Prince Protégées Who Deserve A Second Peep

I recently came across a very interesting site on the blogosphere: The Beautiful Nights Blog, created by K. Nicola Dyes. As a lifelong Prince fan, I find this site to be a treasure trove, since it features interviews with many of the talented artists who have worked with him over the years. 

The name of the site, of course, is taken from Prince's infectious party jam "It's Gonna Be a Beautiful Night" from his '87 Sign o' the Times album.

Reading through the interviews on the site got me thinking about all the talented artists who have been deemed "Prince protégées" over the years. Many of the artists had a couple of minor hits, but never really broke out and became big stars.

A common theme among many of the artists is that their music is a hybrid of so many different styles that it was hard to market to a particular demographic. Their hard-to-categorize music had record execs and radio deejays scratching their heads and wondering, "Is it R&B? Rock? Pop? Who will listen to it? Everyone? No one?" 

Even legendary percussionist Sheila E., a working musician long before and after her time with Prince, has said she didn't like being forced to pick a "bin" for record stores to file her music in when she made her solo debut with '84's smash hit, The Glamorous Life. But Warner Bros. convinced her that she needed to pick the R&B bin, even though her music has such a heavy Latin jazz influence.

(You can read my review of Sheila's excellent new album Icon at this link: http://chrisbournea.blogspot.com/2014/08/icon-sheila-e-releases-new-album-memoir.html, and my review of her memoir, To the Beat of My Own Drum, is available at this link: http://chrisbournea.blogspot.com/2014/10/some-beats-about-sheila-es-memoir.html)

Here are a few of my theories on how some of the talented Prince protégées could have reached a wider audience:

The Family. This group never gets proper credit for their original 1985 recording of the ballad "Nothing Compares 2 U," which Prince wrote and Sinead O'Connor covered in 1990. O'Connor's version, of course, was the one that became a huge hit.

 

The Family came  together after The Time broke up when Morris Day decided to pursue a solo career, having garnered much-deserved attention for stealing many a scene in Purple Rain. Time members, singer/percussionist Jerome Benton, drummer Garry George "Jellybean" Johnson, and singer/keyboardist Paul "St. Paul" Peter joined saxophonist Eric Leeds and singer Susannah Melvoin (twin sister of Revolution guitarist Wendy Melvoin) to form The Family.

"When the Time disbanded, we all felt bad, because, they were a bad-ass band. But, everybody wanted to play and Prince wanted to hear people play," Melvoin told Beautiful Nights.

"He was also in a place where he was fertile with music. He said, 'We're like a big family here... I'm going to get [Peterson], because, people don't realize what a bad-ass singer he is. You guys will be the lead singers in the band. We're gonna do this, we're gonna play together. How about that?'”

The group released their 1985 self-titled debut album on Prince's Paisley Park Records and scored a minor hit with the song "Screams of Passion." After the group disbanded in '86 after just one album, Prince incorporated several members into an expanded version of the Revolution, which is featured in the music video for "Mountains."  

The Family could have gone on to greater success if they had stayed together and opened for Prince on his world tour for Parade, the soundtrack to the movie Under the Cherry Moon.

Good news for fans of The Family: the members have reunited in recent years under the name fDeluxe, released new albums, Gaslight and AM Static, and have been playing live dates (check out this video of the group performing "Screams of Passion" in New York City). For more information, visit http://www.fdeluxe.com/.

Mazarati. This group scored a couple of hits from their self-titled '85 Paisley Park album, including "Player's Ball" and "100 MPH." Mazarati's music was primarily played on BET and R&B stations, but the group's sound was a unique hybrid of Dazz Band-style funk and '80s "hair metal" similar to Quiet Riot ("Cum on Feel the Noize").

 

Mazarati could have experienced greater success if it had teamed up with other groups who fuse rock, funk and R&B like Fishbone and Living Colour. A world tour featuring these unique acts would have been a real treat for the legions of overlooked black rock fans around the world.  

 

Jill Jones. My fellow Ohio native has a long history with Prince. She can be seen singing background in her lingerie in his "1999" music video alongside keyboardist Lisa Coleman. She also played the First Avenue Club waitress in Purple Rain and one of "The Kid's" love interests in 1990's Graffiti Bridge (which was kind of a sequel to Purple Rain).

In 1987, Jones' self-titled debut album was released on Paisley Park. Prince's distinctive production style and even his background vocals can be heard throughout the album on the funky "Mia Bocca," jazzy "Violet Blue" and, of course, her cover of the sentimental ballad "With You."

(Prince originally recorded "With You" for his self-titled '79 sophomore album. It's a rarity in that it's a Prince song with a bit of a country flavor to it, similar to Madonna's "Crazy For You.") 

 

Jones could have reached a wider audience if, instead of an R&B artist, she had been marketed as a pop/rock singer in the style of Pat Benatar, The Bangles lead singer Susanna Hoffs, and Patty Smyth, lead singer of Scandal (known for hits such as "The Warrior" and "Goodbye to You"). Jones' strong rock influence can be heard on songs such as "All Day, All Night" from her Paisley Park album.

Jill Jones told Beautiful Nights that her mixed-race heritage is partly why her debut album didn't catch on with the public - she wasn't "black enough" for black fans, nor was she "white enough" for white fans.

"It was a really ace album, but, the timing was way off. I don't think everyone was ready for it. Radio wasn't looking for it," Jones said. "There's a rap convention in Atlanta that I went to and people came up to me saying, 'You're black? I didn't know you were black! I would've played your record.' I just came back to Prince, like, 'Should I just get a tan?' White people somehow knew I was black and they said, 'I'm not playing that house Negro on the radio.'"

This is an interesting dilemma, since Prince has always been able to seamlessly blend musical styles, cross racial boundaries and appeal to people from all walks of life. But somehow, this transcendent quality didn't translate to the artists he tried to groom for success.