Fury said:

Well documented that Prince wrote the vast majority of the Time catalog with input from Morris. The first two albums were basically a two man show in the studio. So even though the members are all talented musicians... weren’t they just performing like a covers band?

I'm not sure I understand your question.

For the most part, they indeed hadn't composed, arranged and performed the material they played on stage.

Call it the way you want if you need to put a label on it.

That argument could be made, illogically, for any of Prince's acts. A cover is a song that has already been released. The Time had new songs on their albums, written by Prince. "A Case of U" is a cover song. "The Walk" (etc) is a straight-up Time song.

Despite Prince playing a lot of that stuff, The Time owned those songs once you saw them play 'em live. Even Prince said The Time was the only band he was scared of.

The Time's early albums are not much different than some 1960s rock bands whose members sometimes didn't play on the studio records. The parts were played by session musicians like the Wrecking Crew. This was generally done because the session musicians could record a lot faster with fewer takes, so saved time & money. In the 1970s, some of The Spinners songs clearly had female background singers (The Sweethearts) and not male but the songs were still credited to the group. Same for some later songs by The Supremes which were really Diana & The Andantes, not Mary, Flo, or Cindy. It's been rumored that some of Michael Anthony's & Alex Jon Such's bass parts on Van Halen & Bon Jovi's records were played by someone else. There's Beatles songs that don't have all 4 members on them.

but they were such great musicians they brought his music to another life

No.

no

The band members are listed as "the Players" on the albums.

MickyDolenz said: