Hi everyone.

I don’t know if this has been discussed much on here in the past, but I was recently shown the photo of a mixtape Ingrid Chavez posted on Facebook back in 2016. For anyone who hasn’t seen it, here is the photo which was posted along with the message “One of my mixtapes from back in the day. #prince #bsides” - Ingrid Chavez (January 29th, 2016)



On closer examination of the track list I noticed familiar trends in the sequence. I occasionally wondered why songs like ‘Wonderful Ass’ and ‘All Day All Night’ were often grouped together with 1986 out-takes? I decided to take a closer look, and this is what I’ve found.

I spent an entire night going through the 4thefunk site and made a timeline of all noteworthy bootlegs that contained studio tracks. Amongst the earliest known studio bootlegs (including ‘Charade’, ‘The Black Album’ and ‘Camille’s Crystal Ball’) was an LP named ‘Chocolate Box’ (which was released sometime around 1987-1989 although I couldn’t pin down the exact year). Like many of these old bootlegs the track list contained a number of title errors, but the corrected list is as follows.


Movie Star (B1)
A Place In Heaven (B2)
Starfish And Coffee (B3)
Ballad Of Dorothy Parker (B4)
Joy In Repetition (B5)
Data Bank (B6)
Girl O My Dreams (B7)
Can't Stop This Feeling I Got (B8)
We Can Funk (B9)
All Day All Night (B10)

It’s exactly the same as side B of Ingrid’s tape (which I’ll refer to as ‘All Day All Night’ / ‘ADAN’). I continued looking for trends.

On the 1990 double CD ‘Wonderboy’ (a live recording of a SOTT show) there were 6 studio out-takes on the end of disk 2. These were…


Crystal Ball (A1)
Last Heart (A2)
Strange Relationship (A3)
Wonderful Ass (A7)
Neon Telephone (A8)
Witness 4 The Prosecution (A9)

On this occasion the track list matches Side A of ADAN, all be it with the Parade era tracks omitted.

On the 1990 CD ‘Hot Chocolate’ there are 10 out-takes, the first 9 of which are a selection of tracks from both side A and B of ADAN. Although only a selection of tracks, the ones that do appear do so in the correct order.


Crystal Ball (A1)
Strange Relationship (A3)
Wonderful Ass (A7)
Neon Telephone (A8)
Movie Star (B1)
A Place In Heaven (B2)
Joy In Repetition (B5)
Data Bank (B6)
All Day All Night (B10)
Eternity (N/A)

There are other examples of smaller portions of this tape appearing in sequence on a few other bootlegs too.

Roll on towards the end of the 90’s when collector SaTim begins producing CDs and we start seeing trends again, but this time from lower generation tapes resulting in better sound quality.

On the 1998 release titled ‘1986’ more trends appear…


1. Little Girl Wendy's Parade
2. New Position
3. I Wonder U
4. Under The Cherry Moon
5. Others Here With Us (A4)*
6. Old Friends 4 Sale (A5)*
7. All My Dreams (A6)*
8. Last Heart (A2)
9. The Dream Factory
10. Witness 4 The Prosecution (A9)
11. Movie Star (B1)
12. A Place In Heaven (B2)
13. Data Bank (B6)
14. Girl O' My Dreams (B7)
15. Can't Stop This Feeling I Got (B8)
16. We Can Funk (B9)
17. All Day, All Night (B10)
18. Wonderful Ass (A7)
19. Neon Telephone (A8)
20. Kiss (Acoustic)

* May not be from the ‘All Day, All Night’ cassette as these also appear on the “Charade” leak.

Of the 19 tracks on the ADAN tape, 14 appear on 1986 in segments that match the ADAN running order. Of the 5 tracks not included, 2 of them had been officially released on Sign O’ The Time and the remaining three tracks were carried over to SaTim’s follow up release ‘1987’.

Finally in 2010, the free digital label ‘Free Bootleg Generation’ release ‘Box O Chocolates’, which again offered a selection of tracks that appear on ADAN, once again in superior sound quality to anything released previously.


