I've heard that there's some good stuff in Jesse's solo work but then again I've got conflicting reports. What's you guys' take

jacktheimprovident said:

Jesse is an complete artist!!!
I think you'll be surprised at how good his stuff really is. The guitar work on the
funk is just enough to spice things up yet hints at why he belonged in Prince's
camp. The Music/production style is definitely true to the Minneapolis Sound!!!! He does
showcase his "axwork" a little more each time and goes fullblow rock on Bare My Naked Soul.
I first noticed him on the Triple Threat Tour(1999), I had no idea who he was but walked away saying,
"The Time's guitarist is bad as hell"!!! I later got to see him on his '85 tour...He Rock ed the house liked nobody's business!!!! He did Jungle Love...the crowd went crazy! The crowd was still chanting his name late into the concert while other acts were performing (Teena Marie and Frankie B & Maze)!!
Bottom line...he is awesome...especially live!!!

The Funk
-Jesse Johnson's Revue
-Shcckadelica
-Every Shade of Love

Pure Rock
-Bare My Naked Soul

GGD

I'm no music critic but I know what I like and to me Jesse's music is timeless. I hate to use the word genius cuz it gets thrown around so much when referring to musicians, but if you want one mans opinion: Run, don't walk, to the nearest record store and purchase Jesse's first three albums. 20 years later I still keep his music in my cd player and whenever I get tired of the constant barrage of hip hop on the radio I pop in "Can you help me" and everything is better again. I can't promise you'll love it as much as I do. So may of my friends hear it in my car and ask me what kind of crap I'm listening to, but as I'm driving off after having kicked them out of my car I tell them "you can listen to Jesse, but you just can't HEAR him"
I'm hoping that after you give him a listen, that you are one of the ones who can "hear" him.

jacktheimprovident said:

Don't forget Ta Mara & The Seen's first album. Jesse wrote all the songs and played all the instruments. It's a very good record.

GGDeVille said:

You comments were right on target. He is a complete package. I remember seeing him in concert in the late 80's and he tore it up. I had dragged my mom to the concert and she was digging his great musicianship as well. I have most of his albums except Bare My Naked Soul which I am going to get. Its damn shame that he ain't playing w/The Time no more.

If you like music from the "old Prince" (1978-1984), then you will love Jesse's solo albums. Jesse continued the "Minneapolis Sound" long after Prince abondoned it. Out of all the other artists that have worked with Prince, Jesse's albums got the most radio airplay.

Jesse's albums are great. He's one of the few that can actually give Prince a run for his money.

discostu said:

Thanks for that reminder!! I had to replace the several times
because I played it so much all I could hear was the "scheeching"
from the plastic moving parts!!
Tamara and The Seen was showcaes of Jesse's writing
and production talents!!!!
Jack if you can find it...BUY IT!!!!
GGD:penguin:

GGDeVille said:

True. All of his projects were some funky journeys that no one should miss out on.

Also check out the Action Jackson and The Five Heartbeats sound tracks. He has songs on there also.

I hear Jesse singing,"..take a fucking look at me!"

rockwilder said:

He seems to use profanity in some of his songs!
On "War Babies"

he says

. It is in the breakdown where he is directing
the band(specifically Michael)!
And on a song from Tamara & The Seen's first album you
can hear him say, . It
is at the end of a song and he whispers it as the music
ends. I don't remember the name of the song!!!
GGD

GGDeVille said:

!Jesse's has a "potty mouth"!
GGD

GGDeVille said:

That's deep how you caught what Jesse was saying in some of his song. or uncensored its all good.

Hotlegs said:

Hotlegs
Take note of my avatar and some of my other posts.
If you had cut me , back in the mid 80's, I would have
bleed Pink!!!
Follow the link to one of my old photos!
P.S. The Tamara & The Song that he says, "Don't fuck with this" is "Affection" He whispers
it right after the "last" note of the ax solo. You have to turn the volume up or you'll miss it.
It took me a few times to notice it.

http://pg.photos.yahoo.co.../my_photos

GGD

it is hard to find his first three albums as they are out of print. you can checkout his greatest hits album which has 12' versions of the songs on it, got it has a birthday present and i rock it 3-5 times a week!!! as the memories of the 80's!!!!

GGDeVille said:

I agree. I first saw The Time in Feb 82 with Zapp opening for P on his Controversy Tour. Already owning The Time's first album and learning to play the guitar leads "Get It Up", "Cool",
"The Stick", I knew before seening The Time live that it was P playing the solos as well as everything else, except for the drums which Morris handled. This was a dead giveaway when I saw The Time live, because I watched Jessie when playing these songs live. And it was so obvious that it wasn't him on the recordings because he destroyed the solos that P played on the album. Meaning that he tore them up. He played within the structure of the solos, but because he was such a better lead guitarist than P was, it was on a much higher level of guitar playing. Same with The Time's "What Time Is It" album, P tried his best to capture Jessie's sound on "777-9311" during the solo, which happens to be a great solo by P. But again, when The Time played that live, Jessie whooped big ass during the solo, when he played it.

