SantanaMaitreya said:

This question is for those who have followed Prince from the beginning and it's something I always wondered about: when the first album of The Time came out, did people realize it was all Prince or not? After all, you can hear Prince's voice pretty clearly on Cool and the music is suspiciously close to Prince's music. So were people fooled by "Jamie Starr" or not?

You could tell from hearing the music alone that it had Prince involvement. How extensive for me anyway wasn't known. The Time, Shelia E. Vanity 6, Apollonia 6, Jill Jones, The Family you could tell had Prince involvement. In 1988 to 1989 I started to hunt the discount bins and found Madhouse, Good Question, The 3 O'clock, Tony Lemans, Taja Sevelle, And Dale Bozzio. (because of the Paisley Park logo on the sleve) You could tell it was mostly Prince on Madhose 8, and Prince with the SOTT band on 16. The rest you could tell had very little Prince involvement if at all. But even when he used other names like Jamie Starr, The Starr Company, Alexander Nevermind, it was still reporeted that it was Prince using another name. So on one hand you could hear it, on the other it was reported on the radio and MTV. When Manic Monday and Kiss came it out was noted that Prince had the number 1 song (kiss) and the number 2 song (Manic Monday) on the top of the charts. So for me anyway it was like Prince was hiding behind a blade of grass. You can try and hide, but we can still see (hear) you. For The Family I had heard bootlegs of some of the songs with Prince on vocals before I heard The Family version. So that really gave it away up front. That was the only Album I heard in that way. I wasn't able to find The Family album until the early 1990's. Even then it was an import from Japan. But some how I knew about the album and the names of the songs.

No, people didn't know, just suspected it and somehow there was cognitive dissonance. People either didn't register it was his voice, or thought he was just adding background vocals. That said, people knew these were protege projects.

I definitely didn't know. I was not a Prince fan inititally. I loved the Time album, and when the rumors began that Prince was behind them I started going down the Prince rabbit hole.

[Edited 5/11/21 12:14pm]

I was 11 or so.

I liked Prince's music that was mainstream I wanna be your lover, Contoversy, and Let's work but I liked The Time's songs better.

Of course when he released 1999 I really got into him more, but for me I had no clue until after the fact and The Time was already broken up.

I have said that I became a die hard fan of Prince through The Time.

I got the 777-9311 single after hearing it on the radio. Never heard of The Time before that. Knew Prince from I Wanna be Your Lover but that was it. I got What Time Is It and the first album soon after and still didn't connect Prince with The Time until hearing a DJ say something about it before playing Cool. Then I got 1999 and thats when it finally dawned on me Prince was Jamie Starr after hearing "It's time to fix your clock...take a bite of my purple rock" on DMSR...then realizing his voice is all over those Time records...esp that first album. Mind you I was 12/13 years old when all this went down in the early 80s!

[Edited 5/12/21 7:48am]

U can hear Prince clearly..........but only after it was pointed out.

I was a fan of Prince in 1978 but I really didn't know he was the "Time" until many years later.

Probably about 84 or 85.

The more U listen 2 it, the more U hear it!!!!

I didn't know how much he was involved until I was in college and I realized that Prince was the valet parking attendant on The Walk. After that, it all made sense...

I thought "Get It Up" was Prince the first time I heard it. Shortly before that though, I also thought "Something About You" was Prince and it turned out to be Ebonee Webb so if one group was capable of sounding exactly like Prince, why couldn't another? By the time I heard "Controversy" shortly after, I wondered if it was actually Prince this time or another group that sounded like him.

.

However, the dead giveaway was when the magazines like "Right On" started reporting that Prince and The Time were both from Minneapolis and both on tour together, people immediately began speculating if Jamie Starr listed in the credits of The Time's album was really Prince.

When I got the first album (I forget when, but probably around 1983 - after I got 1999 and went back and bought everything else), I already knew The Time were from Minneapolis and at least somewhat Prince affiliated. But I mean ... come on ... his voice is all over the album. How could anyone NOT know it was him?

It's like Sheila with The Glamorous Life and A Love Bizarre ... a huge "duh" moment.

Could hear what I thought was Prince in a few songs. Knew the music was Prince-inspired, no doubt. Thought maybe it was a Minny thing, but knew there was involvement. Wife's father was a classical DJ in a major southern city, and he knew his daughter and I loved Prince, so he got us promotional stuff and knew there was an affiliation there. As mentioned above, 1999 confirmed it all. Purple Rain promo stuff left no doubt.

Hearing it as we did in 81 82, no I don't think so. I don't think most people did. And I'm glad, because the mystique was a wonderful addition to the culture. I think it wasn't until late 82 that it really started being questioned.

Maybe it's the way we listened to the music/heard the music that it wouldn't be as forthrightly Prince on vocals even.