1. Witness 4 The Prosecution (A9)
2. Movie Star (B1)
3. A Place In Heaven (B2)
4. The Ballad Of The Dorothy Parker (B4)
5. Starfish And Coffee (B3)
6. Girl O' My Dreams (B7)
7. Can't Stop This Feeling I Got (B8)
8. We Can Funk (B9)
9. Data Bank (B6)
10. Wonderful Ass (A7)
11. All Day, All Night (B10)

All these trends lead to a sort of “Chicken or Egg” dilemma. Either…

A) Ingrid Chavez, at some point bought a bunch of different Prince bootlegs created a mix tape of her own.

Or B) This ADAN tape existed in some form or fashion prior to the release of Chocolate Box (which would have been 1989 at the latest). Maybe what Ingrid has is a copy of an original tape? No idea.

Given that these tracks seemed to match the running order a lot closer in the early days and became more segmented as time went on, I’m inclined to believe theory B is more plausible. That the ADAN tape is a bootleg source rather than a bootleg copy.

If so, how did this tape come about? I have a few theories that I’d like to get your opinions on (or any inside info if anyone has any).

Was this track list compiled by Ingrid during her time at Paisley Park? In my opinion, no. In fact, outside of her owning a copy of this tape I don’t believe she has anything to do with this compilation. As we know, Prince and Ingrid first met on Blue Tuesday in December of 1987. Yet, the last track that had any work done on this cassette was ‘Crystal Ball’ as this version contains the Clare Fischer orchestra material that was added in August 1986, about a week before the Parade tour began. I can’t believe that Ingrid had the licence to create a 19 track mixtape of anything she wanted from Prince’s vault and didn’t add a single song post Revolution era.

If I was to date this tape, I’d guess it was created prior to the release of Sign O’ The Times (given how it contains 2 SOTT tracks amongst largely unreleased material), and probably before the Camille sessions given how the version of Strange Relationship is the older Dream Factory version. As such, I believe that whoever made this tape did so between August 1986 and November 1986.

So these are my theories…
1) This compilation was put together my Prince prior to him embarking on the Parade tour. He was going to be away from his studio for a good length of time and needed a work tape to listen to while he was away.
2) After the break up of the Revolution, Prince didn’t want to simply scrap a bunch of songs that he didn’t intend on releasing officially, so he makes a mix-tape and starts handing them out like candy to anyone who wants a copy, hoping it will leak out to the larger fan base (which it did, all be it segmented). He later had a change of heart about a few tracks and added them to Camille to make Crystal Ball.
3) It was nothing to do with Prince or Ingrid, but was put together by a former band mate or staff member, and it somehow ended up leaking.

One last point of interest. The cassette in Ingrid’s possession (the Maxell XLII with gold label) was manufactured in 1985, so there is a chance that this could in fact be the original master and not a copy! I’m more inclined to believe it is one of many copies, but you never know. I did reach out to Ingrid on Twitter for some more info but I’ve yet to receive a response.

Please let me know what you think.

UPDATE 19/03/2021

Here are my notes on which version are included on the cassette. These version are consistent across ‘Chocolate Box’, ‘Wonderboy’, ‘1986’, ‘1987’ and ‘Box O’ Chocolates’, apart from Crystal Ball where SaTim used an updated source on ‘1987’

1) Crystal Ball (unreleased edit with strings – not the long version)
2) Last Heart (As released)
3) Strange Relationship (Dream Factory edit)
4) Others Here With Us (Early Parade version - assumed)
5) Old Friends 4 Sale (Early Parade version – assumed) ...segues into...
6) All My Dreams (Early Parade version - assumed)
7) Wonderful Ass (Wendy and Lisa version)
8) Neon Telephone
9) Witness (early version without backing vocals or horns)
10) Movie Star (uncut version as also found on Dream Factory) ...segues into...
11) A Place In Heaven (Prince vocal. Movie Star dialogue included over intro)
12) Starfish and Coffee (Dream Factory edit without bell)
13) The Ballad Of Dorothy Parker (As released)
14) Joy In Repetition (unsegued)
15) Data Bank (finished mix)
16) Girl Of My Dreams ...segues into...
17) Can’t Stop This Feeling I Got ...segues into...
18) We Can Funk (Version included as part of the trio. Not the revised mix.)
19) All Day All Night (finished mix)

[Edited 3/19/21 12:57pm]

VaultCurator said:

Please let me know what you think.

