OldFriends4Sale said:
It would have changed the Purple Rain era: Ice Cream Castles era was nothing as a result. What Bside or long versions could have come out? What performances and music would have come as a result.
I don't think the record would have been much different and some b-sides were already there in the vault, that could have been released if Prince had wanted to. Best you would have gotten would have been The Time opening the PR Tour, and it would have ended with Prince and the Time members hating each other even more, spoiling the tour for everyone involved (and the tour was already a heavy strain on Prince as it was).
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* The record would have been as different as the Vanity 6 vs Apollonia 6 album would have been.
I have to admit at the time his sound was changing very fast. So OK, you have a point, a 1985 or 1986 The Time album could have surprised us.
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People left for other reasons. Even Jimmy said they would have stayed there because of the guys and it was fun and exciting.
Yeah that's what they say, but their career as producers was taking off and that wasn't compatible with The Time, so they would have left anyway. They wanted to be producers above all.
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Not true, listen to some Jimmy Terry & Jellybean interviews
I know what they said, but I think soon the cash flow would have convinced them to make the right choice. And even more importantly they were producers at heart, they love it so much... The Time or Janet? I think they'd have gone for Janet. Now I can't tell, it's all what ifs, but I feel safe about it.
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Even if they just went a few more years. That would have been a great ride.
Like I said, the best you could have hoped for was an extra tour. Maybe an extra album could have been recorded in the Summer/Fall of 1984, before the tour started, at about the same time Prince recorded the Family stuff, but then we wouldn't have had the Family album and that would have been a real tragic loss.
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We don't know how that could have worked. Prince was eyeing St Paul before the Time split, Eric was coming in the camp by way of Allan anyways, Susannah was in the camp already, and the rest of the people who were in the band like Miko, Jonathan Melvoin Gregory and Wally were there. So the Family protege group could have still happened.
Something else might have happened with Eric, Susannah and Paul. But it wouldn't have been in 1985 and it wouldn't have been The Family as we know it. The Family was born off the ashes of The Time. Change the equation and you change the end results. Maybe a solo Susannah record, IDK. But not the exact same The Family album with the exact same songs.
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The Time band was reproducing Prince's sound and vision so it would have been the Time.
Yeah well for how long would they have wanted to just reproduce Prince's sound? That's the thing you know.
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The artistic evolution... hey he took on Tony M and some other peoples sound. I would have prefered the former
I can't argue with Tony M. Tony M. is the Godwin point of any Prince discussions 
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Also the Time on the Graffiti Bridge album was the Time band/not Prince.
Absolutely not. The GB songs are all from Corporate World, it's just Prince and Morris. Pandemonium featured the band a little more (some songs are still 100% Prince and Morris), but then again how come they disbanded immediately after that record? They could have gone on, WB would have been happy.
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The scene changed. Even Prince struggled. Why didn't they continue? GB film embarassment?
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Like when people still think Prince did Too Sexy, but that was Sheila E, Benny R, Steph B and Miko
True. It's not about whether they could but whether they would.
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And to be fair the 'Prince' scene was changed in 1990, so even what Prince was doing didn't work nor did it last a year. But that had a lot to do with the FLOP of the movie Graffiti Bridge.
But from February- October the Time was doing videos, releasing singles and doing performance.
They broke because they didn't get along too well (they fired Jesse) and because they wanted to prioritize their own projects (Jimmy and Terry in particular). Pandemonium was The Time's biggest seller ever, so it was all but a flop: WB was happy and the band should have been happy, too. GB sold decently as well. The movie was just a casualty and was P's failure not the Time's, nothing much to worry about. Then when Morris reformed the band in 95 (and the only reason he did it was because he was out of a record deal and still had to pay the bills), only those also in need of a job showed up. And when everyone finally showed up in 2011, they again didn't get along and split.
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Who fired Jesse? are you talking about 1991 or 2013?
1991. I've always read everywhere that Jesse was voted out of the band by everyone else. They could have went on without him though, but didn't.
No the movie Graffiti Bridge was a HUGE Flop, you know I'm talking about the movie.
Yeah but totally inconsequential regarding The Time's career or sales.
