i wonder if prince ever misses running around in his underwear on stage

OldFriends4Sale said:

[img:$uid]http://d.yimg.com/kq/groups/21303846/sn/729295210/name/n_a[/img:$uid]

It's Gonna Be Lonely

We've been 2gether 4 quite some time
I'd think by now U'd know
It'll take 4ever 2 get U off my mind
If ever U decide 2 go
I guess I got a little insecurity
When it's concerning U
I guess I'm just afraid that if U ever leave
I'd be in a messed-up state of blue

And I'd be so lonely
Without U loving me, I know it's gonna be lonely
Without U giving me every little single thing that I need
Lonely

Whatever's in your kiss, it really turns me on
Till I go right out of my mind
And who could ever resist your accent from gay Paree
It gets me every time
I betcha thatcha never knew that in my dreams
U are the star
The only bummer is that U always want 2 leave
Who do U think U are?

Don't U know it's gonna be lonely?
Without U loving me, I know it's gonna be lonely
Without U giving me every little single thing that I need
Lonely

It's gonna be lonely
Without U loving me, giving me everything that I need
Oh pretty baby, can't U see it's gonna be lonely?

Without U loving me
I know, I know it's gonna be lonely

Oh, whatever's in your kiss
I never could resist
Oh baby, don't go!

We've been 2gether 4 quite some time
It would take 4ever 2 get U off my mind
Oh girl!

Without U loving me
I know it's gonna be lonely

Without U by my side
Don't U know that I could die, baby?

Without U loving me
Can't U see it's gonna be lonely?

It's gonna be lonely, baby
So lonely, baby

© 1979 Ecnirp Music Inc. - BMI

[img:$uid]http://d.yimg.com/kq/groups/21303846/sn/566039218/name/n_a[/img:$uid]

I played this song over and over again this summer...

"The Rebels" Project

Studio Outtakes

1. You

2. Too Long

3. Loving You

4. Thrill You Or Kill You

5. Disco Away

6. Instrumental

7. Instrumental

8. If I Love You Tonight

9. Turn Me On

10. Baby Baby Baby

11. Nadeara

12. K-Funk Interview

Before Prince formed The Time, he considered using his backing band as a side-project called The Rebels. The 1979 project was a group effort, with songs being written and sung by the various members. Andre Cymone and Dez Dickerson each contributed material and a few numbers were sung by Gayle Chapman. This record has hard rock toghether with disco and 70's funk on it. Also some good slow number as "If I Love U Tonight", later to Mica Paris, and "U", later to Paula Abdul. As the track showed up in the track list there is some bonus material apart from the original album content.

friend2001 said:

OldFriends4Sale said:

wow, are these in your possession? nice collectible. where is gayle these days?

She's doing well

Gayle Chapman, singer-songwriter, recording artist, keyboardist and guitar player extraordinaire has wowed audiences as one of Prince’s first professional band mates, performed on a variety of television and radio shows and collaborated with a number of acclaimed musicians.

Early Inspirations: Prince, Mountain Stage and Contemporary Jazz

As early music inspirations go, Chapman, a little bit of Patti Larkin mixed in with a spot of Bonnie Raitt and the Indigo Girls, counts the Yellowjackets, Frank Zappa, Joni Mitchell, George Duke and Ten Wheel Drive, as perhaps her most significant; a diverse selection of influences, indeed.

Chapman’s professional credits are impressive, to say the least. She was hired to play keyboards and sing backup for Prince in 1978; produced a collection of compositions in 1989 called Standard Laments; performed on the long running Mountain Stage, the award winning public radio program; and recorded as one half of the duo Black Diamond including the noteworthy album, Change of Direction. Chapman then released a self-titled CD in 2003 plus the song, “Love Theme,” followed by “H2O” in 2005, which she co-wrote with jazz powerhouse, Morris Pleasure.

California born and Minneapolis grown, Gayle Chapman is currently working with singer Sue Leonard on new material. Suite101 caught up with the artist for a telephone interview from her current home in Boise, Idaho.

Suite101: You were one of Prince’s first professional band mates, playing keyboards and singing backup vocals. How did you first meet Prince?

Gayle Chapman: Well, I auditioned after I met Prince’s cousin who was also a musician. I didn’t know at the time he was his cousin. I borrowed Prince’s music and while listening to it alone in my house in North Minneapolis, I really got revved up. It was so loud. While I was listening, this still voice said he’s gonna need a band, which I told my friend who turned out to be Prince’s cousin. I asked why he didn’t tell me sooner.

Suite101: When did you meet Prince?

G C: I met Prince soon after that. I auditioned, jammed and just left. Later on, three months to the day, Prince called me. He asked what I was doing and if I wanted to come to rehearsal. I said yeah. I rehearsed with some songs, a funky tune, too. They laid this groove on me and I laid one on them. I got the job.

Suite101: You are also an amazing acoustic guitar player. Sometimes you finger-pick - is that Travis style?