I think this is one of the highest quality threads on the org I've read for a along time. Bravo.

I think you're overthinking it. This is Chocolate Box and Wonder Boy highlights compiled on one tape.

bluegangsta said:

VaultCurator said:

Please let me know what you think.

I think this is one of the highest quality threads on the org I've read for a along time. Bravo.

Thank you BlueGangsta.

TwiliteKid said:

I think you're overthinking it. This is Chocolate Box and Wonder Boy highlights compiled on one tape.

I did consider that. However, if that was the case it's a huge coincidence that 'Hot Chocolate', 'T's 1986' and 'Box O Chocolates' all just happen to have tracks from both Wonderboy and Chocolate Box, as lower generation tapes in the case of the latter too. In each case they always appear to be from the same source.

Also, the last track on side A is 'Witness' and turn over to side B and the next two tracks are 'Movie Star' and 'A Place In Heaven'. Three songs that traditionally appear in sequence together.

VaultCurator said:

I bought the Chocolate Box in '80. IMHO the second half of the album seems to be mixed, songs are not random outtakes put together but there is a flow in succession. Prince did this? The bootleger? Dunno.

EnDoRpHn said:

A few flaws in your theory: 1) Why would Prince, an associated artist, or anyone on his staff use a typewriter to make a cassette label (and make glaring typos in the titles)? 2) As someone else said, all of this content is on early bootlegs, copies of which I saw in commercial outlets on the east coast in the fall of 1987. 3) The bootlegger you reference was not around Paisley Park that early.

Hi EnDoRpHn. Just to go through your points.

“Why would Prince, an associated artist, or anyone on his staff use a typewriter to make a cassette label (and make glaring typos in the titles)?”

With regards to the typos on the label. It seems as if some of these titles have been shortened for space reasons.

‘Witness 4 The Prosecution’. OK, they could have gone down to a new line like they did with Starfish and Coffee, but ‘Witness’ works and keeps it to one line.

The space in Star Fish and Coffee. Yeah, I can’t explain that one.

‘Ballad of Dorothy Parker’, ‘Joy In Repetition’ and ‘Can’t Stop This Feeling I Got’ were all too long to fit on the label so they may have been deliberately shortened.

Maybe I’m reaching here.

“As someone else said, all of this content is on early bootlegs, copies of which I saw in commercial outlets on the east coast in the fall of 1987.”

That is true. Let’s say for the sake of argument that Ingrid’s tape is nothing but a bunch of bootlegs. Even so, isn’t it odd that 19 songs appeared on a wave of bootlegs in the late 80s / early 90s (Wonderboy and Hot Chocolate etc.) in dreadful quality, and then the same 19 tracks are released again by one person in better quality a decade later (‘1986’ and ‘1987’)? Did he happen to come across better sources of all 19 tracks separately? Or is it more likely that he got his hands on a compilation tape closer to the original source?

“The bootlegger you reference was not around Paisley Park that early.”

So he either managed to get copies of these 19 songs during his time at Paisley Park, or he met someone who had a better quality copy of this ADAN cassette. Could have been either or.

I could be wrong about all of this, but I'm still not convinced either way.

It seems to me this tape is a dupe of what became a source for the bootlegs (though it's possible it was the original source tape).

It would have either originated from Prince, or from someone around the studios is my guess.

