Is Prince playing bass on Pop Life and on the extended version of the song??

I think so, I can't be sure though.

No. One of the bass parts was played by Ann Atkinson and the other by Tim Barr.

Prince doesn't credit himself with playing bass on any of the songs from Around The World in a Day...

Prince & The Revolution: Prince (vocals, guitar, keyboards, percussion); Wendy Melvoin (vocals, guitar); Lisa Coleman, Dr. Fink (vocals, keyboards); Brown Mark (vocals, bass); Bobby Z (drums, percussion).
Additional personnel: Novi Novog, Vaj (violin); David Coleman (cello, oud, percussion, background vocals); Suzie Katayama (cello); Sid Page, Marcy Dictorow (strings); Eddie M. (saxophone); Jonathan Melvoin (tambourine, background vocals); Brad Marsh (tambourine); Tim Barr, Annette Atkinson (bass); Sheila E. (drums); Susannah, Taj (backing vocals).

As for the extended versions, I'm not sure?
[Edited 3/25/08 23:01pm]

I think I may have posted this before, but I've just lifted parts of it from the book 'Prince: The Studio Sessions' so here it is:

Sessions for POP LIFE began early in the afternoon on Sunday, February 19, 1984 in Studio 2 at Sunset Sound. After doing some overdubbing on ANOTHER LONELY CHRISTMAS, Prince had his engineer Peggy McCreary (Peggy Mac) set up for a jam session. Peggy spent an hour getting the room ready for recording and at 7:30 PM, Prince started recording. From my understanding, Prince did the basic tracks himself. The session ended at 6:15 AM on Monday morning.

Less than 12 hours later, Prince and Peggy were back in the studio working on overdubs for POP LIFE. That is supposedly when Tim Barr and Annette Atkinson added Bass, and Wendy and Lisa added their background vocals. The overdub session finished at 10PM and Prince spent 3 and a half hours creating a rough mix and playing it back before he left around 1:30 AM.

It was put to cassette tape the following day (Feb. 21) along with many of the tracks Prince was working on at that time (God, Another Lonely Christmas, and Sheila's album). He did some additional work on it in mid April, but then it went untouched for several months.


On Friday, September, 28, 1984 Lisa and Wendy had Sid Page, Marcy Dicterow, Vaj, Denyse Buffum, Suzi Katayama and David Coleman record the strings that would eventually become part of the song. Prince was not at this session.


More edits of the song were done in late May 1985 and Sheila worked on her remix of the song on the 22nd and 23rd of June.

--
hope that helps a little bit.

Cool, is that Studio Sessions book easily available?

united1878 said:

Not yet. Hopefully sometime down the road, but not yet.

madhouseman said:

Yep thats the one Prince book i want!!

violetblues said:

Thanx for the encouragement. It is a long range plan and depends on if it becomes an UPTOWN project sometime down the road. I'll keep this in mind.

madhouseman said:

Wow! I should be used to this by now but just reading that Pop Life was for the most part, done in early 1984 when the stuff for Purple Rain wasn't even finished yet still amazes me. Info like this just reaffirms why I think that the man is just out of this world.
[Edited 4/11/08 12:54pm]