Paul Peterson on recording the song "Feline" : (I was) trying to learn how to rap, I don't even know if they called it that then. I still remember that rap to this day for some reason. (Singing lyrics) "Feline, get my body working..."

Feline (rehearsal) Purple Rain sound

Prince (vocals, guitars)

Brown Mark (bass)

Bobby Z (drums/linn)

Wendy Melvoin (guitar)

Dr Fink (keyboards)

Lisa Coleman (keyboards)

Greg Brooks (in the space) possibly other Family band/group members

The Family version

• St. Paul Peterson - vocals
• Susannah Melvoin - vocals
• Prince - all instruments, except where noted
• Bobby Z. - tom-toms
• Jellybean Johnson - tom-toms
• Eric Leeds - saxophone

...everlasting

her emotions, never blue

Feline

Keep My Body Working

Feline

all night

Feline

Keep My Body Working

Feline

all night

.

Just the rhythm, I don't care what cords U play

.

haaaa look at them 2

them 2 funky over there

Greg talkin 2 Mark

both them legs are just...
Greg you gotta show the other roadies that

Oh I'm sorry 'musical technicians'

.

U want that

uh yeah like 2 oclock?

Cool

[launches into 2 a wicked guitar solo]

G G

.

3 bass players just talking

yeah yea I like that

that's new yeah

that's that new P__

oh ok

how much that costs U man

how much that's renten U

ah Yeah that's funky

.

_ so so automatic

I

don't

know what 2 to do

My hard on, everlasting

her emotions, never blue

Feline

Keep My Body Working

Feline

all night

Feline

Keep My Body Working

Feline

all night

.

St Paul's my name

making loves my game

funky as I want 2 be

line up a hundred

swear 2 God

I'll funk em till I just can't C

cause I'm bad good God

badder than the wicked witch

____ -___ ___

Don't U want be my ...

.

Organ solo

.

Guitars & Drums

.

Piano

.

Bobby Z

.

everybody uhhh

.

I __ baby

U know just what 2 do

My hard on everlasting

her emotions, never blue

Feline

Keep My Body Working

Feline

all night

Feline

Keep My Body Working

Feline

all night

.

On the 1

Good God

.

Feline

Keep My Body Working

Feline

all night

Feline

Keep My Body Working

Feline

all night

.

St Paul's my name

making loves my game

funky as I want 2 be

line up a hundred

swear 2 God

I'll funk em till I just can't C

cause I'm bad good God

badder than the wicked witch

____ -___ ___

Don't U want be my ...

Get off

.

uhhh

.

Mass appeal

little boy smile

make you happy all the while

.

I'm bad Good God

I'm bad Good God

.

bass and drums

.

Wendy say gemmie some of that

Wendy said gemmie a little bit of that..

put a little bit of that on my plate

.

Wendy

.

Got enough of Wendy's guitar? I can't hear it out here

Got Wendy's guitar in the mix? I can't hear it

Come on

.

Mass appeal

little boy smile

make you happy all the while

I'm bad Good God

.

Drop out the guitars

Drop out the bass

.

On the 1

.

good God

.
On the 1

.

that belongs to somebody else tho

we can't play Cinncinatit

with that cause

my man will come up on stage with a pistol

.

He must of got some money last night

03

03

(goes into the Screams of Passion)

bigd74 said:

^^^ of course this is all guess work as it's a bootleg and we have never heard bootlegs

right, it's a fantasy post, I love those

Did anyone go to their 1st Avenue show in 1985?

OldFriends4Sale said:

Did anyone go to their 1st Avenue show in 1985?

...if only!!!

the Family full band line up

.

St Paul (Peterson) (lead vocals keyboard guitar)

Susannah Melvoin (lead vocals)

Eric Leeds (sax/flute)

Jellybean Johnson (drums)

Jerome Benton (vocals/dancer)

.

Mico Weaver (guitar)

Alan Flowers (bass)

Billy Carruthers (keyboards)

Jonathan Melvoin (keyboards)

.

