I know Prince worked very closely with Wendy and Lisa. And there was talk that after he let them go, that Prince's music suffered. I don't belive that. What do you think?

That topic is bigger than Wendy & Lisa, before and after.

If you look at what they actually contributed to, it wasn't that much on record. But what they did was very special.

They are definately musical collaborators who brought something to Prince's music he couldn't have achieved without them.

Remember though, think of the great albums he made without them: For You, Prince, Dirty Mind, Controversy, 1999, Lovesexy.

I think a lot of silly shit broke them apart and they still could have had some ground to break and some fantastic music to make.

But we can't 'what if' for ever - if they had stayed together, eventually they would have out-grown each other, and the music would have gotten stale, and there would be countless threads about how they brought Prince's music down.

Probably just as important as their contribution to the Revolution, Wendy and Lisa exposed Prince to a lot of artists and genres he had never listened to before, according to some bios I read. The psychedelic rock and eastern influences that are prominent on ATWIAD and later work can be traced back to them and the music they turned him on to. I wouldn't say his work suffered without them, he just grew in different directions. But it was a fruitful collaboration. He could benefit from letting in some outside influences again. Preferably not someone in a cult.

NouveauDance said:

I agree. P worked closely with Andre, Dez and Fink. They added a lot his sound also.

Wendy and Lisa were the "pinnacle collaborators" for Prince. What alot of fans don't understand is that Prince turned alot of the production duties over to them during the hiatus between the post production of the movie Purple Rain all the way thru to Sign "o" the times. Basically and this is a quote from wendy, Prince was out being a superstar and filming movies and he was sending them unfinished demos or "skeletons" of songs and they were completing them. They even brought the brother of Lisa, David Coleman in on production.

AND THAT"S WHERE ALL THE PROBLEMS BEGAN!!!!

Princes personal manager Steve Fargnoli started seeing the royalties slip to them for writing and production. The less money Prince made, the less money he got paid.Potentially millions of dollars in royalties would walk out of Princes hands,ultimately that hand was controlled by Fargnoli.I believe their firing was at his urging. He was not retained as Manager for Wendy and Lisa after the split.When Purple Rain broke EVERBODY got famous, even Jellybean. But "they" were all under separate production contracts with Prince not "personal"(emphasis on personal) Management agreements with the C,R,F.Steve Fargnoli was the reason for Princes demise in the late 80's. They both sued each other and Fargnoli got greedy. There was also an argument over who originally coined the band as the "Revolution".Which I heard was Lisa Colemans idea as the band name going back to 1980.Warner never wanted to promote Prince as a member of a band it was always about the solo marketing.Hence the return of only Prince being billed on SOTT,Black Album, Love Sexy and GrafittiBridge.The way C,R,and F wanted it in the 1st place. Not until he fired Steve Fargnoli did he go back to being billed along with a band on Diamonds anf Pearls etc....Bottom line they were fired over money and that ruined a great trio of musical collaborators.Hopefully soon will see them all together again.

I think in the studio..they added a lot. Live, as I have been witnessing over the years..not that great. The shows had more focus on perfomance than they do now. I think they also pushed buttons that current band members don't.

Also at the time hanging with these guys would be David Coleman, Jonathan Melvoin, Susannah...all of the other proteges. When W&L were fired...many of the other players went too as they were all family and friends. It was a very prolific period where they all fed into each others energy. And though they are not documented...they did create a lot of songs with the guy (lisa is quoted once as saying how they recoded hundreds of song over the course of a year) Some of it is circulating in the Boots. Right around the time of D&P pretty much all of the proteges were gone and those that were left were then part of the band.

No one around here has mentioned a certian aspect of the W&L phenom. That would be the vocal harmonization, which I think was very intrinsic to his sound. I don't think he has ever found that match vocally since. Sometimes the right combination of voices produce a sound one cannot ever copy. Band Like Abba and Mamaa and the poppas (I know bad comparisons...I just can't think of any others) are good examples of this type vocal harmony.

I think many of us like them for how they sounded with P. He also gave them exposure unlike the other band mambers and I think that's also where some of the mystique lies.

It all depends on what Prince music you liked. They certainly added something great to the mix. Gems like Power Fantastic, All My Dreams, and various ATWIAD and Parade cuts wouldn't have existed without them. The song Purple Rain as we know it wouldn't be the same. The 1999 album, the previous albums and songs like When Doves Cry and The Beautiful Ones don't owe much if anything creatively to them so I believe things would have been interesting if he had gone in another direction but I'm glad things worked out as they did. For all we know he might have lost interest in music and succumbed to drugs and booze without ever having met these ladies who became more than bandmembers.

I guess I'm saying that they didn't make him who he was but they did make him better. Or rather they made eachother better. I really need to back away from the Prince universe for a while.

By the way, anything done after their time together owes something to them. Those of us who love SOTT, Grafitti Bridge, and TRC must also thank Wendy and Lisa for helping the man grow as a person and musician. Of course they also have to take some blame for Jughead and NPS.
[This message was edited Mon Apr 26 18:24:40 2004 by whodknee]

blackguitaristz said:

I think Wendy and Lisa's biggest contribution to Prince was through image. That fact that they were females and white really helped his band embody what his music was about.IMO Blurring all the lines that separate people. Race, gender, religion etc. I don't know who exactly wrote what, but I do know seeing them all jaming together on stage was really sexy and cool. I also loved hearing their voices mixed in with his funk. Their presence really helped to set Prince apart from all others and transcend R/B and Soul. They don't get enough credit for the cross over success of Purple Rain.

I think they added alot, the look of the bands image but also the rock influnced sound. Just listen to Wendy's licks on Sheryl Crow's "My Favorite Mistake" and you can see how she influenced "Purple Rain."
[This message was edited Mon Apr 26 18:57:25 2004 by DMSR]

Uptown Magazine (great as usual) did an amazing article that interviewed them a while back (97 or so). I think their influence is pretty obvious and his music changed because of their influence.

It is sad that David Coleman recently passed away. I think he was behind alot of the additional sound as well. How come I am not hearing much about his passing?

NouveauDance said:

Other than LoveSexy, I think it's interesting to look at Prince's album releases if you remove those that have heavy involvement by W&L. They added something to the music that is absent both before and after them. You can feel and see their influence even in SOTT, but by the early 90's P was back to basics in a way for the most part...

Looking at just the W&L era albums, you see an entirely different picture. There was a certain experimental sophistication there that is unmatched by any other albums... Prince could never have done something like Parade without them.

I tend to wonder what Musicology would have sounded like with their involvement.