Author: Kory Grow / Source: Rolling Stone
Sherry Rayn Barnett /Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
“I was always hoping that these recordings were still around because of the feeling that’s in them,” Don Batts, Prince’s personal recording engineer in the early Eighties, tells Rolling Stone. He’s reflecting on a demo cassette he made with the artist released Friday as Piano & a Microphone 1983, 34 minutes of Prince sketching out song ideas by himself.
“It’s just him pounding this idea out so he could come back later and fill in the blanks. These were his little grooves.”Beginning with an airy recital of the “When Doves Cry” B side, “17 Days,” and ending with the contemplative, previously unreleased “Why the Butterflies,” the recording is a rare look into how the artist’s mind works. He dashes off a minute and a half of “Purple Rain,” a couple minutes’ worth of Joni Mitchell’s “A Case of You” and a long, passionate riff on the spiritual “Mary Don’t You Weep,” which he intercepts with the lyrics to his single “Strange Relationship.” He does his best husky-voiced James Brown impression (which he called his “Jamie Starr” voice, a reference to the producer alter ego he used when working with his Purple Rain rivals the Time). And he tries out a few ideas he never recorded again. It’s entirely stream of consciousness, which makes it a release that will likely appeal most to diehard fans, but he’s still putting his full stage power into the performances.
At the time of the recording, Prince was already famous. He’d put out five albums, the last of which – 1982’s 1999 – charted in the Top 10 and earned him his first Grammy. The following year, he’d appear in Purple Rain and become one of pop music’s brightest megastars. But on this cassette, he’s simply riffing on songs in their most basic form, using only his voice and 88 keys. Batts called them “refs” – the essence of a song – and Prince used them to develop his ideas fully later on. Many of the songs here show Prince playing wide jazz chords on the piano, beatboxing drum lines and trying different vocal approaches. They were for his use only.
“He never played us a tape like this,” says Lisa Coleman, who played keyboards with…
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