Dearly beloved
We are gathered here today
To get through this thing called life

This is the final set of our Prince-themed 6 Degrees series, timed to end today, the 8th anniversary of The Purple One leaving us. And while we’ve used up all of our Prince albums from The List, each artist/album in this set has some connection to him.

Okay, carrying on from where we left off last time…

6 Degrees of Separation: Selena to No Doubt

Selena – Dreaming Of You (list number 316)
>> While Madhouse (which ended Part 7) is mostly Prince, one of the musicians who collaborated on the side project was Eric Leeds. Prince and Eric Leeds worked together on another side project, the 1995 solo album of Mayte, Child of the Sun, which was mostly written by Prince and was released on his NPG Records label. Mayte was part of the NPG, was a dancer for his tours and videos, and was Prince’s partner at the time of recording this album (and then wife). Though not included on this (or any later) album, Mayte recorded some songs (potentially during the same time) with the hip hop group Full Force, who also appear on one track of this album by the late great Selena. Another guest appearance on the same album is David Byrne, and their track together was produced by sound engineer Susan Rogers, who worked on many Prince and Prince-adjacent albums starting with Purple Rain, including Madhouse and…

Candy Dulfer – Saxuality (740)
…this 1990 album by Candy Dulfer, who collaborated a few times with Prince from the 80s on (including joining his band for the Musicology Live 2004ever tour). Rogers also mixed the contributions of Paul Westerberg (of The Replacements, another Minneapolis act that made waves in the 80s, as mentioned in Part 4) to the soundtrack for the film Singles, which also featured a number of artists/bands from the Seattle area who admired and/or inspired Prince, such as…

The Jimi Hendrix Experience – Electric Ladyland (839)
…Jimi Hendrix (who was a great influence on Prince; check out this [audio-only] cover of Hendrix’s “Red House”),….

Soundgarden – Superunknown (849)
…Soundgarden (check out Chris Cornell’s beautiful cover of Prince’s “Nothing Compares to U”*), and…

Pearl Jam – Ten (273)
…Pearl Jam. Not only have Pearl Jam been covering Prince’s “Purple Rain” somewhat regularly since The Purple One left us (e.g., at the Quebec City show in 2022), but Prince (along with his band 3rdEyeGirl) also did an instrumental cover of a track off this album, “Even Flow” (audio-only here)! (I don’t know about you, but imagining Prince listening to Ten puts a smile on my face.)
Another huge Seattle band that is automatically linked with the city’s scene at the time but oddly did not appear on the Singles soundtrack is, of course, Nirvana. However, one of the band’s (touring) members, Pat Smear, was also linked with Prince, as he appeared in the music video for “Raspberry Beret”. Smear also appeared in…

No Doubt – Tragic Kingdom (804)
the music video for “Don’t Speak”, off of this album by No Doubt. Prince would later collaborate with No Doubt and Gwen Stefani a couple times: Stefani appears on “So Far, So Pleased” from Prince’s 1999 album Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic, which they would perform together later on Prince’s Welcome 2 American tour (here); and Prince co-wrote and -produced the song “Waiting Room” that eventually appeared on No Doubt’s 2001 album Rock Steady. <<

*I just had to mention one more link I found when looking up the No Doubt connection (which we could say is connected to “Nothing Compares to U”…). Prince seems to have had an impact on others in the world of ska/reggae beyond No Doubt, as there’s an entire reggae covers version of Purple Rain, entitled Purple Reggae. Put out in 2014 by a duo in the UK called Radio Riddler, the tribute album features a number of guest artists including the late great Sinéad O’Connor (who was no stranger to reggae covers), covering Prince’s “I Would Die 4 U” (or, on the dub version of the album, “I Would Dub 4 U”).

Thank you all for joining me on this whirlwind tour of just a handful of albums from The List! I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did, especially the little Prince tidbits. There are, of course, so many other connections that could be made, and I’d love to keep the 6 Degrees game going, perhaps as a semi-regular series. Let me know if you’d like to contribute a set, either continuing from where we’ve left off here or a standalone set you’ve discovered!

Are we gonna let de-elevator bring us down?
Oh, no let’s go!

https://1001otheralbums.com/2024/04/21/6-degrees-of-separation-part-8/

#1001OtherAlbums #3rdEyeGirl #6DegreesOfSeparation #CandyDulfer #ChrisCornell #DavidByrne #EricLeeds #FullForce #GwenStefani #JimiHendrix #Madhouse #Mayte #NoDoubt #PatSmear #PaulWesterberg #PearlJam #Prince #Selena #SineadOConnor #Soundgarden #SusanRogers

[This guest post was written by wbwolf about number 469 on The List; the album was submitted by tinelinen.]

If you look at the sleeve, you are informed that the songs are published by “Parisongs” and recorded at “Madhouse Studios, Pittsburgh”.  But just like the numbered tracks, the performers equally enigmatic, no performer credits, but credits for the engineer, art direction, even the model on the cover. But this just Prince at his most obfuscating. Prince throughout his career would take his name off of songs to give credit to the singer or use one of numerous aliases.

The album is what we would call these days a “humble brag”. Later albums would recruit Sheila E. and members of the Revolution or New Power Generation, but this album the only other member reportedly in the studio is Eric Leeds, recently transferred from The Family to The Revolution, on saxophone and flute. Prince playing everything else.

And what he plays is some pretty solid jazz-funk, just showing how versatile of performer he was. The opening track “One” just settles into a groove that so smooth. On the other hand, “Five” is a fascinating short  snippet based on what sounds like pieces of answering machine messages with a drum riff underneath. Or the closer “Eight” which is just a slow groove with a repeated distorted voice for rhythm.

This album first caught my eye when I found it my local library and recognized Prince’s Paisley Park label along with the numbered track titles. “Five” was the one that first really got my attention just how weird it was, but the rest of the album just grew on me over the years.  And it’s a shame that this album is not wider known or available; the last reissue was a Japanese 1990 CD version. But if you find it, it’s worth the listen.

• YouTube: Madhouse – 8
• Discogs: Madhouse – 8
• Wikipedia: Madhouse

[Alt text for accompanying image: The album cover for Madhouse’s “8”. The artwork is a photo of a woman wearing a white polka dotted cropped long sleeve shirt, with a matching mini skirt and a red wide-brimmed hat. The woman is kneeling on a beach, bending over to hold a red ball for a small dog standing on its hind legs. Water and a blue sky are in the background. The band name is written vertically in stylized red/white/back font from the top right corner down, and the album name is in red font in the top left corner. There is a yellow border around the edge.]

https://1001otheralbums.com/2024/02/19/madhouse-8-1987-us/

#1001OtherAlbums #1980s #EricLeeds #jazz #Madhouse #Prince #US

#np Have been adding to my #Madhouse #vinyl collection 👌

Not the most “marketable” of song titles if the #Prince Estate ever wished to issue this today. But focusing solely on the music, you can’t go much wrong with a Prince #instrumental project

#EricLeeds #NowPlaying

#Prince, #JohnBlackwell, #SheilaE, #EricLeeds and #MaceoParker.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o07Q25LXg4Q

Dan maar wat #Madhouse voor @Jolande !

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58Q3pooaPT8

#prince #ericleeds #horns