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darlingnisi · 6 years

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Celebration Day 3 : VIP Edition

Part 2 Here!

Funk Soldiers Panel

Shelby J

Kat Dyson

Xavier Taplin

Joey Rayfield

Kip Blackshire

About Last Night... (The Prince on the Big Screen event)

A lot of reherasal

Kirk organized everyone, got the materials out

Biggest challenge was that there were a lot of performers who worked with P at different times so the arrangements of the songs were often different. Hard to sync up with the show or pick the right one to use at first

Shelby said it was hard not to turn and look at him on the screen

The fludidity of the performance came with experience because they knew what P expected of them musically

Kat said “having him in my ear floated me back to my time with him” The instructions he gave inside of the performance still applied

Joey noted that he better understood the difference between just playing and performance from his time with Prince

“I almost forgot he wasn’t there”

Kat Dyson Origin Story (Guitar)

Recommended by Sheila E. Kat and Rhonda Smith met Sheila while demoing gear at an industry show. Sheila asked for their music as she had an idea to do an all girl band at the time. She got sick and gave their info to P. P took them both on.

Their audition was a four hour jam session in 96. P asked Kat “How much of my material do you know...and how much did you buy?”

Her favorite P music are the soundtracks, especially Batman and her favorite songs are Joy of Repetition and Question of You.

She and Rhonda did an arrangement for Question of You for him.

Xavier Taplin Origin Story (Organ)

Played with and was reccomend by Gouche, another NPG member

Audition was P on Bass and Job Blackwell on Drums. They played 777-9311 and P had him solo for 60 bars. He fell back into the groove and P told him to keep going...fell back into the groove again...and P told him to keep going. P put his bass down, walks over to Xavier, and stands “uncomfortably close for 15 seconds just looking at me” he then says “We’re going to have a lot of fun.”

Joey Rayfield (Trombone)

Gets a call from Adrian Crutcfield about an audition in Charolette North Carolina. Gets PDF of a chart for Xtraloveable and realizes it’s for Prince

They have a Skype audition.

Time passes and he randomly got an email with a Delta ticket to Minneapolis. He quit his job and left for Paisley.

At first played on Andy Allo’s Supeconductor sessions.

Story : during a rehearsal P slowly walks up to the stage and says “You and Ida go play ping pong and if you win, I’ll play you. Joey wins and plays Prince. Joey’s in his dress shoes though and is slipping and sliding everywhere. P stops the game, moves a rug to be under Joey and says “I ain’t got no insurance.”

Story from Kat : I played basketball with him. Nobody told me not to block his shot. The game was over after that.

Kip : I was playing with him in the Daisy Chain video.

Kip Blackshire Origin Story (Vocals)

Morris Hayes invited him to a Carlos Sananta show and Jam session at Paisley. Kip absently playing basketball. Hears a “clang” (P dropping his guitar). P comes over and squares up with Kip. Kip passes P the ball, and P checks him hard in the stomach with it. Kip says he isn’t dressed to play and P tells him to come back the next day to play for real. The next day they play a 2 on 2 game. Kirk/Prince vs. Morris/Kip.

Was cleaning up in the bathroom and absently singing. P overhears and invites him to sing with them in the studio. P asks him if he knows Little Red Corvette and Kip says “I wasn’t allowed to listen to you growing up.” Instead P played guitar and Kip answered his licks with his voice. He was invited to join the band and the first song he sang on was Undisputed from Rave.

Shelby J Origin Story (Vocals)

Audition for Larry G’s band. Got in and was at 3121 doing a rehearsal. Kept being told to re-sing Higher Ground. It was P asking.

Was singing I Can’t Stand the Rain during a show. Crowd goes wild and she thought she was “DOING IT!” turns out P had come on stage behind her and was plugging up his guitar to join them. He came up to her mic and sang cheek to cheek with her for that song.

Was in Walmart getting supplies at home when she got invited to sing at one of his shows NYE. From there she was asked to join the band and their next gig was the Superbowl.

