Althouse: "'Piano & a Microphone 1983' contains nine songs that were recorded on a cassette at [Prince's] home studio..."

September 20, 2018

"'Piano & a Microphone 1983' contains nine songs that were recorded on a cassette at [Prince's] home studio..."

"... the year before 'Purple Rain' would multiply the size of his audience. It’s just Prince on his own (with an engineer) for about 35 minutes, brainstorming while tape ran, segueing from song to song until it was time to turn over the cassette.... The album feels like eavesdropping, as Prince the songwriter delves into nuances and Prince the pianist cuts loose. He’s exploring and playing around, not constructing taut commercial tracks.... The album includes familiar songs (a brief excerpt from 'Purple Rain'), B-sides ('17 Days,' which was the B-side of the single 'When Doves Cry' in its band version), album tracks ('Strange Relationship,' 'International Lover'), covers (Joni Mitchell’s 'A Case of You,' the gospel standard 'Mary Don’t You Weep'), and previously unreleased songs and sketches ('Wednesday,' 'Cold Coffee & Cocaine' and 'Why the Butterflies.')... For Prince, it was just another night in the studio, an unfinished rough draft he saw no reason to release. Now that he’s gone, it’s a glimpse of a notoriously private artist doing his mysterious work."

Writes Jon Pareles (NYT).

You can buy "Piano & a Microphone 1983" at Amazon — here.

33 comments:

Anthony said...: He seems to have been a spectacularly talented musician but I don’t like his songs very much.; 9/20/18, 5:56 PM
D 2 said...: I like these evening posts that can be semi-tied back to musing what music was on the stereo That Night in the Summer of Possibly '82.

Last night, riffing off Judge's off comment about some moonlit-y-ness of Van, I crossed off V Morrison's Vanlose Stairway. Which is a great song btw.
Perhaps, to help this investigative process along, someone can ask if Prince's 1999 was playing at the party. That Prince album was released in the fall of '82, so that might illuminate the possible timeline.
Because I would bet a few nickels that 1999 made itself into heavy rotation at prep school drinking pool parties that late fall; 9/20/18, 6:08 PM
D 2 said...: Anthony: I find listening to Prince's music from the 80s, it seems very wedded to the times it became popular. Might just be me.; 9/20/18, 6:11 PM
Bay Area Guy said...: Purple Rain was about 35 years ago, so I was late teens. It was a big deal back then. My vague recollection was that Michael Jackson, Bruce Springsteen and Prince were the big 3.; 9/20/18, 6:42 PM
madAsHell said...: Opiates were his muse until they killed him. No one knows how Keef got through it.; 9/20/18, 6:42 PM
madAsHell said...: I'm guessing that Prince's purple penis guitar is going to the Smithsonian.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry.; 9/20/18, 6:50 PM
Roughcoat said...: Concerning Keith Richards, there are only three plausible explanations for his survival:

1. Pact with the devil

2. He actually has an iron constitution

3. He is immortal -- a member of the Tuck family (of "Tuck Everlasting")

I think 1 and 2 are likely, but I'm not ruling out 3.; 9/20/18, 6:53 PM
D 2 said...: By the time of Purple Rain, to rip the line from Wayne's World re P Frampton - a few songs from that album/tape was likely mandatory to play at all summer teenage drinking pool parties.
I could never spell Appolonia. Still can't, likely.; 9/20/18, 6:58 PM
Bay Area Guy said...: Speaking of Keith Richards, have you read the lyrics to "Brown Sugar"? It would instantly trigger many a college student today:

Gold Coast slave ship bound for cotton fields
Sold in the market down in New Orleans
Scarred old slaver knows he's doin' all right
Hear him whip the women just around midnight

Brown Sugar, how come you taste so good
Brown Sugar, just like a young girl should

Drums beatin' cold, English blood runs hot
Lady of the house wonderin' when it's gonna stop
House boy knows that he's doin' all right
You should have heard him just around midnight

Brown Sugar, how come you taste so good
Brown Sugar, just like a young girl should
Brown Sugar, how come you dance so good
Brown Sugar, just like a black girl should

I bet your mama was a Cajun Queen,
And all her boyfriends were sweet sixteen
I'm no school boy but I know what I like
You should have heard them just around midnight

Brown Sugar, how come you taste so good
Brown Sugar, just like a black girl should

I said, yeah, yeah, yeah, wooo
How come you, how come you dance so good
Yeah, yeah, yeah, wooo
Just like a, just like a black girl should
Yeah, yeah, yeah, wooo; 9/20/18, 7:03 PM
madAsHell said...: Scarred old slaver

You should read Keith's book. Some great anecdotes, but I think it was transcribed directly from the recorded interview. Frequently, you are left wondering what was lost in gesticulation?; 9/20/18, 7:24 PM
BudBrown said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 9/20/18, 7:59 PM
Ezekiel Flenser said...: I live in Minneapolis, where the weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth over the loss of Prince will never end. He was our civic religion.