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By Ice Cream Castles 3 songs 'all Prince/Morris' '3 songs by Prince with the Time' '3 song by the Time'
There isn't a single track with all bandmembers playing on ICC. Not even The Bird despite it being based on a live recording 
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You misunderstood clearly. That was my idea on how Prince should have started dealing with his proteges. By Sheila E's 3rd album it was like that. The 2nd featured 1 song that was all Sheila E and band. But the point is they could have done this easily
Ah OK, my bad. Yeah, that's how it ended with Pandemonium. I'm not sure Prince liked it, though (doing it that way, not the resulting album). I'm not even sure he liked it with Sheila. I suspect he'd rather have kept controlling everything but I can't say for sure.
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Also Morris Day & Jesse Johnson were more involved
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and songs like My Summertime Thang involved Jimmy & Terry
Not true as far as I know, or did I miss something?.
There is a possibility the full Time would have been more involved in the music and following albums.
immy Jam discusses The Time, Prince, and working with Janet and Michael Jackson.
By Chaz Lipp, Contributor
Let’s look back to 1990 and the Graffiti Bridge movie. How did the original seven members of The Time come to be involved with that project?
Let me try to clarify a little bit. There might be a misconception that we got back together to do the Graffiti Bridge movie. That’s absolutely not the case. What happened, Morris [Day] was working on a project with Prince. It was basically going to be more of a solo project. Prince was going to do the bulk of the writing and playing. I think it was going to be calledCorporate World, but there were a few different names floating around at that point. Around that same time period, we had also been working with Morris on different projects and things. We thought, let’s get The Time back together and just make a record. So we got back together and started making an album. This was with Prince’s blessing, by the way. And we had our own idea for a film.
What is insane is that every time they (the bandmembers) tell that story, they give a different, contradictory explaination about how that whole thing started, and it's been like this since 1990, so I'm extremely confused about it.
How did the same basic track from “My Summertime Thang” onPandemonium end up being reused for “The Latest Fashion,” which was part ofGraffiti Bridge?
The origin of “My Summertime Thang” came about around Ice Cream Castle [1984], right around when me and Terry got fired from The Time. We always loved the song, so that was one of the ones we asked Prince for. We said, “Hey Prince, ‘My Summertime Thang,’ can we have that? That was our song from back in the day.” And he said, “Yeah, you can have it. But you know what, I changed the words. It’s called ‘The Latest Fashion’ now.” And we’re like,“No, no, no, no.” So that was sort of a compromise. He wanted it as “The Latest Fashion” because it worked in the movie for the scene. But we wanted it as “My Summertime Thang” because that’s what it was back when we had it. There was a lot of that kind of thing going on, which is why I make the distinction that we didn’t get back together specifically for Graffiti Bridge. We were already on our own path, doing our own thing. We kind of reached a compromise to do it.
Yeah I remember this from Duane's book. At no point does it say they were involved with the song's creation in 83, and that's how Duane understood it as well. It only means they wanted it for Pandemonium.
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What else would it have changed? Read some interviews by Jellybean.
Yeah Morris was pissed as hell, everyone was, but the relationship was already tense before that, and it would have kept going worse anyway.
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What would it have changed? Prince started his own label... he would have had people who could help him build that and produce acts
Not in this world. Not with Prince being Prince and Morris being Morris and Jesse being Jesse and Jam & Lewis meeting the success they've met as producers outside of P's influence.
* possibly by I'm going by the I believe the anxiety of being on the cusp of success lead Prince to doing behave in the way he did: Firing Jimmy & Terry on the eve of Purple Rain wasn't a logical move, and not offering Vanity a bit more $ was definately not a good move. I believe like as with many people, Prince would have relaxed more with the Time. He obviously loved the guys. But unresolved emotional/family issues can get in the way of that.
I agree, but I think it wasn't just before PR. Prince made a lot of bad decisions when it came to how he treated other people throughout the first half of his career. I mean even banning Jam & Lewis to produce other acts, that sucked. No one does that. It doesn't mean there wasn't love or friendship, I agree with you.
Jesse was asked to stay and replace Morris after PR and he chose to leave.
*not true, Prince talked about it and Jesse talked about it. Prince said in a 1985 interview that he did not think Jesse was frontman material. Jesse wanted to front the Time or another band.
