Standing with conservatives and why isnt it on display yet . With he want to welcome our viewers in the United States and around the world. Im wolf blitzer. Youre in the situation room. We continue with cnns live coverage of todays breaking news. The shocking death of an American Music legend. Prince. He was 57 years old. He had canceled several recent concerts due to illness. Investigators say he was found unresponsive today in an elevator at his mansion outside of minneapolis. Princes music topped the charts again and again for decades. Grammywinning albums like purple rain and number one songs like kiss and when doves cry. Tonight, princes fans are gathering outside of his home in minnesota and were getting new information from investigators. Our correspondents and guests and analysts will be joining me. Lets start with cnn respond Paul Vercammen who is joining me with details on the breaking news. What do we know . Reporter well, we now know, wolf, that the county examiner, the medical examiner in minnesota is going to perform an autopsy on princes body. Heres the timeline. It was today at about 9 43 that deputies responded to a 911 call that was at princes paisley studios in the minneapolis area. When they arrived there, they found an adult male unresponsive in an elevator. They then desperately tried cpr but all efforts to bring this person back to life failed. They identified him as prince Rogers Nelson. Of course, the grammywinning wellknown legendary iconic performer and singer. So what will be next here is for them to go ahead and perform that autopsy. This is in hollywood where they are playing for prince and so popular that we should note right now, the number one, two, three and four albums on itunes, all prince records and there has been a run on prince material here as many people here fondly remember him. Some of them openly crying. Back to you, wolf. Not surprising at all. Thanks so much, Paul Vercammen. Princes music spanned the era from mtv to itunes. Cnns tom foreman has more on princes remarkable career. He was performing as recently as last week but all of a sudden this happened. Yeah. It seems like he was always performing in some ways. He was incredibly familiar buoyant and private. He never showed up in the news like some celebrities do. His death is so shocking. Reporter prince was the perfect performer for his time, a blast of brilliance rising as just as mtv and the walkman were revolutionizing music. He had the sound and the look and a vision. I learned early on this is what i wanted to do. Little red corvette reporter for almost 40 years, he stayed in the vanguard of musical innovation. A fan said he captured his final performance in atlanta a week ago and posted it on twitter. Purple rain purple rain and this is how it all ended. Police and rescue workers at his studio in minneapolis. Prince had not been well. He had to cancel concerts and his plane had to land at one point for treatment. He spoke to fans about it a few days back. He talked about what happened and said hes okay and said dont waste your prayers on me right now and wait a few days. Prince in his first motion picture. Reporter like the character he played in his first movie purple rain, prince Rogers Nelson came from minneapolis, the son of a jazz pianist and a social worker. He remained tied to the city. Minneapolis gets it done, too . Minneapolis always gets it done. You dont have to go outside of that. Reporter but his influence was global. Prince produced more than a dozen topcharting songs, celebrity tributes are pouring in. Just justin timberlake, numb. Stunned. Whoopi goldberg, this is what it sounds like when doves cry. Prince contributed songs to endless other acts and was renowned as a musical perfectionist at most composing and performing. But he was also noted for his personal humanity, taking care of struggling friends and even contributing a song to baltimore during the devastating riots. It was a good day in baltimore prince was endlessly prolific. His memoir was supposed to come out next year. As it is, he is gone at 57. Some of his final words on stage, if i could, i would give you the world. He was, quite simply, a musical genius from the day he arrived. His performance in 2004 was absolutely jaw dropping. If he had just been a guitar player, a performer, a bass player, he might have been legendary but he did all of them and so many of these great accomplishments that had to be ahead of him are now lost. Wolf . Tom foreman, thank you very much. The white house has just released a statement on princes death on behalf of president obama and the first lady. Ill read it to you. Today the world lost a creative icon. Michelle and i join millions of fans from around the world in mourning the sudden death of prince. Few artists have influenced the sound and trajectory of popular music more distinctly or touched quite so many people with their talent. One of the most gifted and prolific musicians of our time, prince did it all. Funk, r b, an electrifying performer, strong spirit that transcend rules. Prince once said, no one is more creative. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family and band and all those who loved him. Joining us from los angeles, the former executive Vice President of princes company paisley park. Thank you for joining us. Our deepest condolences to you and the entire family. You had a longstanding relationship with prince that goes back many years, right . Yes, it certainly does. It goes all the way back to before the beginning of his career. What was it like to work with him . Well, it was amazing. You know, since i was running his company, he gave me full autonomy to do whatever he thought that i thought was the best. He was a real artist advocate and he was just so amazing when it came to making sure that the artists that he signed had everything that they could want. He didnt want to take he didnt want to take peoples publishing because he thought that, you know, an artist is an artist and someone else should not own your publishing. So had he a different view than other, lets call it Record Company owners had. He was interesting. As a businessman, it was really funny. My daughter juliette had a friend who was having a bar mitzvah and were very rich and said, kerry, well give you 10 million if prince will just play at our bar mitzvah. Im like, no problem. I called him and said, hey, man, i have 10 million for you if you just play at this bar mitzvah for 30 minutes. He said, no, no, i cant do that. I said, what do you mean you cant do that . Its 10 million. He said, yeah, but its not cool. So he didnt do things for money. He did things because they were right. They felt right in his spirit. He felt cool about it and everything he did had to be cool. It was really a unique experience you had. I want to get into that a little bit more. Do you know the circumstances surrounding his sudden death, only 57 years old . We only know what police said. He was found unresponsive in an elevator in his home there. Do you have any information there . I dont. As soon as it happened, i started getting this influx of calls, a plethora of calls that started coming to me. The thing that i thought was, you know, being that i worked with him so long, he was always so into health. He was a vegan. He didnt do drugs. He was just he was very he was very cognizant of the things that he put into his body. So i and we used to play basketball. He was an athlete. And he was a good athlete. He was shockingly good for how small he was because he was a really tiny guy. But he was he was very into health. So im im shocked. I dont know what it could be and im waiting to find out just like everyone else. Yeah. Were showing you live pictures, by the way, kerry, of paisley park where obviously thats his studio, his company over there. People are beginning to gather over there. Talk a little bit about the impact he had from your perspective as someone who worked with him for so many years, the impact that he had on music. Well, he had an incredible impact. R b artists did not own their publishing or their masters. It was a very interesting scenario. During his time when he said, no, im going to own my songs, i want to own my masters and all of this kind of stuff he changed the pair dime and thought process for all of those that came after him. I thought that he had a great effect as far as thats concerned. What was the other part of the question you asked . The impact that he had on music. Youre giving us a good impact, that he had an enormous impact and set the scene for so many other artists that were just recording music. They were actually the producers and Business Leaders of all of that and they werent just working for someone else, right . Right. And another thing is, you know, the sound that he came up with. Just like this song marine 50 has out, sugar, i think it is. To me, thats a prince record. That sounds exactly like a prince record. And im sure that they got their inspiration from prince as did a plethora of other artists. He was so incredibly prolific. I had a chance to work with him in the studio and played with him on stage. I mean, he loved music. He really loved music. So he would come to a little funky audience and get up and play. And it was always shocking. He loved to play. You know what i want to do, kerry, stay with us, i want to play a little bit of when doves cry, the 1984 hit as we go to break. Well resume our coverage right after this. Maybe youre just like my mother hey pal . You ready . Can you pick me up at 6 30 . Ah. boy im here im here cop too late. 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With philips lifeline you get fast, easy access to help 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Stay in your own home and keep doing whats important to you. Get a philips lifeline today. These are live pictures from paisley park. Thats the home, the studio there of prince outside of minneapolis right now. Were covering the breaking news. The death of the music legend. He was only 57 years old. The Sheriffs Department statement says he was unresponsive when discovered in an elevator at his studio there in his estate in minnesota. First responders were called and attempted cpr but could not revive him. Were back with kerry gordy, the former Vice President of paisley park. Talk about the man who you knew and appreciated so much, kerry. Well, there were two different people there. The first person was the person that everybody knows, the guy who was eccentric, the guy who was prince, the guy who is known formally known as prince. He was the eccentric superstar that had an incredible amount of artist integrity. He was a boss that knew exactly what he wanted and he was that perfectionist that went after everything that he wanted. He was kind of insatiable as it related to, i know, playing his music. He had to play. He was that guy. He was a guy that loved to be in front of 20,000 people performing