"We were absolute musical equals in the sense that Prince respected us, and

allowed us to contribute to the music without any interference,"says Melvoin.

"I think the secret to our working relationship was that we were very

non-possesive about our ideas, as opossed to some other people that have worked

with him. We didn't hoard stuff, and we were more willing to give him what he

needed. Men are very competitive, so if somebody came up with a melody line,

they would want credit for it."



"Wendy & Lisa were very important to Prince,"says Eric Leeds. "They have a very

deep sense of structure and form, and a very conceptual approach to music. They

had a very deep underlying relationship with him." Recording engineer puts it

more bluntly: "They thought of stuff Prince could never dream of. Prince's music

never sounded the same after they left."



There's a newfound complexity to Prince's writing on Purple Rain, subtle shifts and

gradations in mood and tone that can be directly traced to Wendy & Lisa's influence.

New elements were cropping up in Prince's music as a result of Melvoin and

Coleman exposing him to the music of Stravinsky, Vaughn Williams, Scarletti,

and Ravel.("Prince played Bolero all the time."says Lisa.) The jagged,

pointillistic string section that punctuates TAKE ME WITH U's driving riff

was arranged by Lisa and her brother David, who plays the cello on the track.

When Doves Cry's pseudo-classical keyboard climax is also directly attributable

to Coleman's influence. "I think I influenced WHEN DOVES CRY to the extent that

Prince was engaged in a healthy competition with us. He was always thinking,

How can I kick their ass?" says Coleman.




Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Coleman remain the closest thing to musical co-conspirators

Prince has ever had. During their all-too-brief four year ('83-'87) tenure,

the dynamic duo practically ghost wrote by proxy large chunks of A.T.W.I.A.D.

and PARADE, the two albums that delve deeper into meticulously arranged psychedelfunk

than any Prince music before or since. "We had a very private, very deep relationship

with him that no one else had at the time,"says Melvoin.



Coleman had been permanent tour keyboardist for Prince since 1980 when Melvoin

a childhood friend, was hired to replace guitarist Dez Dickerson just prior to

Purple Rain sessions. "I was just in the right place at the right time," says

Melvoin. "Prince heard me screwing around one day at a soundcheck and hired me

on the spot." Wendy & Lisa were Prince's George Martin, the ones he turned to

when he required a complex arrangement, or when a half-baked musical notion

needed rounding out.



Prince would send us masters in L.A., and we would work out the arrangements or

whatever else, and then send it back to him," says Coleman. "Often, they would

be skeleton's of songs, like Christopher Tracy's Parade, which originally was called

Wendy's Parade. He never second guessed any of the work we did for him."



Prince had become so reliant on Wendy & Lisa's input, in fact, that it lay

behind his decision to give them the pinkslip halfway through the SIGN O'THE TIMES

sessions. "He had started to distance himself from the music, and he told us he

needed to go back to making music the way he used to make it,"says Lisa. "We

had actually recorded a lot of stuff for SIGN O'THE TIMES, but he started from

scratch, and none of it made it to the album."



Embarking on their own career, the duo made two outstanding albums,"WENDY&LISA

and FRUIT AT THE BOTTOM, followed by a veritable masterwork,EROICA which, like

it's predeccsors, was generally ignored. "They(the label) just didn't get it

at all," says Wendy."The A&R guys who signed us loved the loved the album,

but the promo people were like, What is this? We came up with a million ideas

to try and market it, but they were at a loss. It wasn't our time, I guess."

A fourth album, produced by Trevor Horn, continues to languish in the vaults.

Rather than lick their wounds, they embarked on a busy session career, which

included performing on SEAL's first album and writing on the second. They also

scored the films DANGEROUS MINDS and SOUL FOOD, production duties on DIONNE FARRIS'S

follow-up await them in '97. They are starting their own independent record label

and should have a new release around Spring '98.



As for their erstwhile mentor, he did dedicate "IN THIS BED EYE SCREAM" to them,

a song that can only be construed as a plea for forgiveness and reconciliation.

Informed of this, both are incredulous, but intrigued. "It's so funny, because

he had sent that song to us to see if we wanted to work on it," says Wendy.

"We gave him some suggestions about it, and he sounded like he was into it,

but we never heard from him again on the subject. He did call us recently, though

to invite us to a party, so we'll see. We'd definitely be willing to work

with him again. We're just waiting for that 4A.M. phone call."

We're just waiting for that 4A.M. phone call.

So am I.

can we move on from this already?

LadyCabDriver said:

This is the associated artists forum... and Wendy and Lisa are the most important associated artists out there, so... no, we can't move on from this.

GREAT POST, TOM!

IceNine said:

Yeah I know all that, I'm just sick of the inevitable W&L naysayers who'll come in here and start another stupid debate.

Thanks for taking the time to do that Tom! Some people will still read that and find something negative to say. Even look at Splash, out of all the songs released in year one of the NPGMC, that song just stood out. Sure some may not like it, but it was different, the rollercoaster chorus, the beautiful backing vocals. Even just their voices made a song better.

LadyCabDriver said:

Good point... they will probably come in here and be wrong about a lot of things about Wendy and Lisa... but we will all know that Wendy and Lisa really are great.