What shall we do without him? OK, he was good at constructing grooves; that was his only significant strength as an artist. But his lyrics might as well have been excerpts from the diary of a thirteen-year-old girl. And there is no major pop artist in any genre who has ever written weaker melodies than he did. The Ramones were Mozart compared to Prince.

Some months ago, the local public radio station was playing blocs of three songs by various artists, and of course Prince had his turn. Within his bloc of songs, it was impossible to know which song we were on -- first? second? third? -- because the melodies were indistinguishable.

Prince's popularity is Exhibit A in the story of white people trying to prove they're not racist by exhibiting admiration for black people.; 9/20/18, 9:33 PM
Sprezzatura said...: "Prince's popularity is Exhibit A in the story of white people trying to prove they're not racist by exhibiting admiration for black people."

This is an odd statement. IMHO.

"white people trying to prove"

If I try to "prove" that 1 + 1 = 2, I don't gots ta cause the integer 2 is a definition, likewise 1. IOW, If I gots one P grabbed and I grab another P, I'm double POTUS. Err....maybe I've got something mixed up.

Math is tricky.; 9/20/18, 10:22 PM
steve uhr said...: Ezekiel. Watch his super bowl performance in a downpour. Or his solo in Why My Guitar Gently Weeps in the tribute to George Harrison (and the joy on the face of George's kid). Blacks and Whites love Prince for the same reason - he is an amazing talent, a genius. But you want to turn it into a racial issue. Yawn; 9/20/18, 11:29 PM
Unknown said...: I like this song.
cheap ammo; 9/21/18, 12:02 AM
The Crack Emcee said...: Bay Area Guy said...

"Speaking of Keith Richards, have you read the lyrics to "Brown Sugar"? It would instantly trigger many a college student today:"

Nope, I got no idea why The Rolling Stones don't have a big black audience,...; 9/21/18, 12:05 AM
The Crack Emcee said...: Ezekiel Flenser said...

"What shall we do without him? OK, he was good at constructing grooves; that was his only significant strength as an artist."

Yeah, Purple Rain - good groove [rolls eyes].; 9/21/18, 12:06 AM
Yancey Ward said...: I was listening to the soundtrack of Purple Rain just this morning- was inspired to by a commercial I heard last night that used Let's Go Crazy on television (which was jarring to me since it is the first time I have every heard a Prince song used in an ad for some non-Prince related product. In any case, the album is still dazzling- almost perfect in every respect. He had lost his way musically the last 20 years he was alive, but that period between 1979 and 1990, he really could do no wrong in my view.; 9/21/18, 12:19 AM
The Crack Emcee said...: This track reminds me of a part of the Koln Concert by Keith Jarrett, an amazing piece of music. If Prince's tracks add up to even a quarter of what Jarrett was able to wring out of 88 keys, before a live audience, then it'll be quite the document.

Prince - a mostly self-taught multi-instrumentalist - conceived, wrote, produced, engineered, mixed, and performed his material, including having written hits for the Time, Vanity 6, Sinéad O'Connor, and a whole host of others. That's more than merely making grooves, my friends.

I imagine rhhardin would say those 86 "black" IQ points were working their asses off, making everybody else in Rock look stupid - by accident. So James Brown must've been an 80, and John Coltrane was a 35 - why, by the time you get down to only one IQ point - Louis Armstrong "accidentally" learned how to improv a solo, leaving "white" men and their GIGANTIC IQs in the musical dust, until they started stealing all of our ignorant ideas for themselves and claiming they're "The King".

Man, this shit is pathetic.; 9/21/18, 12:31 AM
Coach Builders India - CBI said...: Prince was pure love. I wish we still had some good music today :(; 9/21/18, 3:10 AM
sdharms said...: and anyone cares about Prince because......; 9/21/18, 5:35 AM
richlb said...: From the stories I've heard about Prince, he probably has a thousand such recordings in the vault that his estate can pump out in perpetuity for income.; 9/21/18, 6:04 AM
David Begley said...: Kavanaugh has the guy who did it. My guess he confesses on TV next week. Ed Whelan and Power Line have the story.

The perfect alibi.; 9/21/18, 6:12 AM
BUMBLE BEE said...: If you review billboard's top 100 for the year, Prince was an island of creativity. Innovation and weak competition made him stand out. Hard rockin band, arrangements, he was the man of the future. The path to opioids ultimately steals the flame from the lighthouse beacon.; 9/21/18, 6:25 AM
David Begley said...: From Forbes. Maybe a great musician but see below; not so smart.

“Prince not only died without having an estate plan in place, he hadn't even created a Will. That makes the process of settling his estate much more complicated; for example, the executor of his estate can’t divide the money among his six surviving siblings until the IRS and the executor agree on the value of the estate when Prince died.”; 9/21/18, 6:57 AM
Jaq said...: Prince’s popularity is Exhibit A in the story of white people trying to prove they're not racist by exhibiting admiration for black people.

