alphachannel said:

Simply, how much control do you think Prince's band members over the years had over their equipment, sound or individual musical contributions? My opinions based on live shows and studio contributions: Fairly Autonomous: Dez, Andre, Matt, Wendy & Lisa, Sheila, Levi, Michael & Sonny Little (if any) Control: Mark, Bobby, Miko, Everyone circa Purple Rain, Everyone after 1997 except Larry Opinions?

It's funny how people keep thinking Revolution members had any kind of control over anything when they have themselves, and many times, stated that they had none at all.

Back then as much as now, Prince's collaborators were and are of course allowed to bring new musical ideas and suggestions, particularly the ones who can play or arrange instruments Prince can't play such as horns or strings, but Prince always had the final say and his ideas rule-out others' in most cases. His musicians, no matter how friends they may have been with him during the first 10 years, were employees before anything else. And it's not me saying it, it's them.

It is also true that he often gave some "missions" to his musicians (and other people such as Michael Koppleman, David Z, Ricky Peterson or Clare Fischer): provide arrangements for some parts/instrument of a song, finish a rough song, produce a side-project, etc. This often happened because Prince didn't have enough time to handle all the creative aspects of the entertainment industry Paisley Park had become in the late 80's and early 90's, and other times just because he loved a particular musician's input in his own work (which was obviously the case just as much with Kirk Johnson as it was earlier with Wendy & Lisa, but people chose to ignore that).

In these case wheither Prince liked the final product or not would usually determine wheither it would be released as such or not. On one hand it happened that Prince would chose to rule-out sax parts composed and recorded autonomously by Eric Leeds for some songs, but on the other hand he ended-up liking the autonomous work Leeds had done for the 3rd Madhouse album so much that he decided to have it released as the first Leeds solo album.

[Edited 8/30/12 6:21am]

why should they have control over another man's production. prince is a one man band in the studio and knowing him if he could he would do it live if he could.mass majority of people that attend prince shows come 2 see prince and prince only they barely know anybody in his band