html).
**The Prince Rogers Trio.** Playing piano, he took the stage name Prince Rogers and led the Prince Rogers Trio, a jazz group that played clubs and community centers on Minneapolis's North Side, including the Phyllis Wheatley House, a building opened in 1924 to provide social services for African-American families moving to the area[4](https://becoming.prince.com/map/the-way). While performing with his group at the Blue Note jazz club he met Mattie Shaw, recruited her to sing in the band, and the musical partnership became a romantic one; they married on August 31, 1957, and their son Prince arrived almost exactly nine months later, on June 7, 1958[4](https://becoming.prince.com/map/the-way). The boy was named Prince Rogers Nelson after his father's stage name[4](https://becoming.prince.com/map/the-way) • [8](https://time.com/4303558/prince-dead-paisley-park-57/).
To support the family, Nelson took a job as a plastic moulder at [Honeywell](https://www.edgepedia.org/honeywell) in Minneapolis, subsidizing his wardrobe with the take from his Prince Rogers gigs at night[3](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/john-nelson-9204256.html) • [7](https://princesongs.org/2022/01/11/fathers-song/). Prince later described watching his father work: he told *Musician* Magazine that Nelson had dreams in which he would see a keyboard and hear a melody, and could get up at 4:30 a.m., walk downstairs, and play it[4](https://becoming.prince.com/map/the-way).
Although Nelson was routinely described as a jazz musician, recordings of his playing are not straightforward jazz; one account characterizes them as closer to outsider music, and Nelson himself boasted to MTV that he had been "a piano player for strippers down on Hampton Avenue"[9](https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/apr/23/prince-death-early-years-formed-music-legend).
## The break-up of the marriage
The marriage ended in divorce in 1968, when Prince was ten, according to his obituary in *The Independent*[3](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/john-nelson-9204256.html). Prince's own recollection, recorded in his memoir *The Beautiful Ones*, placed the separation earlier: he wrote that John and Mattie separated when he was 7, and that he wanted nothing more at the time than a quiet space where he could hear himself think and create[4](https://becoming.prince.com/map/the-way).
When Nelson quit the family home he left behind an upright piano, at which Prince taught himself to play, picking out television theme songs such as *[Batman](https://www.edgepedia.org/batman-album)* and *The Man from U.N.C.L.E.*[4](https://becoming.prince.com/map/the-way) • [9](https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/apr/23/prince-death-early-years-formed-music-legend). Prince wrote his first song, "Funk Machine", on that piano at age seven[8](https://time.com/4303558/prince-dead-paisley-park-57/) • [10](https://www.jazztimes.com/features/columns/footprince/?v=a672068055fa). At 12 he lived with his father for a time, watching him juggle the Honeywell job with late-night gigs, though the arrangement did not last; Nelson, having caught his teenage son with a girlfriend, threw him out, and the two were eventually reconciled in the early 1980s[4](https://becoming.prince.com/map/the-way) • [3](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/john-nelson-9204256.html).
## Collaborations with Prince
**Songwriting credits.** During rehearsals for the 1983 tour promoting the album *1999*, Nelson jammed with his son and with [Wendy Melvoin](https://www.edgepedia.org/wendy-melvoin) and [Lisa Coleman](https://www.edgepedia.org/lisa-coleman-musician) of the Revolution; the resulting track, "Computer Blue", appeared in the film *Purple Rain* (1984), whose soundtrack sold 10 million copies in the United States alone[3](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/john-nelson-9204256.html). Prince gave his father a co-writing credit on "The Ladder" from *Around the World in a Day* (1985) because the piece was based on a chord sequence Nelson often used, and further credits followed on *Parade* (1986) and the soundtracks for *Under the Cherry Moon* (1986) and *Batman* (1989)[1](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0625484/bio/) • [3](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/john-nelson-9204256.html). The two also collaborated on "Father's Song"[4](https://becoming.prince.com/map/the-way).
The film *Purple Rain*, based loosely on Prince's early days in Minneapolis and his troubled relationship with his parents, took liberties with the truth; Nelson was adamant that, unlike the father character in the movie, he had never used a gun[3](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/john-nelson-9204256.html). Prince tried to launch a solo career for his father, an effort that failed when Nelson showed up at the recording studio clutching an accordion[9](https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/apr/23/prince-death-early-years-formed-music-legend).
Prince spoke of the relationship with warmth in later years. "We have the same hands. We have the same dreams," he told *Ebony* in 1986, and three decades later he said of his father, "But we got along good. He was my best friend"[4](https://becoming.prince.com/map/the-way).
## Later years and posthumous releases
Nelson died on August 25, 2001, at his home in suburban Minneapolis, aged 85[11](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-aug-30-me-40168-story.html); IMDb gives the place of death as [Chanhassen, Minnesota](https://www.edgepedia.org/chanhassen-minnesota)[1](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0625484/bio/).
His music outlived him. Almost two decades after his death, his daughter Sharon Nelson produced *Don't Play With Love*, an album of compositions by her father, as part of an effort to preserve the Nelson legacy and document his musical impact on Prince[6](https://www.thecurrent.org/feature/2018/03/05/sharon-nelson-on-her-fathers-music-impact-on-prince).
## References
1. [John L. Nelson – Biography, IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0625484/bio/)
2. [John L. Nelson, WorldCat Entities](https://entities.oclc.org/worldcat/entity/E39PBJpv64HgFJmkDGFgXbfyVC.html)
3. [John Nelson, obituary, The Independent (1 September 2001)](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/john-nelson-9204256.html)
4. [Prince's Early Years, The Prince Estate](https://becoming.prince.com/map/the-way)
5. [Minneapolis musician Tyka Nelson, Prince's sister and only full sibling, dies at 64, AP News](https://apnews.com/article/11320c0b8de9032f785080a6e8474fbe)
6. [Prince's half-sister Sharon: Preserving the Nelson legacy, The Current (2018)](https://www.thecurrent.org/feature/2018/03/05/sharon-nelson-on-her-fathers-music-impact-on-prince)
7. [Father's Song – Dance / Music / Sex / Romance, PrinceSongs.org](https://princesongs.org/2022/01/11/fathers-song/)
8. [Prince, Icon of Pop Music, Dies at 57, TIME](https://time.com/4303558/prince-dead-paisley-park-57/)
9. [The rearview mirror rehinged: how Prince's early years formed his legend, The Guardian (2016)](https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/apr/23/prince-death-early-years-formed-music-legend)
10. [FootPrince, JazzTimes](https://www.jazztimes.com/features/columns/footprince/?v=a672068055fa)
11. [John Nelson; Jazz Pianist Was Father of Pop Icon Prince, Los Angeles Times (2001)](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-aug-30-me-40168-story.html)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Music › Musicians and ensembles › Individual musical biographies › Jazz musicians and bandleaders › Bebop and hard bop era musicians*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Sep 19, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Sep 19, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*
License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license