Well, if you can’t see the artistry and beauty of it, I can imagine that that might be a way you would think about it. A black man named Chuck Berry invented Rock and Roll; brought it forth from the void like Prometheus. (OK, most of it already existed in blues music, but he brought it together into a new form) My suggestion to you would be to travel the world and look at how American pop culture is seen abroad and how pervasive it is, and notice that the thing that separates American pop culture is the contribution of American Blacks, Oh yeah, and Elvis, who was quite open about the fact that he was singing black music that black people sang better.

But his lyrics might as well have been excerpts from the diary of a thirteen-year-old girl

Well, he did write Manic Monday; 9/21/18, 7:07 AM
Jaq said...: Louis Armstrong “accidentally" learned how to improv a solo,

So Armstrong gets a credit for being one of the founders of Rock and Roll as well. But I am betting that lots of blues musicians where improvising solos as a matter of course on their cigar box guitars. I guess I will have to look into that. Improvisation is so central to music today that it’s hard to imagine music without it.; 9/21/18, 7:21 AM
The Crack Emcee said...: The earliest recording of soloing (I know of) is on the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra's "Shanghai Shuffle" featuring Louis Armstrong in 1925.; 9/21/18, 8:15 AM
The Crack Emcee said...: Coach Builders India - CBI said...

"Prince was pure love. I wish we still had some good music today :("

I don't know how anyone can say this when there's good music being made today, there was hilarious send-ups being done yesterday, and there's a lifetime of good music to still be discovered. Americans, especially, can never run out.

We are blessed, as the Christians say.; 9/21/18, 8:21 AM
Ezekiel Flenser said...: Tim in VT, I'm not indicting black pop/rockers generally. I'm indicting Prince in particular.

I think that one of the great yet insufficiently acknowledged forces in American society during my lifetime has been the desire of white people to prove they're not racists. This desire often leads them into bad places, or, in the case of Prince, silly places. (Which is not to say that white people generally _are_ racists, merely that trying to prove they're not deforms their behavior.)

Prince arrived on the scene almost precisely when everybody was giving up on Stevie Wonder, who by the mid '80s had clearly lost his mojo. Black pop and white pop have always tended to be in different vernaculars; there haven't been many black crossover artists. According to my reading of history, people seized upon Prince as a replacement for Stevie Wonder so they could keep on proving they weren't racist without actually having to listen to black pop. The difference between Prince and SW was that SW was a truly brilliant songwriter. His lyrics could be a little dumb but nothing like Prince's.

You're right about Chuck Berry. CB, by the way, is very underrated as a lyricist, at least in some of his songs.

I remember how, when Prince died, everybody was raving about his Super Bowl solo on "While My Guitar Gently Weeps." So I looked up the clip on YouTube, watched it, and then sent my brother an e-mail asking, "Am I correct in thinking that a million guitar players could have played that solo?" My brother, a professional guitar player, replied, "_Literally_ a million."

"Purple Rain" -- yeah, it doesn't even have a groove. A completely pathetic song. Drags along like a wounded animal.; 9/21/18, 9:12 AM
Jaq said...: Maybe your point is that America seized on Prince because we weren’t ready for Rick James. Maybe...; 9/21/18, 10:43 AM
The Crack Emcee said...: Ezekiel Flenser said...

"I think that one of the great yet insufficiently acknowledged forces in American society during my lifetime has been the desire of white people to prove they're not racists."

That's why Prince was chased off the tour until Mick Jagger himself said to come back, when Prince originally opened for the Stones. Because whites are so concerned about their appearance.

"According to my reading of history, people seized upon Prince as a replacement for Stevie Wonder so they could keep on proving they weren't racist without actually having to listen to black pop."

WOw - It's hard to wrap my head around the fact there are people who think this way.

"You're right about Chuck Berry. CB, by the way, is very underrated as a lyricist, at least in some of his songs."

Chess told him to change his lyrics to please white teens. He complied, and the rest is history.

"I remember how, when Prince died, everybody was raving about his Super Bowl solo on "While My Guitar Gently Weeps." So I looked up the clip on YouTube, watched it, and then sent my brother an e-mail asking, "Am I correct in thinking that a million guitar players could have played that solo?" My brother, a professional guitar player, replied, "_Literally_ a million.""

Where are they?

""Purple Rain" -- yeah, it doesn't even have a groove. A completely pathetic song. Drags along like a wounded animal."

To which I say, where's an example of your work?; 9/21/18, 11:38 AM
Matt said...: "'Purple Rain' -- yeah, it doesn't even have a groove."

Not sure what this means. I'm not a big fan of this song, but it has a clear, unmistakeable groove. Snares on the 2 and 4, kick drums and bass guitar on the 1 and 3 (although there may also be a kick on the 2&; I'm not a drummer), high hats on 8th beats (I think) with what sounds like a periodic cymbal on the 16th beat before the 2. Sure, the beat is slow, but it's driving.; 9/21/18, 12:03 PM