Prince Track by Track: “What Do U Want Me 2 Do?”

Prince Track by Track: “What Do U Want Me 2 Do?”

(Featured Image: Prince and (soon-to-be-ex-) wife Manuela Testolini in 2004. Photo by Frank Micelotta, stolen from Heavy.)

As I divide my writing time this week between d / m / s / r and the various year-end list obligations from my other side hustle as a freelance music writer, here’s the latest of my guest appearances on Darren Husted’s Prince: Track by Track podcast, talking about a nice-but-not-beloved song from a nice-but-not-beloved album:

Prince Track by Track: “What Do U Want Me 2 Do?”

Speaking of end-of-year stuff, I suppose now is as good a time as any to give some indication of how I see the rest of the month shaking out. I plan to get at least one or two songs into the Time’s second album–ideally starting this week, though the aforementioned freelancing obligations mean that next week is a safer bet. Before I shut down for the holidays, I also plan to post (by request!) a new installment in my series of alternate universe fan-fics masquerading as serious historical thought experiments.  And I think I’m on the slate for at least two more episodes of Track by Track in 2018. My own podcast is currently dormant, but will return in the new year with, at the very least, another album review. And then we’ll be on to 1999 before we know it in 2019! As always, a heartfelt thanks to everyone who takes the time to read and/or listen to my thoughts–I know you have many choices when it comes to Prince-related commentary, etc., etc.

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International Lover

International Lover

(Featured Image: “There’s never been more love in the air!” Early 1970s Southwest Airlines ad; stolen from Flashbak.)

Following a month and a half of dates in the Mid-Atlantic, South, and Midwest, Prince took a break from the Controversy tour in mid-January 1982. He spent the majority of this time in Los Angeles: attending the American Music Awards and laying down tracks at his new favorite studio, Sunset Sound. Most of the songs he recorded in these weeks were intended for his protégés (and budding rivals) the Time: “Gigolos Get Lonely Too,” “The Walk,” and “Wild and Loose” would all end up on their second album, What Time is It? But the sessions also yielded what would become the closing track on Prince’s fifth album: a seductive ballad in the “Do Me, Baby” vein called “International Lover.”

In fact, according to Per Nilsen’s studio sessions Bible The Vault, “International Lover” very nearly ended up on What Time is It? as well. Recorded just a few days after “Gigolos Get Lonely Too” (January 11) and on the same day as overdubs for “The Walk” (January 14), its place in the chronology clearly suggests Prince had it in mind as a Time song; there’s very likely a tape somewhere with vocals by Morris Day. But in what would become a pattern for Prince with his spinoff acts, he ended up liking the song so much that he took it back for himself.

Continue reading “International Lover” →

Dance to the Beat

Dance to the Beat

(Featured Image: The Time at Sam’s, October 7, 1981. L to R: Jimmy Jam, Terry Lewis, Morris Day, Jesse Johnson, Monte Moir. Photo stolen from prince.org.)

During the weeks leading up to the release of their debut album in July 1981, Prince had honed the Time into a formidable live unit. “He brought stuff out of us that we didn’t think we could do,” keyboardist Jimmy Jam later recalled. Left to their own devices, the band would “rehearse for like four hours and think we were tired. We’d go through the set twice and sit around and talk for two hours.” But with Prince as taskmaster, “we’d work five or six hours straight, over and over, no breaks… He would give us keyboard parts that were impossible. We would be like, ‘We can’t play these.’ He would be like, ‘Yeah, you can, and while you’re playing them I want you to do this step of choreography and sing this note of harmony.’ Couple of days later we’d be doing it. A month later we’d be on tour and it would be automatic. He was a great motivator and the thing that made him a great motivator was that he works so hard himself. He’s always squeezing the most out of everything” (Nilsen 1999 87).

That summer, the Time made their live debut in a showcase for Warner Bros. executives at S.I.R. Studios on Sunset Boulevard–the same venue where, three years earlier, Prince had held auditions for his own backing band. “It was just 10 or 12 of us,” Marylou Badeaux, at that time a marketing executive in the label’s “Black Music” division, told biographer Per Nilsen. “We went down there after work one day to be shown this new Warner Bros. group that was produced by Jamie Starr. No one knew who Jamie Starr was. They turned off all the lights, and this diminutive little character with a veil walked in to stand behind the console and mix it. Somebody says, ‘That’s Jamie Starr!’ And I looked and said, ‘No, that’s Prince!’” (Nilsen 1999 87).

