Into the Groove (22)

Hello, Into the Groove pays a second visit to the Prince Family( first Rhotation 15) The first visit is to Prince's childhood friend with whom he started out in the musicworld. After Prince started his solocareer André Cymone played bass in his band on the first 3 albums, i guess the previous closeness led to the later tensions, anyway for some years they didnt see eye to eye, yet by the time of Cymone's third album things seems to have settled and Prince wrote Cymone's biggest hit, The Dance Electric i added this 12 " to Cymone's second album here....Prince met my second post here when she was still young and fresh (18) , 2 years later she went with him on the road and sang backing vocals. Her debut album was long in coming, don't know if Prince couldnt find that G-Spot but when the album was finally released Jill was 25. Good reviews didnt help , the album didnt sell as expected and Jill became margenalised....Prince however was ever busy and whilst he was working on J J's album he was working on another project, instrumental jazz-funk, jamming away with Eric Leeds and his family bandmembers which previously had resulted in "The Family"album, this time however Prince after taking in the results , recorded an instrumental jazz-funk album all by himself with some minor input by Eric Leeds and released the result as Madhouse - 8 , a project that would be extended upon later that year -this time with other musicians aboard - with Madhouse -16. The heavily cloaked 'band' served as an opening act for Prince’s headlining tours..

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André Cymone - Survivin' In The 80's ( 83 ^ 230mb )

André Simon Anderson (Cymone) was the youngest of six children. His father Fred Anderson was a musician, while his mother Bernadette a social worker in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The Anderson home soon had an additional member — a young Prince who left his own home due to conflicts with his stepfather. Prince and Cymone started a cover band in high school called Grand Central (later renamed Champagne) which also included Cymone's sister Linda and schoolmate Morris Day. In the late 1970s, after Prince released his debut album he recruited Cymone as bassist for his touring band. He stayed with Prince until 1981, quitting the band over tensions with Prince.

The two later resolved their issues and Cymone went on to release 3 solo albums — Livin' in the New Wave (1982), Survivin' in the 80's (1983), and AC (1985). All are long out of print. His most successful single was "The Dance Electric," a song penned by Prince from the album AC. Cymone went on to become a record producer and is better known for producing Jody Watley (to whom he was married and shares a son) than for the music he released as a solo artist. He has produced and written songs for several other artists, including Pebbles, Lalah Hathaway, Jermaine Stewart and Adam Ant.



01 - Survivin' In The 80's (4:40)
02 - M.O.T.F. (4:18)
03 - Make Me Wanna Dance (4:50)
04 - Lovedog (3:08)

05 - Body Thang (3:39)
06 - Stay (3:11)
07 - What Are We Doing Here (3:38)
08 - Don't Let The Future (Come Down On You) (4:59)
----Xs---
09 - The Dance Electric (Ext. Version) (5:30)
10 - Red Light (Edited Version) (4:56)

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Jill Jones - Jill Jones (87 ^230mb )

Jill Jones was born in a small town in Ohio. Her mother, a fashion model, is of African American heritage, and her father, a jazz drummer, is Italian She relocated to Los Angeles when her mother remarried, and began a singing career at age 15 as a backup vocalist for Teena Marie, whom her mother managed. She met Prince in 1980 at age 18, when Teena Marie was the opening act during his Dirty Mind tour. Prince loved her voice, encouraged her to sing, and stayed in touch with Jones. She became a backup vocalist for Prince when he invited her to the Sunset Sound recording studios in 1982, to sing backing vocals for several tracks on the album 1999. She was credited under just her initials J.J. and also was featured in the music videos for "1999" and "Little Red Corvette", as well as in the unreleased video for "Automatic", and then joined the tour for 1999 to sing backing vocals with Vanity 6. After the tour, she moved to Minneapolis, and had a bit part as a waitress in the film Purple Rain.

Her debut album was the self-titled Jill Jones (1987), and released on Prince's Paisley Park Records. Prince was credited as a co-writer with Jones, but wrote all of the songs himself. It was three years in the making and went through many different track listings, but in the end the final version was well worth the wait. Highlights include lead single "Mia Bocca," "All Day, All Night," and "For Love," on which Prince can be heard on the backing vocals and the Revolution can be heard on all instruments. The closing track, "Baby, You're a Trip," was originally a Prince demo in the vein of "Purple Rain," and his backing track survives on this version. The album was released on CD in 1987, and received positive reviews from critics, but, due to a culmination of poor sales and poor promotion, was quickly deleted and has now become very sought after.

