Tag: madcat telecaster

Purple Rain, 1984

Let’s Go Crazy

I

(1) Black Screen
“SOUND under: MUSIC building in INTENSITY as–”
PRINCE
(over)
“Dearly belov’ed
We are gathered here today
To get through this thing
called life…”
Draft screenplay for Purple Rain by Albert Magnoli, 1983

William Blinn submitted two drafts of Dreams–the working title for Prince’s feature film debut–in May of 1983. There wouldn’t be a third: Blinn’s main gig as Executive Producer of the Fame TV series had been renewed, and he no longer had time to spare. Still, Prince’s management deemed the script good enough to shop: Bob Cavallo recalled thinking, “It’s a little TV, it’s a little square… but it’s a good idea, and I figured the director will rewrite it anyway” (Light 67).

But therein lay the rub: even with a screenplay in hand, Cavallo still couldn’t find a director. After a few dead ends, an industry contact recommended he see an early cut of Reckless: a steamy youth drama by first-time director James Foley about a romance between a motorcycle-riding rebel (Aidan Quinn) and a cheerleader from the other side of the tracks (Daryl Hannah). “I go to screen this movie and I’m the only one in the theater,” Cavallo recalled to journalist Alan Light. “I see it, I walk out, and a young man comes up to me and says, ‘What did you think?’ I said, ‘Well, I thought it was pretty good, and that’s really all I thought. I thought the editing was good.’ He’s like, ‘Really? Good. I did that’” (Light 67).

Tags 1982, 1983, 1984, 1999 song, 2007, 2013, 2017, 2018, 2020, 3rdeyegirl, aidan quinn, al pacino, albert magnoli, allen beaulieu, andre cymone, anil dash, baby i'm a star, bob cavallo, bobby z, bruno mars, chanhassen, chris rock, computer blue, daryl hannah, david leonard, david z, donald e thorin, dr fink, drive me wild, duane tudahl, eddie van halen, evelyn champagne king, first avenue, francis ford coppola, freebird, freeze-frame, gary clark jr, godfather, grammy awards, her, highway 7, i would die 4 u, j geils band, james foley, jellybean johnson, jerome benton, jill jones, jim walsh, jimi hendrix, jimmy jam, jon bream, joseph ferraro, kingsman, kingsman golden circle, kiowa trail, let's go crazy, let's get crazy, let's go crazy grammy salute to prince, lynyrd skynyrd, madcat telecaster, matthew vaughn, minneapolis, minneapolis star tribune, monte moir, morris day, mtv, prince, purple rain, purple rain film, reckless, revolution, rick henriksen, san fernando valley, st louis park, st paul, super bowl, susan rogers, terry lewis, time, toure, vh1, voodoo child slight return, warehouse, warner bros pictures, warner bros records, william blinn, yamaha cp-80

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.

Ephemera, 1981-1982 Patreon Exclusives

Patreon Exclusive Bonus Track: Vagina

Post author By Zach
Post date July 10, 2020
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Prince’s handwritten lyrics and sketch for "Vagina," circa 1981; photo stolen from the official Prince Facebook page.

Before last year’s Super Deluxe Edition of 1999, “Vagina” was known only by its title and its reputation–both of which were among the most tantalizing, and titillating, of any songs in Prince’s Vault. Few outside of Prince’s inner circle at the time of recording had heard it–and those who had, most notably former engineer David Z, simply described it as “obscene.”

It would have been impossible for any song to live up to such a reputation; “Vagina” certainly doesn’t, though it does stand as one of the highlights of 1999 Super Deluxe’s previously-unreleased Vault tracks. Recorded at his Kiowa Trail home studio in November 1981, the song finds Prince in stripped-down punk-rock mode–just him and his Hohner “Madcat” Telecaster; even the “percussion,” such as it is, is simulated with his mouth. As biographer Alex Hahn observed in a Facebook post soon after the passing of musician Andy Gill, Prince’s guitar work here “very much evokes” Gill’s playing with the English post-punk group Gang of Four–particularly when he “bangs the strings of his guitar in a percussive manner at the very outset of the song.” It’s a strikingly different sound from the rest of the music Prince was making ahead of his fifth album, which even in late 1981 was tending more toward synthesizers and drum machines than guitars–see, for example, the early versions of “Feel U Up” and “Irresistible Bitch” recorded in the same month.

Patreon Exclusives Reviews

Post-Vacation Update: Patreon-Exclusive Originals Review, plus “Sister” on Press Rewind

Post author By Zach
Post date June 24, 2019
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Cover art for the Originals compilation; photo by Allen Beaulieu, © NPG Records/Warner Bros.

It’s a well-known fact that when Prince gave songs to other artists, he would cut his own recordings with guide vocals–not “demos” in the traditional sense so much as complete alternate takes, with production values in many cases equal to the versions that saw release. Almost as well-known, at least among bootleg enthusiasts, is the fact that Prince’s versions of these songs tended to be better than the “covers.” That makes the latest posthumous release by Warner Bros. Records and the Prince Estate, Originals, something of a no-brainer: here are 15 songs we already know and (mostly) love, preserved as they might have been had Prince decided to keep them for himself.

Dirty Mind, 1980

Gotta Broken Heart Again

Last time, we touched upon how the spartan conditions and technical limitations of Prince’s North Arm Drive home studio helped lay the groundwork for what became his signature sound. This time, we actually have a concrete example to discuss: the sole ballad to appear on his 1980 album Dirty Mind, “Gotta Broken Heart Again.”

On paper, “Broken Heart” is familiar territory for Prince; its borrowings from the early 1960s soul music of artists like Sam Cooke recall the similar homages of songs like “So Blue” and “Still Waiting.” But those tracks had felt labored: as if Prince, not fully comfortable singing in a hand-me-down style, had overcompensated by loading up the mix with fussy and (in the case of “Still Waiting”’s pseudo-pedal steel) even self-mocking touches. Here, though, circumstances forced him to sit with the material and approach it on its own terms–and the result was his finest experiment with the style to date.