Imagine you are a young Mark Brown.- you grow up idolising your musical heroes, and dream of one day performing in front of thousands of adoring fans. So you diligently learn to play bass, spending hours honing your skills, and you sing a bit as well. The dream suddenly starts to seem possible...then, after years of hard work and learning your chops, you finally get offered your dream job...playing with Prince!! In The Revolution!! There's only one small problem though. He insists you change your name.

To Brown Mark.

Man, I dunno. life's a bitch....

this thread would do better over in the associated artist forum.

Worse yet is that he is - for some colorful reasons that I wont even get into - the least respected member of the Purple Rain lineup even though he did do some solo work that is as good as any of them.

He's the one member of the Revolution that I know the least about! I'm a bassplayer and would love to learn more about him. I can't decide whether I think it's cool or not that BrownMark did not have any lines in Purple Rain. It's kinda cool in the sense that it made him more mysterious. But I agree that he seems to be the member that gets the least respect.

sonofblade said:

Why do you say that? I thought Bobby Z. was. He's been bashed for being a Milli Vanilli type drummer who only hit cymbal crashes over a drum machine during the 1999 and Purple Rain tours. He came out with a song called "Lie By Lie" The video of which only got played on the local cable channels. I got lots of respect for "BrownMark" I hear he's trying to get a record label started. P.S Hey Little Smedley. You think BrownMark is a bad name? Vanity once said that Prince originally named her Vagina. And she went along with it, But the record company was not having it. He finally settled on Vanity. Vagina 6? Good Lord!

and you break a string while playing a live show and Prince drops kicks you three times knocking you over onto Bobby Z's drumset!

sinisterpentatonic said:

Eh ?? For real ?

sonofblade said:

IMO, he´s one of the most memorable bass players in the Prince universe.
My favorite is Sonny T.
Rhonda is cool and has been with Prince for so many years now, but Sonny and Mark have that special something....to me, they represent the essence of the Mpls Funk Bass.

Just check out some of the PR shows that Mark did.


Of course one should not forget Andre Cymone, but I was too young during that time.

I myself wrote a thread about Mark quite awhile ago. Folks have to understand; Mark was EIGHTEEN years old when he joined on the Controversy tour. He joined at a time when everything was crucial as hell to Prince. P was seriously building a career. He couldn't afford any fuckups, so , it was a grip of pressure on Mark. Mark, to me, was P's best bassist. Mark could play ANYTHING that P could play and more so.

KoolEaze said:

well, mark would recieve more exposure if he exposed himself more...put up a website..share his side of the story.....

BlaqueKnight said:

yeah..someone and i were both talking about this a few days ago..sucks, huh?

history is not written by the mute....

Perhaps an "appreciation for Brown Mark" thread would be better?

sosgemini said:

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So true. So many of P's ex-bandmates are not taking advatage of the internet as a way to get their music out to people who are really interested in the old minn sound.