Sometimes he could be a bit of a dick! Oh and likely no money in it for him. Also in later years he was at pains to ensure people knew he was behind ALL of that great music and started to inceasingly include Time songs (and others) in his sets.

Harcore fans knew who Jamie Starr was but the general public didn't.

jaypotton said:

MattyJam said:

jaypotton said:

Sometimes he could be a bit of a dick! Oh and likely no money in it for him. Also in later years he was at pains to ensure people knew he was behind ALL of that great music and started to inceasingly include Time songs (and others) in his sets.

Harcore fans knew who Jamie Starr was but the general public didn't.

Surely anyone who knows The Times music would know about the Prince connection? And I can't imagine anyone listening to The Family without first being a Prince fan.

Aha but you say that with the benefit of hindsight AND being a big Prince fan! I am not sure the general public really knew (or cared).

Not sure how old you are Matty but I remember the excitement of trawling the wrekka stow and finding these albums that were produced by a mysterious dude called Jamie Starr. I was sure they sounded like Prince but not exactly the same. Oh great times! Not sure how long the "secret" stayed a secret of course.

Saying that though just look at how many websites carried articles following Prince's death around the theme of "ten songs you never knew Prince wrote" etc

Unless you're a musican you may not understand how to music industry works.

Oh and he explicitly "reclaimed" Nothing Compares 2 U from Sinead O'Conner by starting to play it live (no mention of The Family)

inovio said:

Unless you're a musican you may not understand how to music industry works.

Care to say more?

If they couldn't make it with their original names, then isn't tat the litmus test?

And while I'm here, I think The Original Se7en and FDeluxe are much better names.

blacksignparade said:

. . What's more baffling is that he never made the family and madhouse albums in cd format.

.

All three were available on CD.

BartVanHemelen said:

.

Yep. I have all three on CD. It's *vinyl* I can't find them on.

.

The 'Family' CD was a Japanese import (complete with OBI). The two 'Madhouse' albums were from here in the States.

.

.

bluegangsta said:

And while I'm here, I think The Original Se7en and FDeluxe are much better names.

you joking right

lwr001 said:

bluegangsta said:

And while I'm here, I think The Original Se7en and FDeluxe are much better names.

you joking right

Man, that Origingal Se7en has to be the worst band name in R&B history. FDeluxe is just plain horrible - just Deluxe would have been better than that.

I backed Prince's right to retain the names. The Time and THe Family are Prince products. No one would think that Proctor and Gamble would have to give up the name Tide just because some employees left the company and start making detergent on their own. An understanding of the value and concept of branding supports Prince.

FUNKYNESS said:

MattyJam said:

In the past, even when I didn't necessarily agree with some of Prince's decisions (such as his stance on YouTube), I could at least understand where he was coming from. But his treatment of the original bandmates in The Time and The Family, refusing to let them reform under the names that made them famous and forcing them to reform under The Original 7ven and fDeluxe respectively was just plain cold and indefensible. What was Prince's reason for doing this? [Edited 6/17/16 2:42am]

He was being a dick. Totally disgraceful.

inovio said:

Unless you're a musican you may not understand how to music industry works.

That is not the point. Prince could have been kind hearted and let them make some money. He was very selfish at times.

keenly said:

jaypotton said:

jaypotton said:

Oh and he explicitly "reclaimed" Nothing Compares 2 U from Sinead O'Conner by starting to play it live (no mention of The Family)

In all fairness though, most did not know at the time that PRINCE wrote the song, and even less almost NONE "mainstream wise" even know that the Family recorded this song first. We fail to realize that the Family were a protege band of his that did not even have a hit single, "Screams of Passion" was hardly a well known hit, so unless you were in the Prince world then we were the only ones knowing who these artists are. I mean do we think mainstream america know who Jill Jones, Eric Leeds, Madhouse etc... are?

lastdecember said:

jaypotton said:

Oh and he explicitly "reclaimed" Nothing Compares 2 U from Sinead O'Conner by starting to play it live (no mention of The Family)

In all fairness though, most did not know at the time that PRINCE wrote the song, and even less almost NONE "mainstream wise" even know that the Family recorded this song first. We fail to realize that the Family were a protege band of his that did not even have a hit single, "Screams of Passion" was hardly a well known hit, so unless you were in the Prince world then we were the only ones knowing who these artists are. I mean do we think mainstream america know who Jill Jones, Eric Leeds, Madhouse etc... are?

