The late Steve Fargnoli? I had no idea he died! I have to google that one. Thanks for the article, great read.

fms said:

I think he died of cancer around 2000 maybe....hmmmm

Nice article...I've always adored Teena Marie. One of my all time fave female vocalists. And she's a great songwriter and musician as well. I've always been in love with Teena's vocals. Like I actually had a crush on her singing! Two things I ALWAYS found interesting...One, that Jill didn't work with Rick before Jill had ever met Prince. The way Jill met P was because Jill sung back up in Teena's band when she opened for Prince on the Dirty Mind tour. Jill already had known Rick...Two, I ALWAYS wondered why P and Teena never worked together. I always kept expecting, especially in the mid 80's, for P to turn up on Teena's new album. Her "Emerald City" album was HEAVILY influenced by Prince, musically and visually. It was a rumor in 86 that P actually wrote "Lips 2 Find U" and that he was going under the name of "Bendrix"....The pre-chorus in the song sounds dead on like Brown Mark on the bass too! But, besides the Prince like spelling in the title and the overall vibe of the song, I don't believe P had anything to do with it. Teena was just showing her love for Prince on that album. Teena spoke in the article about that she wished P and Rick would have gotten together BUT what I always wished was that P and Teena had done an album together. They were both hella talented and both could sing their asses off...I KNOW P wouldn't have wanted to fuck with that cuz of Teena's association with Rick so because of that, I think that killed it off. Hell, Rick might had even thought P was "Bendrix" and was on some of Emerald City. But like I said, I don't believe P is on it and Bendrix was a blackguitarist, oops, I mean a guitarist that had played with Teena and wrote with Teena BEFORE Emerald City was released so....
[Edited 8/1/09 21:18pm]

blackguitaristz said:

Yeah that Would've been cool if T and P got 2gether. Who knows they're both still alive, kicking and doing their thang. Anything's possible.

That part about stealing Prince's programmed synths is cool B-)

zaza said:

Rick talked about this incident in the entire chapter of his book that he wrote about Prince. Teena's right, it definitely seemed like a one-way obsession. I recommend reading Rick's book for the Prince chapter alone.

bellanoche said:

He wrote a book? What's the title?

rick and prince actually did record a few tracks together during the fire it up tour.

zaza said:

Rick talked about this incident in the entire chapter of his book that he wrote about Prince. Teena's right, it definitely seemed like a one-way obsession. I recommend reading Rick's book for the Prince chapter alone.

I'm also curious as to what parts of the programmed were Prince's. I love "Street Songs" but I don't recall anything remotely sounding like Prince on it! Maybe I have to give it another listen!

benjaminira said:

I agree withcha...I read in Rick's book to where he stated that happened BUT like u, I never heard any of the keys that was used on Street Songs that sound anything like P's "sound". Not at all. Rick, IF that shit is true, no doubt adjusted P's sound and modified it to Rick's liking. I can also see Rick saying that shit as a way of just saying that he just flat out dug P's sounds on the keys. That was a way of complimenting Prince, I think. He probably did take P's keys but he tweeked them to where Rick dug it.

In 1980, Prince opened for James on the Fire It Up tour. James complained that Prince stole his stage moves and according to Marie, Rick paid Prince back by stealing his gear. “Back then people weren’t really programming their own synthesizers,” says Teena. “Prince - you know – he’s a genius... he was one of the only one’s who could really do that – probably him and Stevie [Wonder] were the only one’s really doing it…[Prince] was programming all his synthesizers and setting the presets with his own sound and …at the end of the tour [Rick] took [Prince’s] synthesizers.” Teena cannot help but chuckle as she recounts the story. “He took them to Sausalito and he actually used them on the Street Songs album and then he sent them back to [Prince] with a thank you card. He was a piece of work…and a brilliant genius, too!”

Teena later found herself wedged between the two future legends when she went on the road with Prince. “We were on the Dirty Mind tour together… [Prince and I] never had a problem. We would kick it…neither one of us drank so after the concerts we’d go and sit and have our little orange juice or whatever. He had a lot of respect for me. There were some nights that I would come on stage and I would kick his butt, you know, and [afterwards] he’d walk by me and go “Whew! I have to work hard tonight’ and there were some nights that he would come by and say ‘I whooped you! I whooped you tonight!’ so it was really awesome and he’s always been really wonderful to me.”

For James, however, it was a different story. “I don’t think Rick really liked the fact that [Prince and I] were friends but you know….The rivalry to me as I look back on it - it was really Rick. It wasn’t really Prince. It was more Rick than anything. I never really saw Prince feeding into it too much. It really actually saddened me because I think the two of them would have made some amazing music together. It would have been ridiculous…but you know…it was what it was…I’m not really sure why it started. Rick always said it was because Prince snubbed his mother.” Indeed, James claimed that Prince had insulted his mother at the 1982 American Music Awards by refusing to give her an autograph. The mood should have been celebratory - Teena was nominated for Favorite Soul R&B Female Artist and Rick won Best Soul/R&B Album for Street Songs - but Rick was having none of it. Backstage, Prince’s manager at the time (the late Steve Fargnoli) hastily arranged for Prince to apologize but James ignored him. Even today, Teena views the story skeptically. “I really find that hard to believe and if it did happen, I don’t think it was intentional because Prince just isn’t that kind of guy. So it could have just been unintentional where she was around and he didn’t see her, you know what I’m saying? And Rick really knew how to take stuff and run with it…but from everything that I know [Rick] really, really did like [Prince’s] music….” Laughing, Teena adds one more caveat: “Although he would never admit to it. He would never admit to that.”

benjaminira said:

The Confessions of Rick James: Memoirs of A Super Freak
It's a good read. Rick copped to the fact that he was jealous of P to a certain degree although Rick had a point about P lifting some of Rick's stage movements. I can definately see that. It wasn't blatant to where it was identical of course but anyone who was around back then and knew how P was before and after and who had ever seen Rick in the late 70's, it was there.
[Edited 8/2/09 2:13am]

SlyStoneBio said:

Very cool read and not just the Prince parts... love both Tina and Rick

thanks for posting

Interesting that Rick admits being jealous a bit. As for me, I have to admit that around 1981-82 I was really getting into Rick James and loved Street Songs. I was just beginning to delve into his music more when I heard Prince's Dirty Mind and Controversy. And that was it. I kind of jumped mothership, so to speak, and Prince was the man from that point forward. I still enjoyed Rick and followed his work, but not like I loved Prince. Perhaps that experience holds true for much of the record buying public too - Rick James lays the groundwork, and then Prince picks up on it and takes off running. Prince would go on to have one of the most successful albums of all time (Purple Rain) and has arguably maintained the status of musical superstar for most of his career. Rick James, by contrast, was complaing in 1985 (and rightly so) that he couldn't get on MTV because he wasn't white enough for them. Rick would also never have success on the level of Street Songs again.
If Prince is our modern day Mozart, does that make Rick James his Saliere?

jackson35 said:

Yep.