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Anyone lucky enough to see one of Prince's solo shows knows that he was not just a talented composer, producer, guitarist, bassist, drummer, arranger and performer – he was also a gambler of piano, with a flair for ballet melodies and vampires C & # 39; s is an aspect of his talent that was seen and heard too rarely, even though it was the format of his last tour "Piano & a Microphone "At the beginning of the year 2016 – who shares a title with this album earlier.
Recorded at the time when "Purple Rain" was filmed, "Piano & a Microphone 1983" stems from a tape recording of a 25-year-old prince, alone to the ivories, browsing nine songs in half an hour. (Originally, it was released in the 1980s under the title "Intimate Moments With Prince.") It is heard with a very likely high-heeled boot and is called engineer Don Batts to turn down the lights or flip the ribbon He goes through sketches of pieces such as "Purple Rain" and "Strange Relationship"; covers the spiritual "Mary Do not You Weep" (which was used forcefully in the last moments of Spike Lee's "BlacKkKlansman") and "A Case of You" by Joni Mitchell; and concludes with two seemingly improvised tracks. Some songs last six and a half minutes, some for 90 seconds. He moves through different styles, moods, voices – mischievous grunts, falsetto screams, soulman supplications. He sings "Cold Coffee and Cocaine" in what fans call Jamie Starr's voice, after a first pen name – a juvenile character who talks jive and looks like a Morris Day.
He's just playing. But he is Prince.
All this is also a caveat emptor – "Purple Rain" is one of 90 seconds songs. But prince just playing it's the sound of exploration. One song or mood mixes with another, sometimes gently, sometimes abruptly. "With a precision to an astonishing grip, Prince composed, played and shot just after my eyes," writes Batts in the liner's notes. "These songs are like things started; I call them "refs." These are sometimes raw, fast recordings of a tape idea, around which Prince would then build the completed multitrack recording. "
Like most sketches, the songs have found themselves in many places and shapes. "International Lover" and "Purple Rain" have already been registered. "Wednesday" was part of a deleted scene from the movie "Purple Rain" featuring Prince's singer and ex-girlfriend, Jill Jones (she is the whitened waitress of First Avenue in the film). A full version of "17 Days" became the back of "When Doves Cry"; "Strange Relationship" was recorded several times before landing on "Sign o 'the Times"; "A case of you" and "Mary do not cry" were occasionally played live over the years. Prince may never have come back to others.
Their stories are probably somewhere in the prolific musician's gigantic archive – the vaunted vault – containing thousands of unpublished recordings from 1976, and perhaps even earlier. Recently transferred from the Prince's Paisley Park compound to a great air-conditioned facility in Los Angeles, audio and video recordings are now fully cataloged, (mostly) legally validated and evaluated for later release. This album is the first of what will likely be many posthumous collections of the safe compiled under the supervision of the artist's field (the excellent "Purple Rain" luxury edition of last year was overseen by Prince before his death).
"I had the habit of staying under the piano, listening for hours, as he would simply play," writes Jill Jones in the booklet notes. "It was not strange to wake up in the middle of the night, only to hear the music and go find him sitting barefoot at the piano, playing a song." This album takes you under the hood of the piano, so to speak, seeing the genius at work.
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