source

“The last time I was in this building was 1984.”

Owen Husney is standing in the doorway of 430 Oak Grove, a high-end apartment complex on the south edge of Loring Park in Minneapolis. As soon as the doors swing open and he steps into the marble atrium, you can see the memories pulling him backwards through time, back to when he was a young ad executive renting out an office on the first floor, and toying with the idea of switching back to working on music full-time.

“I moved here in about 1976, and we had just one little office. I think the rent was $120 a month, and I was screaming. How can anyone charge $120 a month? Let me go talk to the manager of the building!” he recalled, chuckling.

Soon after Husney enters the lobby, the door swings open again and he is joined by André Cymone, a musician who Husney would meet shortly after settling into his 430 Oak Grove space. Cymone was best friends and bandmates with a young undiscovered artist named Prince Rogers Nelson, and almost exactly 40 years ago they recorded an unreleased album known as the Loring Park Sessions in Husney’s office and studio.

The Loring Park Sessions have taken on a certain mystical quality for Prince fans in the last few years, ever since Husney found the tapes in his storage space and had them digitized and uploaded online. The sessions were recorded just a year before Prince would release his debut album, For You, and were captured in that hazy and heart-pounding space between when Prince had signed to Warner Bros. and when he would make his first step onto the national stage.

With Prince on keys and guitar, André on bass, and Bobby Z on drums, the trio pummel through a genre-bending set of eight instrumental songs that swirl together funk, disco, R&B and jazz. The songs sound more like a group of Los Angeles session players laying down tracks for a major studio than a group of teenagers just feeling out their vibe as a live band.

release release

I love everything from those really early years

OldFriends4Sale said:

release release

I love everything from those really early years

YES!!!! RELEASE IT!!!!

Thanks for posting.

The story and photos are awesome.

This is my 1st time listening to the Loring Park Sessions. Who would believe that these are teenagers just starting out in the music biz? I picked up bits of "I Wanna Be Your Lover" in the 3rd to last track starting around the 33:25 mark and "Dolphin" starting around the 41:33 mark.

4 those view who R not familiar

Instrumental 1 (5:32)
Instrumental 2 (6:24)
Instrumental 3 (6:22)
Instrumental 4 (8:42)
Instrumental 5 (7:06)
Instrumental 6 (8:14)
Instrumental 7 (7:45)
Instrumental 8 (6:39)

This was an interesting listen.

You could hear a hint or two that ended up in other projects.

This shows what people saw in the beginning, that's what I like, this wasn't a fluke or some overhype.

“Bobby was my runner. He would get my dry-cleaning and everything, before I met Prince,” Husney recalls. “And then when I met Prince, it was like, ok, now you’re going to run around and get Prince’s dry-cleaning done, and if Andre needs anything, you’re going to run him around. And Bobby had played with a band, 94 East, before that, but no one was taking him seriously until we started jamming. And then that was so cool.”

“Originally we had just assumed Morris [Day] was going to be our drummer,” Cymone adds. “And you know, Prince was adamant that he’d love to find a drummer that varies the board, so to speak.”

“He wanted a rainbow,” Husney says.

“Like a Sly and the Family Stone thing,” Cymone says, nodding his head. “And Bobby is really good — because we did those sort of jazzy things, in the Loring performances, and they’re amazing.”

Sadly, and I bow my head in saying this. Sadly, this is another example of a missed opportunity by my beloved Prince(RIP). Can U image if this was done in 2010 or 2013 with Prince Owen Andre & Bobby? And Prince goes ahead and releases an official Loring Park Session & Sound 80 sessions