Source: Michael Ochs Archives / Getty
Yesterday (June 7th), on what would’ve been Prince‘s 60th birthday, the Prince Estate, in partnership with Warner Bros. Records, announced the release of thePiano & A Microphone 1983 album for September 21st. The set will see official release as nine track, 35-minute album featuring the contents of a previously unreleased 1983 home studio cassette recording of Prince at his piano captured at his Kiowa Trail home studio in Chanhassen, Minnesota by engineer Don Batts.
According to the press release, “The private rehearsal provides a rare, intimate glimpse into Prince’s creative process as he worked through songs which include ’17 Days’ and “Purple Rain’ (neither of which would be released until 1984), a cover of Joni Mitchell‘s ‘A Case Of You,’ ‘Strange Relationship’ (not released until 1987 on his critically acclaimed Sign O’ The Times album), and “International Lover”. The album also includes a rare recording of the 19th Century spiritual ‘Mary Don’t You Weep,’ which will be featured during the end credits of Spike Lee‘s BlacKkKlansman in theaters August 2018. For fans of Prince’s spontaneous live medleys, tracks one to seven of the album are presented in that same format as they were originally recorded.”
- A few years prior to his death, Prince spoke frankly about what drove him to be an artist: [“I like to believe that my inspiration comes from God. As you grow older you learn and you start to get smarter. I’ve always known that God was my creator, and that without him, nothing works. It works to a point and then it just kind of deteriorates. Entropy takes place.”] SOUNDCUE (:19 OC: . . . entropy takes place)
The tracklisting for Prince’s Piano & A Microphone 1983 is:
“17 Days”
“Purple Rain”
“A Case Of You”
“Mary Don’t You Weep”
“Strange Relationship”
“International Lover”
“Wednesday”
“Cold Coffee & Cocaine”
“Why The Butterflies”
SIDE NOTES
- Released in April was Prince‘s original long-unreleased original version of “Nothing Compares 2 U”. This previously unreleased version predates the first recorded version by the Family, and was recorded in 1984 — six years before Sinead O’Connor‘s month-long 1990 chart-topping cover.
- The track was recorded at the Flying Cloud Drive ‘Warehouse’ in Eden Prairie by Prince’s long-time engineer Susan Rogers, and originally composed, arranged and performed in its entirety by Prince, aside from the backing vocals by Susannah Melvoin, Paul “St. Paul” Peterson, and saxophone byEric Leeds.