Also, like I have mentioned on here before, I actually got to work with Morris and Andre back in 95. Morris was cutting some solo material at Andre's loft in L.A. Rob, who was a cat that played in some of my bands was playing keys on some of Morris's stuff. Jessie had promised Morris that he would put a solo on this cut called "Skirt". Well, long story short, Jessie never would turn up so Morris asked Rob if he knew anybody that could get down on rock guitar for this solo. Rob suggested me, so I went down and turned it out! By that point, I had long since learned and studied P and Jessie's playing, so I already knew what time it was! My boys were Hendrix, Santana, Eddie Hazel, Ernie Isley, etc so I TOTALLY knew where P and Jessie were coming from. From that, I ended up doing some more stuff with Andre. Anyway, I heard all kinds of shit about Prince and Jessie, their rivalry and so on.

blackguitaristz said:

After seeing him live, Jesse made me a believer in his ability.I am sorry but Jesse kick P's ass when it comes to his guitar playing ability. And I know if you can light a torch to his ability than you are 1 bad mutha.

Hey Blackguitaristz,

Ya' got any samples of your playing that us fams can hear?

Did "Skirt" ever get released? I don't really follow Morris' solo career too much. Now Jessie, on the other hand...

I remember buying the "Bare My Naked Soul" in Sept. '96. I had severely swollen glands - my whole face was swollen - but I just HAD to get that album. And I got it! I got funny looks from a lot of the people on the train (I traveled to NYC to get it), but I didn't care

blackguitaristz said:

What's the story on those two?
I "posted" a week (or so ago) to get info
the relationships between Dez, Jesse,
and Torri(Mr FreakJuice), got any thoughts.
I would like to hope that they have "luv" for
oneanother!!! Did you ever meet Jesse or Torri?

GGD

GGDeVille said:

Yeah, I've known Torri since the Black Rock Coalition days from 89 to 91. We both had bands, his was called Civil Rite and mine was called Amalgam. There is a story I could get into about Torri trying out for The Time and me having some gigs that was out of town, coinciding with his tryout. I got into it here before when I first joined this site back in March. Anyway, Jessie gave me his pick at a show at The Roxy. I met Dez and got his autograph way back in 84 at the Purple Rain Premire at Mann's Chinese. Don't know of any relationship between Dez, Jessie and Torri. Between Dez and Jessie, yeah.

JesseDezz said:

Yeah, I have a lot. Maybe I could mail it to ya. I had some stuff on mp3's, but I no longer advise anyone doing that, for copyright infringements. Nowadays, it's so easy to do. Downloading somebody's shit, nah. Skirt han't been released yet, but I heard that it still may. I could put that on with my stuff

GGDeVille said:

Man ,I had the first Tamara,but all I have now is the strawberry gossip cassette.

rachel3 said:

I have the shockadelica cd,bare my naked soul,revue on cassette,a live vid, a live cd,the hits cd.I want Revue on cd bad!

Hey Blackguitaristz,

Are Jesse and Dez cool? Would loved to have seen them jam together! Really dig Dez's playing, too

blackguitaristz said:

What do Jesse and Dez think of each others a wielding skills?
Were those guys on good terms with each other during their
tour days('81-'83)?/Now?
As always thanx for your insight!!!
GGD

All albums are nice, but the first two are very good and really worth tracking down:
- JJ's revue
- Shockadelica

JesseDezz said:

Yeah, I would have love to see them jam together too. Those two cats, along with P were really influential to me. Their playing, their style of dress, hair, everything. I really patterned myself after those cats. I was already into Hendrix bigtime, that's why I drew to those 3 like I did, because they were basically early 80's version of Hendrix. They patterened themselves after Hendrix. All 3 of them. So it just got past on. Ya'll need to check out my thread over in the Non Music section. "Has any artist ever influenced the way you Dressed?" I speak directly on Dez and Jessie and Prince and how they influenced my dressing all through the posts. Just click on my name I guess and hit most recent posts or threads, and you'll see it. I read somewhere back in 85 that Jessie said that he and Dez always talked about Hendrix and they should put something together. That would have been hella cool! I played a few gigs with Dirty Diapers. Dee Dee, the guitarist from Da'Krash was in it. We were going to hook up on another band, but he moved back south.We were going to have the twin guitar thing. Both of us play Flying V's, and he plays lefthanded and I play right and both being brothers, that would have been tight. He, like me was a Hendrix and Eddie Hazel freak. He and I reminded me of Dez and Jessie.

GGDeVille said:

I think Dez and Jessie admired each other's skills. Two entirely different brothers with different approaches to guitar playing. Although both patterned themselves after Hendrix, they were still different. Dez was more rock and roll, in spirit, in fashion. He brought that to P's thing when I think P didn't have a fucking clue how he wanted to be visually.

GGDeVille said:

I remember when word got out that Jessie was leaving The Time to do a solo album, I couldn't wait. But when he released "I Wanna Be Your Man", I bought the 45 and was very disappointed. There was no guitar solo to be found. The song was cool, but I expected so much more from Jessie's debut single. When he released the album, I liked it, but again, I was disappointed that there were not more solos on it. "Can You Help Me" solo was o.k., "She's A Doll" was better, but none of the solos were better than "Jungle Love" solo, to me. One of the biggest problems was that all of the leads were buried in the mix. They needed to have been more out front. Jessie's best song that wasn't even on the album "Free World" had a cool solo, but again, buried hella low in the mix. Jessie didn't really correct that untill "Every Shade of Love" album. His b-side "Fool's Paradise" from "Shockadelica" is what I'm talking about! The backwards guitar intro and leads ala Hendrix are killing! "Fool's Paradise" and his guitar playing on "Blueberry Gossip" on Tamara's second album is what I wanted Jessie to do on his debut album. On those two songs, the guitar leads are UPFRONT! Where they belong. But, the label probably wanted him to play it safe on his debut and bury the leads so he could get "black" airplay, which is bullshit! But that's a whole different topic.