edited “Uptown” and “Dirty Mind” tracks, and an alternate, Philippines-only edit of “Dirty Mind.” It’s unclear if Imelda Marcos traded Prince designer shoes for exclusive rights to the track. “Head” circulates unofficially as a 1994 Kirky J remix.
The album sessions also produced the non-LP single “Gotta Stop (Messin’ About),” released commercially in the United Kingdom on May 29, 1981. This was the same day as Prince’s first non-US concert at the Paradiso in Amsterdam and four days prior to his first London concert at the Lyceum, a venue now best known for housing The Lion King since 1999. The “Dirty Mind” session track failed to chart in the United Kingdom. It was released in the United States as a “Let’s Work” twelve-inch B-side and has appeared on hits collections.
The two-leg US Dirty Mind tour began December 4, 1980, in Buffalo, New York, and ended on April 6, 1981, in New Orleans, Louisiana. Prince used the same five-piece band as on the two Prince tours. Further promotional dates brought the group to Europe for three dates before a final show at Dez Dickerson’s wedding on June 6, bassist Andre Cymone’s last gig.
Prince played all the LP songs at most dates on the Dirty Mind tour and intermittently through the 2000s, except for “Sister.” In addition to a few earlier songs, the tour also featured two unreleased songs: “Everybody Dance,” a loose live-feel jam with few lyrics, and “Broken” (aka “Broken, Lonely, and Crying”), a “Jack U Off/Delirious” prototype. The latter also exists in a studio version.
Controversy (1981)
Controversy is an uneven, quirky album, but at that, it pales only in comparison to the masterpiece it followed. Like Dirty Mind, it’s not quite a concept album, but the songs are thematically linked by the title and, in this case, the sleeve visuals. Musically, Controversy is a transition piece, with Prince shaping the dry synthesizer funk of its predecessor toward his more polished pop sound. The lyrics begin the move beyond a simple focus on love and sex, marking the first overt entry into Prince’s “controversial” mixture of the carnal and the Christian.
Released on October 14, 1981, Controversy provided his highest-charting pop LP to date at number twenty-one; it equaled the number three position of Prince on the soul charts. Most recording took place at the Kiowa Trail Home Studio during the late spring and early summer of 1981. Overdubs, mixing, and the recording of the final song, “Private Joy,” took place at Sunset Sound from August 14 to 23. It was the first song Prince recorded at the Hollywood studio, which he would use off and on through 2009’s Lotusflow3r.
As usual, Prince “produced, arranged, composed and performed” the album but not totally. “Jack U Off,” the first title using “Princebonics,” is the closest thing yet to a true band recording as Bobby Z. sits in on drums, Dr. Fink plays keys, and Lisa provides background vocals. Lisa also contributes vocals to the title song and “Ronnie, Talk to Russia.” The composition of “Do Me, Baby” is generally credited to Cymone.
The album saw the release of three US singles. An edited “Controversy” was released on September 2, 1981. It hit number three on the soul charts and stalled at number seventy on the pop charts but shared the top spot on the disco charts with its follow-up single “Let’s Work.” The “Let’s Work” edit hit number nine on the soul chart but failed to crack the Hot 100. The “Do Me, Baby” edit didn’t chart. These edits feature on hits collections, although each song’s mono edit has appeared only on promo seven-inch releases. “Let’s Work” was released as a twelve-inch “Dance Remix” featuring Morris Day on drums; this version is found on Ultimate.
The thirty-eight-minute album features two classics: “Controversy” and “Do Me, Baby.” The title song consolidates the pulsating dance beat of Dirty Mind and previews the (real) horn-driven sound that would feature on later studio tracks. Lyrically, it’s not “The Ballad of John and Yoko,” but it’s a clever look at the pressure of living in the public eye, with an unexpected interlude of “The Lord’s Prayer.” After some noncommittal ballads on the first two LPs, “Do Me, Baby” is Prince’s first after-dark slow jam. The other songs talk about sex. This is sex.
The first compact discs were released in Japan in November 1982, one month after the release of 1999. The back covers for early Warner Bros. CDs typically featured promotional write-ups for the artists’ catalog. Purple Rain was Prince’s first simultaneous release on CD, vinyl, cassette, . . . and 8-track. (Author’s collection)
“Sexuality,” “Let’s Work,” and “Jack U Off” are all solid, superior to most tunes on the first two LPs, but, as with the ambitious but flawed “Annie Christian,” they almost seem like warm-ups for similar and superior 1999 tracks. “Ronnie, Talk to Russia” is a brief novelty. The only misfire is “Private Joy.” Save for the wailing guitars toward the end, the only rock music on the LP, the song sounds very much like the generic early 1980s pop it was on La Toya Jackson’s 1983 cover.
The Controversy live period began with an October 5, 1981, appearance at Sam’s in Minneapolis. This debut of new bassist Brown Mark was quickly followed by the disastrous Rolling Stones gigs in Los Angeles on October 9 and 11. The official fifty-five-show tour began on November 20, 1981, at the Stanley Theater in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and wrapped on March 14 at the Riverfront Coliseum in Cincinnati, Ohio. The disgruntled, seven-member Time served as opening act, often working to annoy the headliner much as Prince did on his 1980 Rick James tour.
The shows opened with a recording of “The Second Coming.” Referenced in “Sexuality,” the still unreleased song shares a title with an uncompleted film and live album. The sets generally featured about a dozen songs, equally split between hits from the first three albums and new songs. The most enduring songs from the tour/LP are “Controversy” and “Do Me, Baby,” played periodically through 2016, and “Let’s Work,” which saw its last appearance in 2015. Two songs were strategically resurrected once, as “Jack U Off” was played alongside “Sister” in the “naughty” part of 1988’s Lovesexy tour and “Sexuality” returned in the 2000s, primarily in 2006–2007 at Club 3121 in Las Vegas, as “Spirituality.” “Private Joy” and “Annie Christian” were performed exclusively on the Controversy tour, while “Ronnie, Talk to Russia” was never performed live.
4
Some Ol’ Skool Company Early 1980s Band Members
Once Prince released his solo Warner Bros. albums, he needed a band. Manager Owen Husney tackled this problem in mid-1978 by renting audition/rehearsal space at Minneapolis’s Del’s Tire Mart—funk bass and tire rotations.
The first hire was easy: Prince tabbed Andre Cymone on bass. He next flirted with Grand Central’s Terry Jackson on drums but chose Bobby Z. Prince offered Jackson a spot as percussionist, but this flamed out when Jackson arrived with timbales, which Prince proclaimed as not the future of R&B music.
Guitarist Dez Dickerson and keyboardists Gayle Chapman and Matt Fink soon followed.
The band rehearsed throughout the fall at the Tire Mart until band equipment was stolen in November, necessitating a move to Pepe Willie’s cellar.
The group made their live debut on January 5, 1979, at the Capri Theater in Minneapolis. The event showcased the band for Warner Bros. to determine if it was ready for the road. It wasn’t. After an August showcase, they got the okay, and the brief Prince tour opened in November.
This