Several demos were recorded for a second album on Paisley Park, and a video was filmed for the track "Boom Boom", but an album never surfaced. In 1993, she released the dance single "Bald" on Flying Records. With the help of former Paisley Park photographer and close friend David Honl, Jones finally released a second album entitled Two in 2001, there was no input from Prince on the second one, which was more pop-rock orientated. Jones also did backing vocals for Apollonia 6 and recorded the Prince-written single "G-Spot". She also sang lead vocals on Japanese artist Ryuichi Sakamoto's single "You Do Me" from his 1990 album Beauty, and contributed a version of Blondie's "Call Me" to a Giorgio Moroder tribute album. In addition, Jones wrote and co-produced the song "The Great Pretender" for Lisa Lisa. She was also lead vocalist for the band Baby Mother, who recorded an album in 1995 for London Records, which remains unreleased. In 1996, she toured performing co-lead vocals as part of Chic with Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards before his death, and can be heard on the 1999 Chic release "Live At The Budokan".



1 - Intro (Baby You're A Trip) / Mia Boca (7:21)
2 - G - Spot (4:30)
3 - Violet Blue (4:24)
4 - With You (4:00)
5 - All Day, All Night (5:41)
6 - For Love (4:27)
7 - My Man (3:15)
8 - Baby You're A Trip (5:23)

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Madhouse - 8 ( 87 ^202mb )

Prince had caressed the idea of an instrumental jazz-funk album ever since he recorded his first tracks with Eric Leeds for his 1985 side-project, The Family. In late 1985-early 1986, he recorded hours of instrumental music with Leeds and other musicians from his band, Sheila E. and musicians from her own band, as well as members from Wendy & Lisa's families. From these sessions, Prince compiled an album called The Flesh, supposed to be released by an eponymous pseudo-band, but the project was abandoned and its concept lightly modified to become Madhouse. As he did with most of his side projects, Prince created an alter ego, named Austra Chanel, who was said to have been the mentor/producer for Madhouse.

All instruments on "8", the first Madhouse album, were performed by Prince except for the saxophone and flute parts which were performed by Eric Leeds. The albums consists of instrumental jazz-fusion tracks. A remix of the track "Six" was released alongside with the b-side "Six & 1/2", composed by Leeds and featuring Atlanta Bliss on trumpet. "16", the second Madhouse album, featured contributions by Eric Leeds on saxophone and flute, Sheila E. on drums and Levi Seacer, Jr. on bass guitar (the three of them co-composed a few tracks besides playing on the album.) "Doctor" Matt Fink (keyboards) and John Lewis (drums) are also credited in the album's booklet but their participation to the recording is more than uncertain (though both were part of the short-lived live-version of the band.) "16" features more aggressive and minimalist jazz funk tracks than its predecessor.

Cover art for both albums featured a voluptuous woman playing with a small dog, reminiscent of a 1940s pinup photograph. The videos from "16" were more 1940s gangster-themed. The cover of "16" features the subtitle "new directions in garage music", which is a homage to Miles Davis' Directions In music series. The only vocals on either album consisted mainly of choice snippets of audio lifted from the first two Godfather films and samples of Vanity simulating an orgasm (from the Vanity 6 outtake "Vibrator", later used on Prince's own song "Orgasm" from Come.) In 1987, Madhouse served as an opening act for Prince’s headlining tours, with each of the musicians heavily disguised in baggy cloaks and sunglasses, to be removed for the final set. Prince himself often guested with Madhouse, incognito.

At least three other Madhouse albums were later recorded and remain unreleased to this day, all three of them being named "24". The first one was recorded in 1988, mostly by Prince and Eric Leeds. Only one track eventually emerged, severely edited, on Eric Leeds'1991 solo-album Times Squared. The second one was recorded in 1993 with a line-up consisting of Prince (keyboards), Eric Leeds (saxophone), Levi Seacer, Jr. (guitar), Sonny T. (bass) and Michael B. (drums.) Only two tracks were officially released, "17" and"Asswhuppin' In A Trunk" in 2001, via Prince's website. . The third unreleased album is almost unknown since only two tracks are circulating: one was released in 1998 on a very rare promo-CD, and another one in 2001 on Prince's website. The two released tracks feature even more complex arrangements than the 1993 album, sort of announcing Prince's "New directions In Music" series from 2002-2003.



1 - One (7:18)
2 - Two (5:29)
3 - Three (3:16)
4 - Four (2:24)
5 - Five (1:18)
6 - Six (4:28)
7 - Seven (4:09)
8 - Eight (10:06)


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