Tag: jamie starr

Podcast The Time, 1981

Podcast: 40 Years of The Time – A Conversation with Darling Nisi and Harold Pride

Post author By Zachary Hoskins
Post date July 16, 2021
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July 2021 marks the 40th anniversary of the self-titled debut album by the Time; so, I decided to commemorate the occasion by bringing back Darling Nisi and Harold Pride for one of our trademark track-by-track deep dives. As always, the conversation left me thinking about the album in new ways: from KaNisa’s interpretation of it as Prince’s tribute to the funk music of his youth, to Harold’s insight on its significance to the development of electronic dance music. I remain grateful to be able to talk about music with these two brilliant people.

Last time, I promised I’d have another podcast episode ready in less than the almost two-year gap between our Prince (1979) and Dirty Mind episodes; and, technically, I did make good on that promise, since it’s “only” been 10 months since Dirty Mind last September. But for real, I’ll be back much sooner this time–like, probably around this time next month. So, if you haven’t already, subscribe to Dance / Music / Sex / Romance on your podcast provider of choice; and, if the spirit moves you, you can even leave a review! You’ll be hearing from me again very soon.

Tags 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1987, 1993, 1plus1plus1is3, 2001, 2002, 2008, 2009, 777-9311, allen beaulieu, andre cymone, atlanta, bet, big sexy, bird, brick, capitol theatre, cherrelle, chili sauce, chuck statler, controversy, controversy music, cool, cooley high, darling nisi, daryl hall, dazz, de angela duff, detroit, devo, dez dickerson, dirty mind, dirty mind tour, dm40gb30 symposium, don batts, don't stop til you get enough, dr fink, earth wind & fire, family, fishnet, flyte tyme, full force, funkadelic, gaithersburg, george clinton, get it up, gigolos get lonely too, girl 1981, girl 1985, girlsongs, grand central, harold pride, he's so dull, head, holly rock, i didn't mean to turn you on, i wanna be your lover, if i was your girlfriend, if the kid can't make you come, innocent, irresistible bitch, jamie starr, jellybean johnson, jesse johnson, jill jones, jimmy jam, jungle love, just as long as we're together, kim upsher, kiowa trail, let's pretend we're married, let's work, lisa coleman, los angeles, love bizarre, mc hammer, michael dean, michael jackson, minneapolis, monte moir, morris day, mtv, muse 2 the pharaoh podcast, nasty girl, nothing compares 2 u, npg ahdio show, npg music club, oaktown, on time, one nite alone tour, onedayi'mgonnabesomebody, original 7ven, paisley park records, parliament, partyup, prince, prince's friend, purple rain film, questlove, rebels, revolution, rhino records, richard cole, ricky wyatt, rough, second coming film, sexy dancer, shalamar, sheila e, shortberry strawcake, sister fate, sometimes i get lonely, stick, sue ann carwell, terry lewis, time, tionna music, tlc, tricky, uptown, vanity, vanity 6, walk, warner bros records, welcome 2 america tour, wendy melvoin, wet dream, when we're dancing close and slow, when you were mine, whip it, wild and loose, zapp

Ephemera, 1983 Patreon Exclusives

Patreon Exclusive Bonus Track: 1983 Piano Rehearsal

Post author By Zachary Hoskins
Post date March 5, 2021
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Photo by Allen Beaulieu; © the Prince Estate.

At this point, it’s customary to marvel at the sheer, staggering amount of music Prince recorded. His finished recordings number in the hundreds, if not the thousands: enough, to borrow a cliché that became ubiquitous after the Vault was cracked open in 2016, to fill an album a year for the next 100 years; or, to put it in more personally meaningful terms, enough to keep me working on this goddamn blog until roughly the end of my natural life. But the mind truly boggles when one considers that those “finished recordings” are only the tip of the iceberg. Beneath the surface are hundreds more hours of rehearsals and rough sketches recorded for private use–only a fraction of which are ever likely to see the light of day.

By this reckoning, the solo piano rehearsal officially released in 2018 as Piano & A Microphone 1983 is not, in itself, remarkable; it’s just one of countless other “work tapes,” as former Revolution keyboardist Lisa Coleman describes them in her liner notes, by an artist for whom making music was an avocation as much as a vocation (Coleman 3). Prince Estate lead archivist Michael Howe told Newsweek that when he found the recording–a standard, consumer-grade TDK SA-60 cassette with two tracks, “Cold Coffee & Cocaine” and “Why the Butterflies,” listed in Prince’s handwriting–it was in a box with “[l]iterally thousands” of other tapes (Schonfeld 2018). But what it lacks in uniqueness, it makes up for in historical importance: capturing, with near-unrivaled intimacy, a snapshot of Prince’s creative process on the very cusp of the career-defining success of Purple Rain.