I was a bit too young at the time when Sinead's version was released to have much of an impression on what it was like then, but I remember seeing it always being mentioned that the song was written by Prince when it was mentioned in magazines and books a little bit later.

I think the "2 U" in the title gave many people the idea that it was written by Prince in any case.

bluegangsta said:

If they couldn't make it with their original names, then isn't tat the litmus test?

well the Time was actually going pretty good. As the Time, it was Prince who actually hindered their further success. The Time would have been huge in 1984 onward. But firing Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis which caused Monte to leave, and Morris to be done with it. The Time on the Purple Rain tour rounds, videos, performances etc
.
The Family during that period I know would have been big as well.
But again Prince (as he said) had his hands in to many different things. Didn't utilized the UTCM movie to promote the proteges etc The Family was in existance since 1984 but only had 1 live performance. And even when they were on the 6.7.1985 Birthday show, that one was so private that it couldn't be used as a promotion for them.

FUNKYNESS said:

lwr001 said:

you joking right

Man, that Origingal Se7en has to be the worst band name in R&B history. FDeluxe is just plain horrible - just Deluxe would have been better than that.

I backed Prince's right to retain the names. The Time and THe Family are Prince products. No one would think that Proctor and Gamble would have to give up the name Tide just because some employees left the company and start making detergent on their own. An understanding of the value and concept of branding supports Prince.

It was a (former) Slave move. almost like someone with a poverty mentality. Someone who advocates for artists and musicians (except) he never messed with Sheila E or Vanity (both names he helped create)

keenly said:

MattyJam said:

In the past, even when I didn't necessarily agree with some of Prince's decisions (such as his stance on YouTube), I could at least understand where he was coming from. But his treatment of the original bandmates in The Time and The Family, refusing to let them reform under the names that made them famous and forcing them to reform under The Original 7ven and fDeluxe respectively was just plain cold and indefensible. What was Prince's reason for doing this? [Edited 6/17/16 2:42am]

My take is that it was about the masters and was advised by P's lawyers.

WB owns the masters for all The Time albums. I'm pretty sure Prince wanted to get them back at some point.

The status of The Family's master is unknown: might be Prince, might be WB.

In all cases affirming his ownership of the band's names made sure that he could have a claim on the masters when trying to reclaim them from WB, and it helped making sure the original bands couldn't claim the masters for themselves after 35 years.

In the mid 2000's Prince filed copyright notices for several band names including Mazarati and Good Questions (2 bands he was hardly involved with, not at all even in the case of GQ). Incidentally Prince owns the masters for those 2 Paisley Park albums: I see no other purpose than making sure he could do his best to keep a hold on them. I am pretty sure that if Prince had had any legal way to prevent Sheila E., Carmen Electra, Eric Leeds or Jill Jones to use their names he would have done the same for the sake of the masters

As far as Prince was concerned, "The Time" was him and Morris. That's it.

During the "Corporate World" sessions, it was *literally* just Prince and Morris doing the album, aside from saxophone overdubs from Candy and backing vocals from Elisa, Margie Cox and Jana Jade.

To Prince, it didn't matter what other musicians were performing the songs, because they weren't writing thm. They were glorified session guys. Hell, Prince's own crew like Dez and Lisa had more input on The Time's songs than actual members of The Time!

To have an album released by "The Time", presumes that Prince is involved. And as the primary songwriter, I get where he's coming from.

As for The Family...... You've got a similar thing happening plus the fact that one of the singer is his ex-fiancee, so that adds a whole level of emotion to it.

At this point, I think both bands should be using their original names.

As a songwriter myself, if I put together (and financed, and owned) a project, I would be very wary of other bandmembers going off and doing that project without my involvement, too.

Militant said: