My brother lives in Stockholm, and he bought and sent me a Black Album CD in 88. I was wondering if anyone else out there had it too? The cover art has his face with his hand splitting his face down the middle. The backside of the CD lists the tracks, and there is a pic of him and Sheila E arm in arm. The CD has the Black Album tracks (good quality), but it also has extra songs listed under the header Crystal Ball. All the tracks are of rather poor recording quality. They are: Witness, Wonderful Ass, Heaven, Movie Star, Can't Stop This Feeling I Got, We Can Funk. Does anyone else have this version?

I actually do have this version. I ordered a lot of Prince cd's from Ebay and it had the Black Album listed and when they came they had included this version. I was planning on giving it to someone but I didn't want them to have such a poor version when the official release was available.

Wow, that takes me back!

That was the first bootleg I ever had in about 92/93.

I didn't even have all the official albums upto that point.

Yes, I have that one too. It was one of my first bootlegs. I bought it in 1990/1991. The CD itself says "Cristopher, the complete sessions" to hide the fact that this a Prince bootleg.

Compared with the artwork we have now (Sabotage/GF) this one looks very cheap. Three b/w pictures, the one with Prince and the band next to the stadium (Feijenoord stadium R'dam?) is very dark, you can hardly see their faces. The lyrics of the songs in the booklet is nice though.

Yup, that's the one. So has he ever re-recorded Witness and Wonderful Ass? The other songs on there have popped up in other recordings, like Crystal Ball. But I've never heard a good quality version of those two, and they are both killer tunes.

My first ever bootleg! The guy in the record store where I bought it was acting so funny and looking suspiciously from side to side when he handed it over. Really paranoid. Maybe bootlegs weren´t as common in the early nineties?

Anyway I think it´s a very good release. Most bootlegs only have a few good studio outtakes on them and then a bunch of live tracks with lousy quality just to fill out the space. This one is a solid listening experience. The only Prince bootleg I like better is The Jewel Box.

By the way, anybody knows from where that cover photo is taken? I´ve never seen it anywhere but on that bootleg.

EARLUBAD said:

I know that Witness exists in at least two versions, possibly even three. Sometimes when people list it as their favourite outtake they specify which version it is. I´ve never heard any other versions of Wonderful Ass though. Ask languebleu. He seems to be an expert on the subject (outtakes, not wonderful asses )

Yeah, there's 2 versions of Wonderful Ass

version 1 is 6:15
version 2 is 10:02
they're both very similar sounding, with only minor
differences in instrumentation (and of course length)

and there's 3 versions of Witness 4 The Prosecution

version 1 is 3:57, and is the unfinished Dream Factory
version of the song.

version 2 is also 3:57, and is the finished Dream Factory
version of the song, and includes extra backing vocals,
horns and instrumentation.

version 3 is 4:38, and is a completely different re-recording
of the track featuring different lyrics and funkier, more
stripped down instrumentation.
.
[This message was edited Thu Jun 19 15:13:06 PDT 2003 by BorisFishpaw]

Witness 4 The Prosecution is an interesting track because of the two versions - one pre and one post Revolution - so he obviously thought it a strong track.

It shows the evolution of his sound from the 1986 period, to the post-Revolution 1987 period of Madhouse and the Black Album, which the 2nd version relates to in instrumentation.

That's an old ass boot. I got's it. Cruddy sound on the out-takes.

Vibrator said:

Are they that common now? There is just a whole world out there I don't know about!

VinnyM27 said:

Well, it depends on where in the world you are of course, but I would have expected there to be a lot of "underground" record stores in a town full of young people like Ann Arbour (nice town by the way!). Here in Stockholm you just have to avoid the major stores and immediately the prices drop at least 20% and you can find bootlegs in every other shelf.

EARLUBAD said:

I have this CD. The main LP was taken from a vynal and actually sounds really good for a boot.

It also has the best quality Girl O' my dreams / Can't Stop This Feeling I Got / We Can Funk set I've ever heard. It's better than any of the ones on the Thunderball CDs