What I say is based on either Jesse's Questlove interview or Duane's book, I don't remember but I'm pretty sure it was Jesse explaining this, because he said he asked Prince OK but can we use my songs too for The Time, and Prince replied no it has to be my songs, so Jesse said thanks but no thanks. And I was surprised because I'd never heard this before. What Prince said about Jesse after Jesse left isn't very reliable because Prince used to be mean with people once they'd leave him. But maybe Jesse lied, IDK. I wasn't there.
When Prince offered him a song for Shockadelica, Jesse reportedly said "this was the last thing he needed". They all wanted to exist outside of Prince's influence.
This is only the result of Prince's games. It wasn't always like that. I mean for 3yrs those guys gave Prince their all for very little $. If Prince would have just treated them normally they would have been happy to exist with his influence. Jesse lived with the man, and helped Susan Rogers learn how to set and prepare things for Prince. Obviously because he chose to want to exist and being with him.
Absolutely. But Prince was Prince, even if he hadn't fired Jam & Lewis he'd still have been Prince, or we're going into a "what if Prince had been a different person" instead of "what if Prince had fired Jam & Lewis", and then OK, of course then everything could have been different and many people could have stayed on board if only on the PP label and production team.
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Not just them BTW: both André and Mark said they were pissed they had to ask Prince for songs after they left, and only did it because their respective labels pressured them to get some purple hits.
* I thought that was Andre's mom who went to Prince as Andre was preparing his first album
True, my bad. But I believe I remember André saying he was also under pressure from the label to make more accessible music. They wanted to sell him as a black artist and he doing new wave and they were confused.
* Well yeah, people do go through a period of the need to break away in situations like that. It was intense in insular. Many individuals go through a period when they leave their nuclear family home of discarding family influence to 'find themselves' or see what fits and doesn't fit.
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Jimmy suggested that they could have stayed if they hadn't taken P's word for firing them, as the paychecks were still coming for a while. It could have been like Alan Leeds said about JB: people being "fired every other week" but in the end being taken back every time once "punishment" was over. But they didn't stay.
Then Terry was asked to come back for PR and didn't because Jimmy wasn't invited, but then again maybe if he'd insisted for Jimmy to come back with him Prince would have said OK... But he didn't insist.
*I thought it was Jimmy that was asked to come back? And Jerome talked to Terry, and Terry told him to go ahead not let their relationship stop him from benefitting from it.
In the Questlove interview Jimmy says Terry was asked to come back and declined because Jimmy wasn't. You may have heard other sources though, like I said many stories contradict each other, even from the same people: I've read Fink give 2 different explainations about the doctor outfit, W&L gave at least 2 different explainations about the ZTT album cancelation, etc...
after the firing of Jimmy & Terry, Monte left, Jellybean was on the fence, Morris was heading out. Jesse had a different relationship with the Time, he was more under Prince's wing.
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But there's even better, and that's the final nail on the coffin as far as I'm concerned: Before Terry and Jimmy were fired, Morris was already telling the other bandmembers to prepare themselves for whatever was coming next, because he already knew that The Time couldn't last for very much longer. Jimmy told that story many times.
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Is that was Morris meant? Or is that what you're inserting?
That's what Jimmy says Morris said, without ambiguity, in the Questlove interview, but I'd read it before so I think he (or someone else) had already told it before.
Please not that all those quotes are from memory. It's not entirely impossible I got something wrong or attributed a statement from one person to another, even though I sure hope to God I didn't. So please feel free to factcheck me. I don't make up shit, you know I don't, but my memory isn't a computer.
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It was a bit like when Apples said "I wasn't gonna play the 'Apollonia in underwear' part beyond that one PR project": they were playing a part, and it so happened they were musicians, not actors.
* Well Apollonia was a different case. She never signed on to front a group like Vanity did. That is why the Apollonia 6 period was blah and why Prince removed better songs from that album when he realized Apollonia wasn't committed.
Of course her level of commitment was totally different. But what I meant is in the end The Time was P's puppet, so were they all at the time, and it was hard to move from that status quo to more independance while remaining in his shadow. That's why Sheila had to leave in the end: Sex Cymbal could have been on Paisley Park.
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