Continue reading “Dance to the Beat” →

Prince Track by Track: “Xogenous”

Prince Track by Track: “Xogenous”

(Featured Image: Back cover for Xpectation, 2003; © NPG Records.)

First, for any readers waiting for the next real post, a quick update: I have begun to slip into my customary holiday-season (/fitfully year-round) sloth, but I expect to have finished my next piece, covering Prince’s adventures with the Time on the Controversy tour, before Thanksgiving. In the meantime, here’s a consolation prize in the form of me and Prince: Track by Track host Darren Husted talking about one of Prince’s smooth jazz tracks for 18 minutes:

Prince Track by Track: “Xogenous”

I regretfully will not be back on Track by Track to discuss Prince’s next smooth jazz album, but just yesterday we recorded three episodes with songs from Musicology, The Chocolate Invasion, and The Slaughterhouse, so you can look forward to those by the end of the year!

Review: Prince – Before the Rain

Review: Prince – Before the Rain

(Featured Image: Cover art for Prince: Before the Rain by Allen Beaulieu, from Amazon.)

I have, I’ll admit, been lax in covering the Prince photo books released since I launched this blog in mid-2016. This is no reflection on their quality: I’ve heard nothing but good things about Steve Parke’s Picturing Prince: An Intimate Portrait, and I was lucky enough to receive Afshin Shahidi’s (very good) Prince: A Private View for Christmas last year. But while I am no more immune to Prince’s visual appeal than the next heterosexual man, up until now I’ve put my focus on covering new music and books that are directly related to my research. I’m making an exception, however, for Allen Beaulieu’s Prince: Before the Rain.

If you’ve been reading this blog, it should come as no surprise that I am a huge fan of Allen Beaulieu’s work. Beaulieu’s iconic photographs for Dirty Mind,  Controversy, and (especially) 1999 were almost as important as the music in shaping my relationship with Prince as an artist, and they remain among the images I associate with him most. So, when Parke’s book came out in 2017, I’ll admit that my first thought was, “When is Beaulieu’s coming out?” And when Before the Rain was finally announced early this year, I preordered it on sight.

Given my predilection for Beaulieu’s photos, it should come as no surprise that I found his book to be entirely worth the wait. Before the Rain includes a wealth of shots from the photographer’s most stunning sessions with Prince: including the album cover photos mentioned above, as well as images originally printed on tour merchandise or in magazines. If there’s a picture of Prince that you love dating from between 1980 and 1983, the chances are very good that it’s in here. But there are also plenty of shots you probably haven’t seen, most of which are equally incredible–and many of which capture a more intimate side of the artist that the previously-released photos only hinted at.

Among the less familiar shots are dozens from the Dirty Mind, Controversy, and 1999 tours, capturing Prince, the band, and opening acts the Time and Vanity 6 both onstage and off. Beaulieu was less confident and skilled as a candid photographer than he was in a more controlled environment, and the comparative quality of the tour photos bears out his self-assessment as a “studio cat.” But what these images lack in polish, they make up for with sheer magnetism; it’s a thrill to see Prince in these formative years, relaxed and often in a playful mood with people like his bandmates, Vanity, and the Time’s Morris Day.

Also worth the price of admission are the book’s surprisingly meaty written sections, which include historical passages by Minneapolis-based journalist Jim Walsh, as well as album reviews by Eloy Lasanta, a.k.a. YouTube personality Prince’s Friend. These sections aren’t completely without flaw: there are a few niggling factual errors–most notably a couple of shots from Prince’s October 5, 1981 date at Sam’s, which are mislabeled as coming from his March 9 date; and one perplexing case where a 1986 photo of the Revolution credits his early ’90s band, the New Power Generation. But the stories in Before the Rain transcend these relatively minor faults, shedding valuable light on the creation of many of Beaulieu’s most enduring images and sharing personal stories about a formative period in Prince’s career.

Again, it should come as no surprise that I loved Before the Rain: more than any other photo book to date, it sits directly in my wheelhouse. But I also can’t imagine it failing to impress anyone currently reading this blog. For fans of Prince, particularly his pre-Purple Rain work, this is as essential a purchase as any of the other books I’ve recommended to date. And if Beaulieu happens to have any material left for a sequel, I’ll be the first in line to buy a copy.

You can provide some modest support to dance / music / sex / romance by using my Amazon affiliate link to purchase Prince: Before the Rain (or anything else in the encroaching holiday season).