The XLII dates back earlier than 1985 for what it's worth. http://vintagecassettes.c...maxell.htm

Mix wise it seems like something Prince might select for Ingrid, or another Ingrid type figure in his life (and maybe he recycled it).

I can't picture an associated artist buying the bootlegs and making their own mix, but if someone did, it's more likely they passed it around instead of it being something Ingrid created.

As for the quality of the boots, sometimes the dubs or the quality of the mastering would make them sound worse than they were. Like the person who duped off a Maxell gold was using a generic cheap tape, or recording over something.

(Alternatively, "from back in the day" might not mean what we think and it could just be she got this many years later after losing touch with Prince, and still remained a fan of the old material, and was looking for unreleased things she'd heard while living at Paisley. That would mean it was put on an old tape though).

VaultCurator said:

Interesting thread, VaultCurator!

What I find the most surprising is that Ingrid uses the correct names for all the songs. As You said yourself, the old bootlegs contained a lot of title errors.

My oldest (studio) bootleg is the 3LP-Box Royal Jewels from 1989 which also features (as LP3) the exact same sequence as the B-side of Ingrid's tape, but "She wants a place..." is just called "Heaven", "Data Bank" is called "Pretty Face" and "We can funk" features as "We can Fall".

On the Crucial bootleg (and for a long time coming) "Last Heart" was called "Break my Heart" (later: "If U break my heart 1 more time" and such), and it was "Girl IN my dreams".

So, if the tape is really "from back in the day" and sourced from bootlegs, why did she get the titles correct?

It would be interesting to know about the first song on the tape, "Crystal Ball". Of course, the song we know today under this title was formerly known as "Expert Lover" (or, on Royal Jewels, "Export Lover"), and "Crystal Ball" was wrongly used as the title for what is now known as "The Ball". But probably, as she also got the rest of the titles right, it is indeed the real "Crystal Ball"?

kindofblue said:

lavendardrummachine said:

It seems to me this tape is a dupe of what became a source for the bootlegs (though it's possible it was the original source tape).

It would have either originated from Prince, or from someone around the studios is my guess.

The XLII dates back earlier than 1985 for what it's worth. http://vintagecassettes.c...maxell.htm

Mix wise it seems like something Prince might select for Ingrid, or another Ingrid type figure in his life (and maybe he recycled it).

I can't picture an associated artist buying the bootlegs and making their own mix, but if someone did, it's more likely they passed it around instead of it being something Ingrid created.

As for the quality of the boots, sometimes the dubs or the quality of the mastering would make them sound worse than they were. Like the person who duped off a Maxell gold was using a generic cheap tape, or recording over something.

(Alternatively, "from back in the day" might not mean what we think and it could just be she got this many years later after losing touch with Prince, and still remained a fan of the old material, and was looking for unreleased things she'd heard while living at Paisley. That would mean it was put on an old tape though).

Hi lavendardrummachine. Thank you for this reply. We seem to be thinking along similar lines.

kindofblue said:

Interesting thread, VaultCurator!

What I find the most surprising is that Ingrid uses the correct names for all the songs. As You said yourself, the old bootlegs contained a lot of title errors.

Thank you kindofblue. I agree, but to play devil's advocate with myself it's perfectly possible that she made a mixtape from some bootleg material and through being more familiar with Prince's work, she was able to correct the title errors.

coldcoffeeandcocacola said:

Vault curator fantastic thread and I wondered for the exact same reasons as above poster as the titles are right if this is THE cryetzl ball

Thank you coldcoffeeandcocacola. I can confirm that tracks 1 is indeed the genuine Crystal Ball with strings and the "Brothers and sisters of the purple underground" segment. Again, this supports to the idea that it was compiled before November '86 as it's longer than the album edit from the 'Crystal Ball' album.

In fact, they were both labeled 'Expert Lover' on both Wonderboy (1990) and Hot Chocolate (1990).

[Edited 3/18/21 4:38am]

Great thread.

In regard to the Chocolate Box release date, I think I got it either at the end of 87 or early 88. I can see it in picture of my bedroom taken around March 88.

However, I did hear a tape version of the content in the same configuration a couple of months before and this would pre-date Blue Tuesday.

Most of the leaks around the time seemed to contain multiple tracks in a pre-sequenced order, suggesting they came from early work tapes, rather than a compilation of seperate tracks. Seperate tracks did leak, but they often came on their own tapes. 'Heaven' is a good example. It was only when they were compiled for vinyl releases that leaks were merged.

On the early boot tapes, the segues remained.

Following the evidence (the photo, VC's pulling togther the facts known), I'd be surprised if this tape wasn't an early working cut of the project that became Crystal Ball, and Ingrid was simplly given an out of date cassette that was sitting around for 12-18 months. Things to note:

The version of Joy pre-dates the edit on Crystal Ball.

The SOTT tracks and all the others point to the track listing being compiled in the summer of 86.

The title 'All Day All night' has already proven to be a potential concept, rather than a simple track. It was the France concept period in 2009. This is much like how Crystal Ball or Rave got re-used.

Although the titles are typed (and correct), a bootlegger probably didn't have access to the packaging and had to guess the titles.

It's quite possibly Prince's handwriting on the tape itself. Particularly the word 'Prince', which is similar to the Gett Off cover.

This cassette is much more revolution focused that Crystal Ball. Could this be the second 'In the can' Prince and the Revolution' album that was referred to back in 1998?

Has "Joy in Repitition" the standalone version ever been leaked in more pristine form? Many of these other tracks that were still unreleased up until the recent posthumous deluxe editions, but had leaked in close to pritine quality.

(Ah those early days of discovering the vinyls of "Chocolate Box" and "Charade" - such nostalgia)

I might give those a spin today!

ufoclub said:

SquirrelMeat said:

i had a very similar mail-order tape in the late 80's

i never over-thought the original source, though.

Hmmm

From an insider:

.

So, way back when all of this stuff became available…. This was the track configuration that it all came out in.

.

[...]

.

This is what I’ve always considered “Crystal Ball”, I’ve acquired multiple copies of this basic configuration from several sources, some of which being part of the Prince world at the time.

.

To note, one copy - which did come from a very close associate of Prince’s - had the early 1982 outtakes on one as well. “Feel U Up, “irresistible”, “Possessed”, etc. So, side 1 being the 1982 songs…. And side 2 being side 2 of this tape.

.

VaultCurator said:

BartVanHemelen said:

Just wanted to add that in those days a typed out index was usually to look professional/formal, or to hide your hand writing so pirated material couldn't be traced.

An A&R wasn't walking around with scribbled titles on demos, they were all typed then.

I agree that does look like Prince's writing on the label, or someone imitating it.

lavendardrummachine said:

Just wanted to add that in those days a typed out index was usually to look professional/formal, or to hide your hand writing so pirated material couldn't be traced.

An A&R wasn't walking around with scribbled titles on demos, they were all typed then.

I agree that does look like Prince's writing on the label, or someone imitating it.

.

The label is from much later.

lavendardrummachine said:

BartVanHemelen said:

bwaaatch said:

BartVanHemelen said:

.

The label is from much later.

This is interesting, Bart. If you are protecting a source, can you tell us any more without repercussions? Are you saying the label is definitely not Prince’s hand?

.

I was mistaken about the label being from much later (though it is from much later than the tape). Quoting an expert:

.

the hand-written label on the cassette itself is actually from a Sony UX cassette that wasn't available before 1988. (There was an earlier release of UX but that one had a narrower sticker than this one.)

[Edited 3/18/21 16:53pm]

bwaaatch said:

1999 has a similar style. Perhaps this is what ‘record/cassette sleeve Prince’ looks like? Is his normal handwriting visible on any records?

Yeah, it's almost like the handwriting Prince logos that showed up. It's on the Prince Originals cover. We see it on the Camille records at auction. U Got the Look and Sign O the Times single (lower case e though) and some tour booklets I think. It's still possible it's someone imitating his handwriting, which is funny to think of, but the 80's were like that.

