One Nite Alone...

In the early 2000s, Prince had shifted his focus away from distributing his music through traditional retail outlets and was putting his energy into promoting and developing his revolutionary NPG Music Club, an online-only, subscription-based service that gave members exclusive access to music and videos at the exact moment Prince was ready to release them.

Much of the music that was released through the NPG Music Club came in the form of a digital download — each month, subscribers would be given access to a treasure trove of mp3s and movie files, with each batch containing a variety of live, unreleased, or alternate versions of Prince’s material. But Prince also used this service to distribute physical CDs to his fans, and following the successful distribution of the remix album Rave In2 the Year 2000 in 2001, he released an album of new recordings, One Nite Alone…, exclusively to NPG Music Club members in May 2002.

When the album was released, Prince was already in the midst of a successful One Nite Alone… Tour, which would take him across the United States, Canada, Europe, and Japan for the majority of 2002. On the tour Prince was joined by a full band, and he performed backed by drummer John Blackwell, bassist Rhonda Smith, keyboardist Renato Neto, and a large horn section that included the revered James Brown saxophonist Maceo Parker.

On the album, however, Prince performed in a stripped-down style that more closely mirrors the title of the album, with only John Blackwell accompanying him on some tracks on drums, and Prince accompanying himself on piano and synthesizer. Notably, the album credits also include “ambient singing” by Prince’s beloved Paisley Park doves, Divinity and Majesty, who can be heard softly cooing in the background of the stirring final track, “Arboretum.”

The sound of One Nite Alone… would be explored by Prince again in late 2015 and early 2016, when he would perform solo concerts for the first time in his career on his Piano and a Microphone Tour. The album included a cover of a Joni Mitchell song, “A Case of You,” which Prince would reprise on his final tour.