Revisiting the Top 5 Paisley Park Albums, Beyond Prince’s Own by Miles Marshall Lewis

3. Madhouse – 8

In Under the Cherry Moon, there’s a famous scene (famous for Prince obsessives anyway) with gigolo Christopher Tracy on the telephone in the French Riviera, Miles Davis’ You’re Under Arrest posed conspicuously on his nightstand. Arguably at the height of his creative powers in the mid-1980s, Prince decided to record a one-man-band contemporary jazz album under the Madhouse moniker—which turned out to be as interesting as anything Davis put together with bassist Marcus Miller that decade, really. But despite supposedly playing 27 instruments, Prince didn’t know his way around a sax.

So saxophonist Eric Leeds (of The Family and the expanded Revolution) collaborated with Prince on 8, a mysterious album of instrumentals. No musicians were credited. Busty cover girl Maneca Lightner posed on the cover in a polka-dotted skirt and midriff with a Yorkshire terrier, certainly one of the strongest Paisley Park Records sleeves ever. 8 features some of the snappiest Prince drumming of all time on “Two” and “Seven.” The moodier ballads “Three” and “Eight” beg to be covered by the likes of Robert Glasper or Esperanza Spalding. “Six” shot to number five on Billboard’s Black Singles Chart in early 1987—not as well known today as the Beverly Hills Cop anthem “Axel F” or Herbie Hancock’s Grammy-winning “Rockit,” but something nevertheless.

BUY Madhouse – 8

2. The Family – The Family

“To this day, they’re the only band I’ve ever been afraid of,” Prince said to Rolling Stone in 1990—talking, of course, about The Time. That funk facet of his schizophrenic musical personality split in 1984. The replacement band he put together was as much an attempt to chase “some of that Duran Duran money” as it was to get revenge on deserters like Morris Day and Jesse Johnson. Cinematic strings from the late Clare Fischer, sax by Paisley Park newcomer Eric Leeds and blue-eyed soul courtesy of Paul Peterson formed the crucible of The Family. Their sole summertime 1985 album The Family is the transitional missing link between the psychedelic sounds of Around the World in a Day and the horn-infused funk of Parade.

Before Parade’s plaintive piano piece “Venus de Milo,” there were Family instrumentals like “Yes” and “Susannah’s Pajamas.” Drama-filled orchestral sweeps on tracks like “The Screams of Passion” and “River Run Dry” preceded the strings on Prince and the Revolution’s “I Wonder U” from that Under the Cherry Moon soundtrack. Fischer’s orchestration lent more to The Family feel than anything full-fledged member Jerome Benton did. And “Girls & Boys” wouldn’t have its horns without Leeds breaking ground on “Mutiny.”

One single, one live performance, and this band was done. But The Family is one of the greatest albums Paisley Park Records ever had to offer. A special shout goes out to the quintet’s silk pajamas, and ex-Revolution guitarist Wendy’s glamour-girl twin sister, singer Susannah Melvoin. Paul Peterson, Melvoin and drummer Jellybean Johnson (formerly of The Time) came back together in 2009 as fDeluxe.

BUY The Family – The Family

1. Jill Jones – Jill Jones

Barring her teenage background singing for Teena Marie, the world’s first real taste of Jill Jones came courtesy of the music video for “1999.” Hugged up against keyboardist Lisa Coleman, she came off like a full-fledged member of the Revolution. Black sailor cap cocked ace-deuce atop platinum curls; ruby red lips; garter stockings and lingerie. Sans Prince, she was the sexiest thing about the clip, a new wave, sultry blonde bombshell. On 1999 the album, this 20-year-old Ohio native’s background vocals brightened “Automatic,” “Free,” “Lady Cab Driver” and the title track. But she’s most famously known as the jilted First Avenue waitress—named, of course, Jill—in the film Purple Rain. (“Wednesday,” her own solo turn in the film, was cut.)

The long-delayed debut LP Jill Jones finally dropped in 1987, with the Jean-Baptiste Mondino-directed “Mia Bocca” as the leadoff video. Jones’ dad was an Italian jazz drummer, hence the “my mouth” Italian title. Jones’s mom was African American, though the biracial wonderland of Paisley Park held no qualms if record buyers presumed she was all white. The dreamy multi-tracked vocal intro to “Violet Blue,” her bluesy pleading on “Baby, You’re a Trip” and the melancholy ballad “With You” (covered from Prince’s 1979 Prince) make the whole album worth a listen.

And even Prince protégés carried stellar original B-sides to their singles. Track down Jones’ “77 Bleeker Street” and “Baby Cries (Ay Yah)” (co-written by Angie Stone!) to up your Prince fanatic points. Then dig even deeper for the original Vanity 6 version of “G-Spot,” or the unreleased Prince versions of “All Day, All Night” and “For Love.”

BUY Jill Jones – Jill Jones

About the author:

Miles Marshall Lewis has written for The New York Times, Rolling Stone, and many other publications. His work has appeared in Black Cool: One Thousand Streams of Blackness, Hip-Hop: A Cultural Odyssey, The Believer Book of Writers Talking to Writers, and elsewhere. He’s also the author of There’s a Riot Goin’ On and Scars… Lewis currently lives in Manhattan as Arts & Culture Editor of Ebony.com. Follow MML on Twitter and Instagram @MMLunlimited. Check out some of his work for soulhead.