BartVanHemelen said:

bwaaatch said:

BartVanHemelen said:

.

I was mistaken about the label being from much later (though it is from much later than the tape). Quoting an expert:

.

the hand-written label on the cassette itself is actually from a Sony UX cassette that wasn't available before 1988. (There was an earlier release of UX but that one had a narrower sticker than this one.)

[Edited 3/18/21 16:53pm]

It's from a Sony UX tape not a Maxell and it's likely from 1986-87 or 1988.

[Edited 3/18/21 17:17pm]

So if this all points to Prince himself having compiled this tape - where would Y'all place it in the whole Dream Factory / Crystal Ball / SOTT timeline?

SquirrelMeat said:

Great thread.

In regard to the Chocolate Box release date, I think I got it either at the end of 87 or early 88. I can see it in picture of my bedroom taken around March 88.

However, I did hear a tape version of the content in the same configuration a couple of months before and this would pre-date Blue Tuesday.

Most of the leaks around the time seemed to contain multiple tracks in a pre-sequenced order, suggesting they came from early work tapes, rather than a compilation of seperate tracks. Seperate tracks did leak, but they often came on their own tapes. 'Heaven' is a good example. It was only when they were compiled for vinyl releases that leaks were merged.

On the early boot tapes, the segues remained.

Following the evidence (the photo, VC's pulling togther the facts known), I'd be surprised if this tape wasn't an early working cut of the project that became Crystal Ball, and Ingrid was simplly given an out of date cassette that was sitting around for 12-18 months. Things to note:

The version of Joy pre-dates the edit on Crystal Ball.

The SOTT tracks and all the others point to the track listing being compiled in the summer of 86.

The title 'All Day All night' has already proven to be a potential concept, rather than a simple track. It was the France concept period in 2009. This is much like how Crystal Ball or Rave got re-used.

Although the titles are typed (and correct), a bootlegger probably didn't have access to the packaging and had to guess the titles.

It's quite possibly Prince's handwriting on the tape itself. Particularly the word 'Prince', which is similar to the Gett Off cover.

This cassette is much more revolution focused that Crystal Ball. Could this be the second 'In the can' Prince and the Revolution' album that was referred to back in 1998?

Hi everyone.

So just to follow up on this. I started listening to the older bootlegs of this cassette just to make notes on which versions of each track were included and I stumbled at the first hurdle with ‘Crystal Ball’.
It turns out that the version on here is unique to this leak and is possibly Prince’s first attempt at an edit after Clare Ficher’s contribution had been made.

Differences of note:

The drum solo after the ‘Mathematical gas’ part is 8 bars long (as it was on the original uncut version before the strings were added). This is the only time that the drum solo is presented in full with the strings since both the ‘long version’ and the officially released album edit only have a 6 bar drum solo.

The ‘Sisters and Brothers’ part is also different both in terms of the edit and the mix.

Initially this part is the same while Susannah delivers her ‘Sisters and Brothers’ monologue. However during the orchestral build up that follows, the kick drum is buried so low in the mix that it’s virtually inaudible. The words ‘Maybe not’ are muted and then the final bass segment where she whispers ‘Expert’ twice is cut completely. It cuts straight from the orchestra build up to the drum roll.

I've started a thread with more details on all known version of Crystal Ball here (https://prince.org/msg/7/466274)

I assumed that the version of ‘Crystal Ball’ on SaTim’s 1987 was from this ‘All Day All Night’ tape as many of the other tracks were, however he instead chose to replace it with the more complete version. As such (as far as I can tell) this unique edit only exists in pretty poor quality on releases such as ‘Wonderboy’ (1990) and ‘Hot Chocolate’ (1990).

If anyone knows of any other instance where this version appears on later bootlegs (ideally in better sound quality) please give me a heads up. Thanks in advance.