Prince – Purple Music (1982 unreleased demo)

Prince – Purple Music (finished version) 1982 unreleased

This blog needs to go back a little farther. So we go back to 1982, to hear Prince working on a demo in his home studio. The first track is his finished version and the second track is a working tape containing only vocals and piano. You can literally hear Prince writing the song as he improvises a piano riff, scats a melody, and feels out the groove for nearly 19 minutes. It’s absolutely fascinating.

Don’t forget that you can download any of these mp3s files by clicking on the arrow, right below the “info” button on the right side of the audio box.

Prince – Purple Music (working tape) 1982 unreleased

Next we have the only live performance Prince has ever done of this tune. It’s from his July 23, 2010 performance at the small New Morning club in Paris, France. This particular show took place from 2:25am to 5:45am, after Erykah Badu’s show at L’Olympia earlier that evening.

Prince – Purple Music > All The Critics Love U In New Morning (7/23/10 Paris, France)

Lettuce at Jam Cruise & Brooklyn Bowl 2011

Lettuce – Move On Up (Curtis Mayfield cover) 1/18/11 Brooklyn Bowl

Lettuce is a funk band that features Eric Krasno (of Soulive) and Adam Deitch (of Break Science). They are funky and have a killer horn section. They’ve been tearing up the live shows lately from Bear Creek (with the JB Horns) to the Caribbean Ocean to NYC.

Full pro-shot video of their Jam Cruise set can be viewed over at Iclips.net: http://www.iclips.net/watch/lettuce-1-6-201
I recommend clicking on the next to last song, Hang Up Your Hangs Ups [a Herbie Hancock & The Headhunters cover] as well as Break Out > Relax.

Barely a week later, on January 18, 2011, Lettuce played a Haiti benefit at the Brooklyn Bowl with Dr. John & Maceo Parker. It was rumored that Prince might show up after his Madison Square Garden gig, but that unfortunately didn’t happen. However, Questlove & Nikki Glaspie (Beyonce’s live drummer) both showed up and luckily there was a second drum kit set up for some extended break beat jams around some James Brown covers.

My friend Scott Bernstein recorded audio of the Brooklyn Bowl show and its one of the best recordings to come out of that room since it opened as a venue just over a year ago. It’s available to stream and/or download at the Live Music Archive in both 16-bit and 24-bit.

The track i’ve shared above is a cover of Curtis Mayfield’s “Move On Up” with a scorching guitar solo from Eric Krasno. See if you catch the three line quote from Bilal’s All That I Am (it’s at 3min6sec).

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