Tags 17 days, 1983, 1999 tour, 2018, aretha franklin, bird, blackkklansman, bridge over troubled water, case of you, chanhassen, cold coffee and cocaine, detroit, don batts, duane tudahl, famous flames, fire next time, first avenue, fisk jubilee singers, glam slam, how come u don't call me anymore, international lover, james baldwin, james brown, jamie starr, jill jones, jon bream, joni mitchell, kiowa trail, lead belly, leadbelly, lisa coleman, mary don't you weep, mattie shaw, michael howe, minneapolis, morris day, oh baby don't you weep, pete seeger, prince, purple rain, purple rain film, revolution, sam cooke, simon and garfunkel, sometimes it snows in april, soul stirrers, spike lee, strange relationship, susan rogers, time, wednesday, when doves cry, why the butterflies, yamaha cp-70

Ephemera, 1983

Velvet Kitty Cat

"Nude of Wendy with cat Mouche, Brooklyn 1983," Édouard Boubat.

After unceremoniously ousting Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis from the Time, Prince tried to continue work on the group’s third album; somehow, though, the remaining members didn’t share his enthusiasm. According to sessionographer Duane Tudahl, on April 20, 1983–just two days after sending Jam and Lewis packing–he jammed on a new song called “Sleazy” with Morris Day on drums, Jesse Johnson on guitar, and himself on bass. “Using his old man/Jamie Starr… voice, Prince tried to work in elements from ‘Cloreen Bacon Skin,’” Tudahl writes; “but tensions were higher than usual,” and “it was obvious that none of them were completely committed to the track” (Tudahl 2018 74). The song, by all accounts, went unfinished.

Luckily, Prince wasn’t exactly short on side projects to write for; so he turned to Vanity 6, his other supporting act on the 1999 tour and prospective co-stars in his as-yet-untitled film project. During the 10-hour session at Los Angeles’ Sunset Sound on April 20–alongside several takes of “Sleazy,” overdubs for “If the Kid Can’t Make You Come,” and another seemingly unfinished instrumental titled “My Love Belongs to You”–the ever-prolific artist found time to demo a new track for the girl group: an appropriately lithe, slinky little ditty called “Velvet Kitty Cat.”

Ephemera, 1983

Cloreen Bacon Skin (Tricky)

Post author By Zachary Hoskins
Post date January 8, 2021
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Morris Day in the studio with the mysterious Jamie Starr, circa 1982; photo by Allen Beaulieu, stolen from the Prince Museum on Facebook.

The sessions for the Time’s third album began during an especially fraught period in their relationship with Prince. On March 21, 1983, just over a week before recording commenced at Sunset Sound in Los Angeles, Prince left the band off the bill at New York’s Radio City Music Hall–an apparently calculated move to keep the spotlight on himself, and off his protégés. A week later, he’d repeat the snub at L.A.’s Universal Amphitheatre. Meanwhile, keyboardist Jimmy Jam and bassist Terry Lewis were on thin ice after missing their flight for a March 24 show in San Antonio. Once Prince discovered the reason for their absence–an unsanctioned Atlanta studio date producing the S.O.S. Band–it would spell the end of their tenure in the group.

Yet, even amidst all this interpersonal strife, there was still room for a little levity. And so it was that, on March 27–just one day before the Universal Amphitheatre show–Prince and the group’s frontman/studio drummer Morris Day cut “Cloreen Bacon Skin”: an improvised, 15-minute funk groove-cum-comedy sketch with a surprisingly long afterlife in the former’s body of work.

Ice Cream Castle, 1984

Jungle Love

Maureen O'Sullivan and Johnny Weissmuller in Tarzan the Ape Man (W.S. Van Dyke, 1932); © Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

Prince, as was his wont, had already moved on to his next phase by the time the 1999 tour entered its final stretch in March 1983. The centerpiece of his master plan was, of course, the untitled film project that would become Purple Rain; but he also intended to cement his musical dominance with follow-up albums by the 1999-era “Triple Threat” of himself, the Time, and Vanity 6. Much as he had a year before, he focused on the Time first: booking a few days at Sunset Sound in Los Angeles before playing the Universal Amphitheatre and San Diego Sports Arena on March 28 and 29, respectively.

The Time’s first two albums had been cut primarily by Prince and singer/studio drummer Morris Day alone; for the new project, however, Prince allowed the rest of the band to take on a more active role. “They played on a lot of the stuff,” former Sunset Sound engineer Peggy McCreary told sessionographer Duane Tudahl–though Prince remained the unquestioned “leader of what was going on” (Tudahl 2018 64). The Artist Formerly Known as Jamie Starr was even willing to share songwriting duties, basing “Jungle Love” on an instrumental demo by guitarist Jesse Johnson.