The first “purple rain” musical reference, researchers at Zero to 180 assert, comes from Stevie Wonder — though to be fair, from the pen of Ted Hull. Upon closer examination, “Purple Rain Drops,” after its conception in 1965, would go on to spend its entire adult life as a B-side, never to be included on a full-length record album:
“Purple Rain Drops”
Stevie Wonder (1965)
Produced by Clarence Paul (brother of Lowman Pauling from The “5” Royales), “Purple Rain Drops” graced the flip side of Wonder’s early hit, “Uptight (Everything’s Alright),” released exactly two years after President Kennedy’s assassination.
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“Purple Rain Drops” would get the picture sleeve treatment in France and Norway, but the award for most evocative sleeve design clearly belongs to the Netherlands:
Thirty years later, “Purple Rain Drops” would appear on an “unofficial” Belgian CD release – Rare Tracks from Detroit, Vol. 4, issued in 1996 – fittingly, as the last song on the disc.
Reining In the Song’s Legacy
Three years after the song’s release in 1968, a Columbus, Ohio garage combo would take Purple Reign as its band name — did the Stevie Wonder B-side possibly serve as inspiration?
