https://www.musicians-cor...soloalbum/

Prince was someone I always drew inspiration from. I was always heavily into funk music. I was way into Sexy MF, Kiss, Musicology and those types of Prince songs. I always used to say that if I went on the road again it would be with someone like Prince. I was playing on gospel record after gospel record, just basically making a living. I lived in Brooklyn at the time I got the call from another gospel musician who had just linked up with Prince. He referred me directly to him and the audition process began. The whole thing was very surreal and it all happened because of the work that I had done year after year playing on records. Eventually my work spread all the way to the purple lord of funk himself!

Working with Prince was magical. He was the hardest working person I've ever known. I'll never forget the day we met. I flew first class for the first time ever. I arrived at Paisley Park and he greeted me at the door and immediately complimented my work. I then followed him down a dark hallway into the foryer of the complex. Murals and awards were everywhere. The ceiling was painted like the sky and there was a piano shaped like a spaceship! I was totally tripping out. He then led me to a conference room where he told me what he that he wanted to build a HUGE horn section. He said, "my father used to tell me about great big horn sections in soul bands..like 10 horns". "At this point in my career I do not feel like there's anything that I NEED to say....so if I'm going to say something it's got to be something that I'M interested in...and to honest, I just want to HEAR it." I replied, "right on". :)

We then went on to have an 11 piece horn section with 4 trumpets, 1 alto, 2 tenor saxes, 2 bones and 2 bari saxes! It was such an epic sound. At times it reminded me of Quincy Jones's horn section in The Whiz. Prince enjoyed us so much. He was very proud of us and loved to show us off. He would often say, "we are going to make history". I never heard anyone say that out loud. lol
Then we turned around and did JUST THAT.

We played the United Center in Chicago and SXXW in Austin. We gave an epic performance on the Arsenio Hall show in which my favorite horn arranger, Jerry Hey wrote and complimented me on my arrangement after the performance. We did 3 nights at the famous Montreaux Jazz Festival which was video recorded and said one of his finest performances. We also performed for almost 4 hours in a heat watch on Curacao, an island close to South America where I met my wife.

The experiences I had with Prince will forever be some of the richest moments in my life. I will always remember him as someone who believed in me and encouraged me to think outside of the box and keep the music moving forward.

A couple more interviews from Phillip about his time working with Prince. He claims Prince spent over $1M creating this 11 piece horn section.

http://podcastjuice.net/n...interview/

https://www.al.com/expo/e..._with.html
[Edited 5/27/18 12:23pm]
[Edited 5/27/18 12:27pm]

I'm definitely interested in hearing what he was working on with the horns--a pretty exciting thing going on right after doing the rock & pop retreads with Third Eye Girl.

Germanegro said:

I loved the horns. Prince was someone keeping big horns sections alive. I’m a little bummed Prince never did What is Hip with the last incarnation of the NPG horns because I think it would have been a killer live track with that crew. There’s a funny story of Roy, one of the trombone players, getting lost in Paisley Park looking for the bathroom. He ended up walking in on Prince in his pajamas and slippers eating breakfast while watching CNN. Prince was cool about it but I’m sure the guy was embarrassed.