Wally Safford (backup dancer/singer)

Gregory Brooks (backup dancer/singer)

August 13 , 1985
"First Avenue "Minneapolis
The Family First Stage
1.Susannah's pajamas,
2.Yes
3.River run dry
4.Desire
5.High fashion
6.Instrumental jam
(inc.Pink panther theme)
7.Nothing compares 2 U
8.The Screams of Passion
9.Mutiny/Holly Rock

Prince Spreads His Talent Around

Nonetheless, no one can deny that the Minneapolis dynamo is loaded with musical talent—so much talent that his work cannot be confined to just his own albums.

.

Prince uses David Z. for his work as producer (and who knows what else) with his latest, and publicly admitted, spin-off project, the Minneapolis-based band, The Family. Featuring members of The Time, including Jerome Benton, Morris Day's sidekick and the high-stepping valet in "Purple Rain," as well as new talent such as the cool voice of a woman singer named Susannah, The Family is obviously Prince's new R&B dance-funk outlet, replacing The Time. And like The Time's records, The Family's vinyl debut, a two-cut maxi-single titled "The Screams of Passion," is hot—hypnotic funk grooves without monotony.

.

The B side, "Yes," an instrumental track from The Family's forthcoming album, is the real giveaway of Prince's involvement, however. The cut is another dance track. But its loose rhythms and bizarre, unexpected musical twists are the kind only Prince's expansive musical imagination could create.

[The Screams of Passion] B side, "Yes," an instrumental track from The Family's forthcoming album, is the real giveaway of Prince's involvement, however. The cut is another dance track. But its loose rhythms and bizarre, unexpected musical twists are the kind only Prince's expansive musical imagination could create. -By Divina Infusino

http://blogs.citypages.co...erview.php

fDeluxe's St. Paul Peterson talks about the Minneapolis Sound, working with Prince, and the rebirth of the Family

By Andrea Swensson Wed., Sep. 14 2011 at 3:23 PM

Shortly after Purple Rain put Minneapolis on the map of the music world, Prince formed a little short-lived band called the Family. They would only record one album and play one sold-out show at First Avenue before disbanding, but their impact is still felt to this day.

The Family was formed by Prince and shuffled together members of the Time (whose leader, Morris Day, had just left the group) and Prince's then-fiancee Susannah Melvoin, the twin sister of Revolution guitarist Wendy. They only released one album as a group, simply titled The Family, before lead singer St. Paul Peterson left the group to pursue a solo recording career with Warner Bros. and Melvoin joined the Revolution, but their record spawned a gigantic hit ("Nothing Compares 2 U" went mainstream when Sinead O'Connor covered it in 1990) and is still regarded as highly influential by musicians like the Roots' ?uestlove.

To learn more about how the Family was formed and what was happening in Minneapolis in the mid-'80s, we caught up with St. Paul Peterson, who filled us on some details over the phone from his home in Edina, Minnesota as fDeluxe were getting ready for this week's show.


Gimme Noise: How did you get the nickname St. Paul Peterson?

St. Paul Peterson: It's a total Prince nickname, he's the one that started calling me that. Right after the record we did in '84 with the Time -- I was in the Time for one record, and after the Time broke up he put us all together in a room and pointed at me and said, 'You're going to be the lead singer for this new band.' At that point, he basically renamed me, or nicknamed me St. Paul.

It really happened just like that, he pulled you into a room and the band was formed?

It's true. Morris Day left the Time. We had just completed Purple Rain, and I had a double-platinum record on my wall at 18 years old, talk about lucky, so we didn't know what was going to go on. He decided. Prince was brilliant at pooling people together, and basically writing a book, so to speak, and we would play his characters. And this book, the Family, that he wrote, was one of his finest records, and the cast of characters that he put together have been my lifelong friends. I don't think he expected that to happen -- nor did any of us. It just worked out that way. I've known and played with Eric Leeds and Jellybean for 25 years, and known Susannah and her musical family for that long as well. It was pretty darn cool the way it all worked out. We like each other, we're friends.

Tell me how you got into that situation in the first place. How did you meet Prince?

I had just graduated in June from Holy Angels, and I was hanging out with my best friend Brett Ward up in Breezy Point, and I got a phone call from my brother-in-law that says, "Get down here, you have an audition with the Time." I'm like, "Huh? Leave my vacation?" [laughs] So I did exactly that. My brother-in-law's first cousin is Bobby Z. I was playing out six nights a week in bars at that point, all throughout high school from 10th grade on, and I'm the youngest of the Peterson family, so we had some notoriety around town. In fact, my brother Ricky turned Prince down to be in the Revolution, even before the Revolution, many, many years ago. So I think he had knowledge of who I was. I came home from vacation, I had to learn -- the rehearsal tape didn't come in time -- so I had to learn 10 songs or thereabouts, to play 'em, sing 'em, memorize 'em, and dance at the same time. You know, this little green kid from Richfield, Minnesota going into this unbelievable African American band -- talk about intimidating. Prince wasn't there. Passed that audition, moved onto a second audition and he was there, and the rest is history, as they say. Evidently, I passed the test. It was fun.

The Family circa 1985

There is so much lore surrounding that era of Minneapolis music. Can you shed some light on that time period, for those of us who didn't get to experience it first hand?

The '80s in Minnesota was pretty darn incredible. You had a lot of bands that were coming out of here. Obviously he was the main guy that was rocking it at that time, but the Minneapolis Sound really started to be a thing. Kind of like the Motown Sound, or the Memphis Sound, or anything like that. So to be ingrained in the middle of that -- I mean, from the time I joined the band, two months later I was in Purple Rain and had a double-platinum record on my wall. So that's how fast things were moving at that point in town. And that was all because of him. He was on fire. I caught him at the peak of the peak of his notoriety. He kind of had it goin' on back then. [laughs] So there's no doubt that everything he touched turned to gold, and people were clamoring to just see and be a part of that in any shape or form, whether it would be as a fan or be lucky enough to be in one of his bands. I mean, the guy's brilliant, and it was an incredible time to be a part of that.

It's actually music history now, you know. My nephew has to remind me who's in my band. He says, "Uncle, do you realize that you were in Purple Rain?" It seems like so long ago... But yeah, it's an honor to be able to say that I've done that, that movie's in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I played a very small part of it, but I'm still there, and it's something that I can be proud of and tell my kids about. It was a magical time, it really was. Minnesota was just buzzing with excitement, and everyone wanted to come here to get famous, which was very cool. They weren't clamoring to go to the coasts, to L.A. and New York to get famous, they were coming here to be a part of the Minneapolis Sound.

Did it feel, at the time, like history was being made?

When you're in the middle of it, you're trying to do your best to hang on because things are moving so quickly. And I was right in the middle of it, so it meant rehearsal six days a week, 10 hours a day -- especially during that time, he was meticulous and wanted things perfect and right, and the people that he had hired underneath him -- Jesse Johnson being the person for that time -- he cracked the whip hard on us. Basically, I was all set to go to the University of Minnesota, and I just changed colleges and went to the Minneapolis Sound College of Prince and Jesse Johnson instead. It was the smartest decision of my life. It was an incredible time.

The Family album is definitely one of his best side-project albums, perhaps the best. It's got some really top-notch material on it that I wish Prince had kept for himself - in particular High Fashion/Mutiny, Nothing Compares 2 U and Desire.

NoVideo said:

The Family album is definitely one of his best side-project albums, perhaps the best. It's got some really top-notch material on it that I wish Prince had kept for himself - in particular High Fashion/Mutiny, Nothing Compares 2 U and Desire.

Maybe if Prince did some of the songs duet or a combination of him- the Revolution/Family, it would be cool

He just had so much music they were creating between 1984-86 it's no way he could do it all

The Screams of Passion

The Screams Of Passion is the third track on The Family's first and only album The Family, and, a month before the album's release, The Screams Of Passion was released as the album's first single. The song was written by Prince, but credited to St. Paul Peterson and Susannah Melvoin.-PrinceVault

THE SCREAMS of PASSION© 1985 Paisley Park Records
Catalog#: 9 28953-7

There's a gentle autumn breeze that blows
Whenever we be lyin', lyin' in my bed
The moon appears and disappears, U look at me
My clothes I quickly, I quickly shed

The curtains dance a minuet, autumn plays the music, baby
Come on, hold my hand
Leaves are fallin' velvet splash
Only U and I can under, only U can understand

The sunlight draws a picture through the silky lace
That hangs above your, hangs above your door
A picture that is waving, that it seems 2 be with every thrust U
Make me beg 4 more

Oh, a robin sings a masterpiece
That lives and dies unheard
4 screams of passion
A sound produced by 2 in love
Curtains dance and autumn plays on
(Oh, 2 in love, on and on)
The screams of passion

All I hear in my head echoing like a volcano, baby
The screams of passion
Back and forth the raging seas of lust, I want U madly
Can't U tell, can't U tell, can't U tell, can't U tell?
Oww!

Take me in your arms, oh baby
The crime is done, I'd rather die here in your
Screams of passion
Whoa, hold me now, baby
Tell me that U love me
Is it Sunday or is it passion?

Love, love (The screams of passion)
The screams of passion, yeah yeah, love
The screams of, the screams of, the screams of passion, passion
Hand me that love

Yeeeeeaaaaah! (Shhh... not so loud baby)
Yeeeeeaaaaah! (Shhh, shhh)


Back and forth the raging seas of lust
Raging, raging (The screams of passion)
U know I want U madly baby
Why can't U tell? Oww
Is... is it Sunday?
I thought I heard a church bell (Or was it passion, passion?)

© 1985 Parisongs Music - ASCAP

Initial tracking took place on 19 August, 1984 at the Flying Cloud Drive Warehouse in Eden Prairie (two days after The Dance Electric and the day before God; a year to the day before the track's release on The Family album). St. Paul Peterson and Susannah Melvoin overdubbed vocals onto the track in late 1984 - early 1985, and Clare Fischer added orchestral overdubs during the same period. PrinceVault

faster than that

F

a little faster

yeah

F

just join right in anytime

organ

put the step on Mark

the lighter U touch it the more it does

C

sensitive 2 the touch

Ooooooh ooooah ooooah

Bobby the piano was 2 low last night could U C me?

Turn it up alittle bit now

Ooooooah

I'll need a little bit more voice 2night

Ooooooah

Alright just play base notes on the organ, drop out the chords

There's a gentle autumn breeze

blows
Whenever we be lyin', lyin' in my bed
.........

My clothes I quickly, I quickly shed

The curtains dance a minuet, autumn plays the music, baby
Come on, hold my hand
......

A picture that is waving, that it seems 2 be with every thrust U
Make me beg 4 more

The curtains dance a minuet, autumn plays the music, baby
Make me dance 4 more

Oh, a robin sings a masterpiece
That lives and dies unheard
4 screams of passion

Whoa, hold me now, baby
Tell me that U love me
Is it Sunday the screams of passion

drop out the bass

organs, Stop

the Screams of Passion

the screams of Passion

Everybody

the Screams of Passion
Hold me now baby

tell me that u love me

or is it passion

drop out the organ

Play some chords Wendy

organ

the Screams of Passion

the Screams of Passion

the Screams of Passion

the Screams of Passion

the Screams of Passion

oooh hold me now baby

tell me that u love me

or was it passion

baby

or was it

just the keyboards and the drums

Everybody

4 Screams of Passion

the Screams of Passion

the Screams of Passion

come on now baby

tell me that U love me

or was it passion

the Screams of Passion

Yeeeeaaaaooowwwhh

the Screams of Passion

“The Screams of Passion” music video is hard for me to remember... I was so young and I was inexperienced with that kind of thing. We had been in rehearsals for such a long time to go on the road. We were rehearsing for a year before we went and did our first gig.