but also the guy that loved to be in front of three people performing because he didnt care. He just loved to perform. Thats the prince that the world knows. The prince that i knew was a little bit different. People thought that he was a reclusive and as much as when he was in a big crowd of people and wasnt performing, he would be reclusive. But he was when we were alone, he became this fun guy that liked to play games and liked to run around and liked to and he was this encyclopedia of musical knowledge and he wld like to play these games. He made sure that im digressing a bit but he made sure that all of his executives that worked for him, all of us, we had to be decked out in, you know, major suits and we had to always look very professional. That was one of his. He wanted to make sure that wherever he went, he looked he was represented correctly and he looked cool. Yeah. He always did. No doubt about that. Kerry, i want you to stay with us because on the phone is lowell picket, one of the owners of the dakota jazz clubs, a venue that prince frequently attended and hes involved with the Musical Instrument in phoenix. When was the last time you saw prince . Tuesday night. This past tuesday night . Yeah. The night before last. He was he came to the dakota for a show on tuesday night. Lynn write was performing, an incredible singer. And he came he would come out once every four to six weeks for shows here just to enjoy them. Just to come in and watch and listen . And as you say, enjoy did he seem okay . Because apparently he was suffering from some flu earlier in the week and thats what they were telling us. They said he was okay. What did he seem like on tuesday when you saw him . Oh, he seemed fine. He seemed like prince. You know, we never and to be honest with you, thats not something that we would have really focused on orooked at or paid attention to. We always tried to make sure that he wasnt bothered by the people when he came. We had a special place where he came inside and just ushered him up to his table and let him enjoy the show. We loved the idea that he loved enjoying the show and loved coming here. So we didnt want to bother him. I had heard that he had been ill earlier but everyone gets ill and that kind of comes and goes. I didnt notice anything on tuesday night. Did he ever perform at your club . He performed here a couple of years ago. He actually initiated it. Kerry, you might remember julia when she worked for him. Was managing him. They approached us and he wanted to do some shows in a small room and we talked about it for about a month, five weeks and set it up and he played three nights. He had a different band every night. First night was and two show as night. First night was all instrumental with a sixpiece horn section and the second night he sang with three backup singers and the horn section and then at midnight on the third nighte said, why dont you all come back . We will play a little music on the stage and have some fun and charge a little bit of money at the door. He cohosted a deejay night on the fourth night. We took all of our furniture out. Pretty amazing. Stand by. Lowell picket from the jazz club. Kerry gordy is still joining us as well. Lets take a quick break and well be right back. We are gathered here today to get through this thing called life shouldnt what makes each of us a unique individual, help individualize our Cancer Treatment . 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I keep an eye on sales and expenses from anywhere. Even down here in the dark i can still see were having a great month. And celebrate accordingly. I run on quickbooks. Thats how i own it. Were covering todays breaking news, the legendary princes death. The Sheriffs Department statement says he was unresponsive when discovered in an elevator at that studio in minnesota. First responders were called and they attempted cpr and they could not revive him. There will be an autopsy. Were back with kerry gordy, former Vice President of paisley park. Youve got a lot of business. Your father, barry gordy, its fair to say he founded motown and all of us have enjoyed that music over these many, many decades. Thank you. Talk a little bit about how he emerged from motown as a new generation, a new generation r b star. Well, prince wasnt with motown. Prince was with Warner Brothers. I know. But he was influenced by that music. Oh. Theres no question about it. It was really funny because when i met prince and i was going to become the person that was running his Company Along with john dekakis, he looked up to me because i was the son of his idol. Right. So it was a really interesting pair dime because everyone else who worked for him, he had this thing of where he would look at them like, okay, you work for me. But in my case, he was like, oh, my gosh, youre the son of the man who ive looked up to for my whole life. Right . So, yeah, he definitely looked up to everybody. I had a chance to i was really good friends with Stevie Wonder and i still am and stevie was the one person that prince would say, you know what, that guy im not im talented but im not as talented as that guy, right . I mean, he looked up to stevie. He looked up to smoky robinson for his songwriting ability. So he really looked up to those motown artists and, of course, Michael Jackson was one of his idols as well as his major competition. And at one time, i managed rick james and prince opened for rick james and prince actually started d