G C: Thanks. I do play with a full set of finger picks, but more of a Leo Kotke style. It’s kind of a combination with familiar bass chord patterns, Travis and a little bit of something else.

Suite101: Do you play in both standard and open tunings?

G C: Yes, I’ll use open tunings as well as standard, anything that makes you a better player. That’s what I tell my students.

Suite101: As part of the duo Black Diamond, with Jan Skurzynski, you performed on the long running show Mountain Stage. How did that come about?

G C: I might be incorrect about this but I think there were between 35 and 102 audition contestants that tried out and we won, we got picked.

Suite101: Did you have a good time being in Black Diamond?

G C: Oh yes. We had a CD out and we did a lot of playing, like in summer folk festivals and we opened for the Sweethearts of the Rodeo and Patti Larkin. We played together for seven years but Jan was also an engineer who went to work for HP which took her all over. That’s when I started playing solo.

Suite101: You co-penned the contemporary jazz song, “H2O” with Morris Pleasure, released on the Alliance/Watersign label. What led to writing that song?

G C: Even though I did folk music I was involved in other areas. Mo came out and started listening when I was playing in the Flim Flam 4. We got together and he asked if I’d like to work with him. He then sent me “H2O” to work on. I thought it was a water theme, so I did the work and sent it back. He loved it. He asked what we should call it and I said just what it is, “H2O.” Mo was great.

Suite101: Do you compose at the piano or with the acoustic guitar?

G C: Both, but it’s mostly mood oriented. I can sit at the piano and I’ll get inspired. I come up with a melody or a groove. Over the years you build up a well of musical ideas. It’s a decision that just comes out. If I have a lyrical concept to write I’ll make mental notes of it and then pen it out on the guitar.

Suite101: You recently worked with other musicians, Sandy Sanford and Sue Leonard.

G C: I worked with Sandy for four and a half years, but less at this point. He’s a terrific blues player and getting busy with his own stuff right now. Sue Leonard and I are writing and getting ready to do our first recording. It’s not a finished recording, just the basic structure. We don’t have a working title. I think we have enough songs ready for a CD though.

Possessed: the Rise & Fall of Prince

Chapt 2: One Man Band pg 25

April 1978: release of For You

Prince's next task was forming a band that could tour behind For You. He wanted to create an ensemble that, like his longtime influence Sly & the Family Stone, embraced different races and genders. The first and most obvious selection was Anderson(Andre Cymone) on bass. Although his aspirations went well beyond being a sideman, he and Prince shared musical and personal chemistry. Next chosen was drummer Bobby Z. Rivkin, who by now had been playing with Prince on and off for about a year. Using a rehearsal studio at Del's Tire Mart in Minneapolis, this three man nucleus began auditioning candidates for keyboards and guitar who responded to advertisements placed in local publications by Husney. Gayle Chapman, a quiet young woman and a devout adherent of a Christian sect called the Way, filled the first keyboard slot. Dez Dickerson, a rock oriented guitarist with a punkish sense of fashion, was tabbed as the guitarist. Auditions for the 2nd keyboard slot took longer, with Prince finally settling on Matt Fink, an acquaintance of Rivkin's. Sue Ann Carwell briefly joined on backing vocals and congas but withdrew when she and Prince ceased recording together.

The band members were attracted not just by Prince's obvious talents, but by his focus and drive. Dickerson, recalling a conversation with Prince after he auditioned on guitar, came away impressed by the nineteen year old's maturity. "He asked me deep, long term oriented questios," Dickerson said. "I could tell he was a thinker- he wasn't just saying, 'Gee whiz, we're all going to be rock stars."

Prince, the Pauper

Piece together Prince's story from his own partial accounts, and you come up with sort of a musical Wild Child, an untamed loner who raised himself and taught himself how to survive among the wolves. Patch together the history told by the people close to him, and you get a version like this:

The first notes of the Minneapolis sound were heard in a big brick house in North Minneapolis, an aging, primarily black section of town that draws outsiders only to the Terrace Theater, a movie house designed to look like a suburban backyard patio, and the Riverview Supper Club, the nightspot a black act turns to after it has polished its performance on the local chitlin circuit. North Minneapolis is a poor area by local standards, but a family with not too much money can still afford the rent on a whole house. It was there that Bernadette Anderson, who was already raising six kids of her own by herself; decided to take in a doe-eyed kid named Prince, a pal of her youngest son, Andre.

The thirteen-year-old Prince had landed on the Anderson doorstep after having been passed from his stepfather and mother's home to his dad's apartment to his aunt's house. "I was constantly running from family to family," Prince has said. "It was nice on one hand, because I always had a new family, but I didn't like being shuffled around. I was bitter for a while, but I adjusted."

His father, John Nelson, was a musician himself -- a piano player in a jazz band by night, a worker at Honeywell, the electronics company, by day. Nelson is black and Italian; his ex-wife, says Prince of his mother, "is a mixture of a bunch of things." Onstage, the father was called Prince Rogers, and that is what he named his son, Prince Rogers Nelson.