The 1985 First Avenue Concert...we had the best time. It was great. I mean I look at it now--because, I have looked at it-- and I said “Oh my god!” It's amazing what young kids we were and we just kind of went for it. We were like crazy puppies on stage. It was a lot of fun and the house was sold out. We worked really frickin' hard for that show to get out there and do that... It's great seeing it. I laugh a lot when I watch it. I can't even believe that's me! My favorite moment was singing “Nothing Compares 2 U.” It was just a great moment to sing with (Peterson). It still is for us when we sing it.

-Susannah Melvoin

http://beautifulnightschi...-with.html

“Miss Understood” was not put on the (first) album, because, I didn't want it to be. I wanted it for the second record and I wanted to re-cut it. There wasn't time to re-cut it before it was going to mastering and I said “Prince, you can't put this on, I'm not happy with it. Let's wait until the second record.” Then we both decided to just do that.

Clare Fisher, talk about a muse. He was my inspiration for getting the strings on the (first) record. Clare had done work with my father —my father being the arranger and Clare being the string arranger. So, I had that “in,” although, that was not how I was thinking about it at the time.

Early Work

After spending much of his teenage years in a variety of local rock’n'roll bands around Minneapolis, Z spent time between Minneapolis and Los Angeles throughout the early 1970s songwriting and engineering. His early work is perhaps most known over this period in his writing contributions for Gram Parsons’ first solo LP GP, particularly the track ‘How Much I’ve Lied’, before going on to play a major role in establishing not only the Minneapolis sound but through his innovative use of drum machines, loops and samples much of production aesthetic now synonymous with music from the 1980s. Many collaborations of material was produced by David at Paisley Park throughout the late 1980s and 90′s.

Prince

During the mid-1970s, David encountered Prince playing around the Minneapolis scene. The pair went on to record a set of demos with Z engineering which ultimately led to Prince signing a recording deal with Warner Bros. Records. Although much of the detail of Z’s exact contributions to Prince’s albums is lost in the myth surrounding Prince and his prolific writing and recording, it is clear that his input, recording technique and production are intertwined intrinsically in to those recordings. His most well documented contributions to Prince’s folio of work are his writing, production and engineering on 1985 hit Kiss – originally a song given to the band Mazarati by Prince for their debut album which Z was producing[4] – and his recording and engineering of Purple Rain.

The Family

The Family

Genre

Producer

1985

Winding back 26 years do you recall how The Family first came into being?

Yeah. Everybody was in rehearsals for the 'Purple Rain' tour and I'd been working with Prince as his background vocalist, so I was already in the fold, as was Paul Peterson and all the other guys that were with The Time. The Time dissolved right before 'Purple Rain' was released and Prince said "I want to keep everybody working," and I think that he felt bad that The Time dissolved because there was so much great talent in it. He really believed at the time in Paul (Peterson), who was this young kid - both of us were babies. We were 18/19 years old and Paul was really incredible: he had this great voice and Morris (Day) and him used to do sing-offs. You could always hear Paul doing his thing and he was just fantastic and a great keyboard player and he's also one of the best bass players there is. So Prince got the band together – he also brought in (saxophonist) Eric Leeds. His first gig was with us. Eric is Alan Leeds' brother, who was Prince's road manager. Prince was given a tape of Eric's stuff. So Prince said, "I'd love to be able to put a band together and I'd like you, Paul, to be lead singer in this. How do you feel about that?" He said "yeah man, that would be great." It was the right thing and we all came together and Prince designed the record. He didn't give us songs he had in the vault: these were fresh songs designed for us.

What was it like them working with Prince during that period?

He wasn't working with us at all through that. He just went in and recorded songs and then just handed them over to me and Paul and David Z, who was producing it. And then he stepped out of the way.

What are your memories of the recording sessions?