TRON said:

ME TOO

great article -- what's the source???

madartista said:

Follow this link...

http://www.geocities.com/...rsrev.html

Yeah? I like Wendy & Lisa, but their would never have been a Madhouse, or the "intimate studio jams" of Sign O' The Times

His sound needed to get funkier and less "Cinematic, and melodramatic" (see The Lovesexy Tour Article in Musician Magazine-1988) .. Something fans [back then] complained about occuring to his/their sound after Parade and ATWIAD.

What about the "stripped-down" approach to the recordings of:

SOTT

If I was Your Girlfriend

Slow Love

I Could Never Take The Place of Your Man

The roughness of "IT" and "HouseQuake"

Strange Relationship

Forever In My Life..


It was something that had to happen... The W&L dominated Revolution sound could not fit these "Experiments".. Plus, he didn't feel the pressure to make them fit...


Imagine... No Cat

No Miko [because W & L supposedly opposed the crowded "Counter-Revolution"].

No Miles? No Madhouse.

The possibilty of a "Revolution" without BrownMark and Bobby Z:

Brownmark was going solo if W&L were not..(in 86)

Bobby Z wouldn't have co-produced Jody Whatley (with Andre Cymone) or Wendy and Lisa.

No Levi, Sonny T, or Sheila E.

No Lovesexy.

They wanted to leave. Their influence was great, but they had to leave and try to prove it so.
[This message was edited Wed Oct 16 10:00:05 PDT 2002 by NGSPW7200]

NGSPW7200 said:

Some of your statements are valid, the reasoning behind them is weak though.

One does not exclude the other.

No caucasian remarks? Uhmmm.

Gooey struts over to the recordplayer and puts on Black Man by Stevie Wonder

positivity... (Yes)

Yeah? I like Wendy & Lisa, but their would never have been a Madhouse, or the "intimate studio jams" of Sign O' The Times

His sound needed to get funkier and less "Cinematic, and melodramatic" (see The Lovesexy Tour Article in Musician Magazine-1988) .. Something fans [back then] complained about occuring to his/their sound after Parade and ATWIAD.

What about the "stripped-down" approach to the recordings of:

SOTT

If I was Your Girlfriend

Slow Love

I Could Never Take The Place of Your Man

The roughness of "IT" and "HouseQuake"

Strange Relationship

Forever In My Life..


It was something that had to happen... The W&L dominated Revolution sound could not fit these "Experiments".. Plus, he didn't feel the pressure to make them fit...


Imagine... No Cat

No Miko [because W & L supposedly opposed the crowded "Counter-Revolution"].

No Miles? No Madhouse.

The possibilty of a "Revolution" without BrownMark and Bobby Z:

Brownmark was going solo if W&L were not..(in 86)

Bobby Z wouldn't have co-produced Jody Whatley (with Andre Cymone) or Wendy and Lisa.

No Levi, Sonny T, or Sheila E.

No Lovesexy.

They wanted to leave. Their influence was great, but they had to leave and try to prove it so.
[This message was edited Wed Oct 16 9:58:53 PDT 2002 by NGSPW7200]

Some of your statements are valid, the reasoning behind them is weak though.

Some of your statements are valid, the reasoning behind them is weak though.

Don't just be a "smart-alleck"... Tell me...Awww forget it... You just wanted a quick sarcastic rebuttal..Well...Its just enough to make you feel vindicated...Whatever.. It's your "DreamWorld" not mine..Enjoy.

"One does not exclude the other."

What? What sense do you make? Any analysis of Wendy & Lisa and not me?

"No caucasian remarks? Uhmmm."

I find them interesting as well.. They've really made some "beat dogs" holler aloud..

I also said that alot of white fans want Wendy & Lisa's pop influence back.. which is not a problem with me..

I also believe that some of the spoiled, irrational, and negative fans who may happen to be white (secretly) do not think that Prince had the right to release W & L, and be "The Boss".

If they're better than Prince, why do you want him to work with them? Why not support them only? Be glad they're away from him.


I think that these people do not believe that he has the right to slam bootleggers of his current tours and projects.. I do believe that most of these bootleggers are white. ["..What you need to do is keep your place.."

I believe that these people "mask" their resentment in petty garbage topics like, "W & L are this", "Prince ain't that anymore", "He treats his women like this", "he doesn't care for fans", Beck and D'Angelo are this" etc.

When you challenge their arguements, and question why they remain a .orger, they [often] flame out badly..

It's just alot of hidden bitterness and jealousy...

Thus, I come to this opinion.

They're mood towards him shifted when he voiced his displeasure with racial equality within this society and The Music Industry.

You hate to read as much as I hated to type it.. But I've read more than I rant.. I've seen through the transparent arguements, comparisons, etc.. This is my theory. Take it, or leave it.

I also believe that he can be difficult with W & L, but I don't think that he cares enough to bother them now.
[This message was edited Wed Oct 16 10:43:27 PDT 2002 by NGSPW7200]

Lisa & Wendy rule! And... they were a part of the original sessions that gave birth 2 Madhouse. But I wonder why Lisa said none of the songs they worked on 4 S.O.T.T. never made the album? Strange Relationship, A Beautiful Night, Starfish & Coffee, The Ballad of Dorothy Parker, It. All of those were written during Lisa & Wendy's stay which I'm sure they had an influence on.

cntrvrsy said:

not too mention you can Hear Wendy Playing on "slow Love"there Impact on "Play in the SunShine"."The Cross" also comes from that Vibe as well IMHO.