John Nelson moved out of the family home when Prince was seven. But he left behind his piano, and it became the first instrument Prince learned to play. The songs he practiced were TV themes -- Batman and The Man From U.N.C.L.E. "My first drum set was a box full of newspapers," he has said, explaining how he came to play a whole range of instruments. "At thirteen, I went to live with my aunt. She didn't have room for a piano, so my father bought me an electric guitar, and I learned how to play." But the aunt wasn't keen on the noise, and she threw him out. It was then that Prince turned up at Andre's.

Hardly into their teens, Prince and Andre (who uses the surname Cymone) had already formed their first group. Prince recalled, "I got my first band. I wanted to hear more instruments, so I started Champagne, a twelve-piece band. Only four of us played. Eight were faking. Andre and I played saxophone. I also played piano. I wrote all the music. The songs were all instrumentals. No one ever sang. When I got into high school, I started to write lyrics. I'd write the really, really vulgar stuff."

Andre, on the other hand, claims the first band had Prince playing lead guitar, Andre himself on bass guitar, his sister Linda on keyboards and the Time's Morris Day on drums. The group was called Grand Central, later renamed Champagne. The musicians all wore suede-cloth suits with their zodiac signs sewn on the back (Prince, born on June 7th, 1960, had Gemini, the twins, on his). For a time, they were managed by Morris' mother, which didn't make Prince very happy. "She wasn't fast enough for Prince," says Mrs. Anderson. "He wanted her to get them a contract right away."

The band practiced in Andre's basement, where Prince had established a bedroom of his own. "It sounded like a lot of noise" says Bernadette Anderson. "But after the first couple of years, I realized the seriousness of it. They were good kids. Girls were crazy about them."

Andre -- whose father had played bass in the Prince Rogers Band -- says that although the family was poor, Prince "dug the atmosphere. It was freedom for him." There wasn't enough money to buy records, but there was a family friend -- a reclusive black millionaire, says one source -- who gave the kids the money to go to a local studio to record a few songs. The studio they picked was called Moon Sound.

Moon Sound was an eight-track studio that charged about thirty-five dollars an hour back in 1976, when Prince and Andre and the rest of Champagne walked in the door. The owner, Chris Moon, was a lyricist looking for a collaborator. "Prince always used to show up at the studio with a chocolate shake in his hand, sipping out of a straw," Moon remembers. "He looked pretty tame. Then he'd pick up an instrument and that was it. It was all over."

Prince soon agreed to work with Moon, and the studio owner handed the seventeen year-old a set of keys to the studio. "He'd stay the weekend, sleep on the studio floor," Moon says. "I wrote down directions on how to operate the equipment, so he'd just follow the little chart -- you know, press this button to record and this button to play back. That's when he learned to operate studio equipment. Pretty soon, I could sit back and do the listening."

One person who heard Prince's early recordings was Owen Husney, who became his first manager. Husney put together an expensive package that included a demo tape of three twelve-minute songs on which Prince sang and played all the instruments, and he went off to L.A. to make a pitch to the record companies. Three labels -- CBS, Warner Bros. and A&M -- eventually made offers. Prince finally signed with Warner Bros., where, says an executive, they "were taken with the simplicity of his music and a future that looked wide open," and where he was offered a firm three-LP contract, unheard of for a new artist.

Lenny Waronker, then head of A&R and now president of the label, was impressed enough to allow Prince to act as producer of his debut album. "I met him when we first signed him," Waronker recalls. "[Producer] Russ Titelman and I took him into the studio one day, much to his chagrin. So we said, 'Play the drums,' and he played the drums and put a bass part on, a guitar part. And we just said, 'Yeah, fine, that's good enough.'"

Sales of the first Prince album, For You, released in 1978, weren't so hot, but the fact that the kid was a one-man band -- and his own producer -- got a lot of attention. Then, in 1979, the single "I Wanna Be Your Lover" from his eponymous second LP went to Number One on the soul charts. But the age of innocence was almost over. Prince was back in Minneapolis putting together a band a straggly mix of blacks and whites, all recruited locally. His old friend Andre Cymone was among them, playing bass.

There was a lot of pressure from my ex-buddies in other bands not to have white members in the band," Prince has said. "But I always wanted a band that was black and white. Half the musicians I knew only listened to one type of music. That wasn't good enough for me."

The band, with its double keyboards, learned to reproduce the music Prince had been creating alone in the studio. The synthesizers, often playing horn lines, are a hallmark of the Minneapolis sound. The guitar signature is edgy rock, but the beat reins in any long guitar solos. "Around here, if it's not synthesizers, it's nothing," says a local Minneapolis musician. "This is a keyboard town. It's simplicity. If you listen to a lot of Prince or the Time, it's simple. It's direct and straight to the point. And it feels so good."

With a band to spread the word on the road, Prince was ready, in 1980, to unleash Dirty Mind, his bawdy third album. 1999 wasn't very far away.

Purple Rain the prequal

http://www.startribune.co...27586.html