I had a great time because a lot of the time I was here in Los Angeles and Paul was in Minneapolis. Paul and I were never together in the studio very often. I won't say never but not very often. So Paul would do his vocals with David Z and I would do my vocals with David and then David would do his thing. He pre-produced that record; he made those sounds on the album. It was great because his brother Bobby Z had written 'River Run Dry' (which appeared on the first album). We had an outside track on that record, which was again something that was an indication that Prince was letting it be what it was going to be on another kind of level for him. He relinquished a lot of the control. He wrote the tracks, designed them for us and then we took them. When we had the string date and went in with Clare Fischer, Prince wasn't actually there - it was all of us as a band and David. It was pretty nutritious. It felt really great and we knew that we were doing something really special. But then again we were also really young. I'd done sessions for other people but it was like 'here we are, doing our own record' and it was pretty great but no one really knew what was going to happen with it. Eric (Leeds) said that Prince wanted to write a hit record, that was his intention period. But Paul and I were not aware of any of that. We were just doing it. - Susannah Melvoin

http://www.soulandjazzand...owall=1%20

TONE: O'Neal went on to some success, didn't he?

Jellybean: Yeah, he has three gold records. The Time has four albums, three gold and one platinum.

TONE: So how did The Time shape up after Alexander left?

Jellybean: Morris was going to be lead singer, Terry Lewis on bass, Jesse Johnson on guitar, and Monty Moir and Jimmy Jam on keyboards. I played drums.

TONE: And this all for the movie Purple Rain?

Jellybean: Yeah. We started taking acting lessons everyday.

TONE: what was that like?

Jellybean: We were taking ballet, pirouetting and s**t across the floor. In a weird way, it was quite exciting, at 5 a.m. we're on this movie set, which was killer, until 6 or 7 p.m. in the evening, for three months, non-stop!

TONE: Tell me about working with Prince.

Jellybean: He and I had a fight scene that got edited out of the movie. He accidentally hit me. He was quite apologetic. The scenes were fun. During the shooting of "The Bird," Prince was making us shoot it over and over again. There was a lot of just hangin' around at First Avenue and The Union Bar.

TONE: Wasn't there another big "real" fight that happened?

Jellybean: This has been written about in other books, but yeah. A couple, I mean. I was always in the middle. Prince used to always treat Jimmy the worst. Because they're both geniuses, they clashed. Now, in hindsight, Jimmy deserved most of that s*'t. Prince fired Jimmy and Terry when they missed a gig. It wasn't their fault. I quit, and Prince asked me to come back. I was having my first child, Bianca. Jesse said, "C,mon let's do this thing." So I came back, but Jimmy and Terry didn't. I was asked to fix it, but it was years later that Prince, Jimmy and Terry mended fences. The other fight was between Morris Day and Prince. It was during filming, a fistfight, and I had to break it up. These are two enormous egos, and eventually it came to a head. There was one big show at First Avenue that was supposed to happen. After the show, Morris was OUT the back door into his waiting Porsche with his girlfriend and GONE! The Time disbanded. The next time I saw Morris (laughs), he was talkin' about the "Oak Tree."

TONE: What happened after Purple Rain and all of that was over?

Jellybean: Prince kept me on. I just followed him around on tour. He was engaged to Suzanna, Lisa's (guitar player for Prince and the Revolution) sister. He was putting together a group called The Family with Paul Peterson, Jerome, Eric Leeds and me. I was just hangin' out. It was a bit funand sad.

TONE: Tell me about The Time now.

Wally Gregory Jerome & Susannah

TheDigitalGardener said:

according to The Vault/Uptown it was early November when St Paul announced he was leaving.

It's a shame the way this band collapsed so suddenly."The Screams Of Passion" was released in the summer of '85 and by November,Paul announced that he was leaving.It was the same situation with Mazarati.Two promising bands breaking up before they reached their potential.Who knows what would have happened if they had stayed together and kept it going throughout the rest of the 80s,at least

It's obvious that Prince was spreading himself too thin at that point.He was doing too many things.He was trying to run a record label,pursue a movie career,produce other artists,release records on his own,and still find time to tour.After Purple Rain,there seemed to be a big urgency (in his view) for him to do as many projects as he could.