Arrangement Panel with Michael B Nelson

Had done work with Micheal Bland. There was an idea for a warm up group early 90′s. Dave and Kathy Jenson with Michael B Nelson, Sonny, and Tommy B made up a 5 piece band. They recorded some tracks and sent it to P. P told them to go to a Carmen Electra rehearsal to be filmed. Time passes asked to come to the soundstage at Paisley...saw pedal boards set up P was there! NPG was very tight at this time so P just held up a signal and they started into Madhouse 4. The horns were shocked for a moment then fell in (this was their audition). They jammed for 6 hours then recorded for the first time that same day....Sexy MF? (This may be wrong...he mentioned that they recorded for the first time that day, then a moment later said the first thing they recorded was Sexy MF as part of a different story so...take that how you will)

Told to get their passports together. They joined him on the Diamonds and Pearls tour

There were 11 semi trucks and 110 people in the entourage for the D&P tour. Their first stop with him was Tokyo

Hornheads was formulated as a horns only group since they were on with P and couldn’t play with anyone else, they just made a mini group to keep their chops up during down time. Mike Nelson wrote the tunes and they have 3 albums.

“Even when he was giving you a hard time, he’s just pushing you”

Q: What was it like during the 90′s? Every office was filled. He gave you exactly what you needed to fufill a task. You didn’t ask for additional questions...you had to trust yourself and know that he trusted you to use your creativity wisely.

Prince preferred Duke Ellington’s style of horns

P would send Mike tapes of a lead line and melody and Mike would add horn parts.

Mike did Black Muse, new Xtraloveable, When She Comes, Groovy Potential, Morning Papers and more (He’s been around for about 25 years)

Percentage of things recorded to released of the work Mike did. 50%

He co-wrote Billy Jack Bitch. While they were working on something, Mike played P a song during tape change. P said “Who do I have to pay to use that” The instrumental part of Billy Jack Bitch was written by Mike.

Story : Working on something and Mike B was impressed with how it sounded. Forgot everything he said could be heard in the control room by P. Commented “man that is funky” P responds “yes it is.”

Story : Tenor sax was playing a solo while working on something and it didn’t go well. When it was done, from the control room P says “You guys see Waterworld?” Tenor sax guy “No who’s in it” Prince, “Your mama” Tenor sax guy, “Oh it’s good to know she’s getting work!” “Prince falls off his chair from laughing” (Waterworld has a reputation for being a very bad movie.)

Q: Why did you last? P told him “You and Clare Fischer really understand my music.” Was asked to be full time in 2012. He never had a falling out or harsh words with P and P never rejected any of his additions to his songs.

Got our pictures from our tour back. Framing mine for sure! It’s like my 5th picture in here and the only good one, lol...

Funk Soldiers Concert

Honesty we were all kind of weary about this as this seemed to be a remix of the NewPower Soul group to some degree...or at least that concept, but once again VERY happy to be completely checked about the assumption because they were PHENOMENAL and not just because of something that happened...! Set list :

I’m Yours

I Feel For You

Party Man

Girls and Boys

Lady Cab Driver/Irresistible Bitch mashup (!)

1+1+1 is 3 (I LOST. MY. MIND. YA’LL KNOW THAT ONE NIGHT ALONE TIME PERIOD IS MY COMPLETE FAVORITE AND NOBODY DOES COVERS OF THOSE SONGS AND IT WAS SO GOOD!)

The Work Part 1 (I WAS ABSOLUTELY DELIRIOUS! AGAIN BECAUSE THIS IS MY ERA AND NOBODY DOES THIS! I was so into it singing, foot stomping and dancing, I got tapped by security and they asked if I want to go on stage! I 100% always say I’d never do it, but I thought I’d get to jam out to The Work since that goes on for a bit. I got back stage and they said I was to be part of a dance battle (WHAT?! I LEGIT AM THE MOST RESERVED PERSON USUALLY ABSOLUTELY NOT! (And also I guess for The Professor, lol) So me and Lenny Beason (from Purple Underground who thankfully I mostly know in real life so I was comfortable) were to battle to...

Black Sweat (Kip told me to go first so I tried to do every dance I could think of...The Housequake, The Get Off dance, Tried to remember the Purple Funk SF Funknroll dance but my mind blanked so I did some booty pops and stopped on the accents with a pose. Lenny went during the next chorus...then I had to go again. Shelby said I’m her funk sister now and we got T-shirts! My heart was beating so fast ya’ll! It pays to love The Rainbow Children! LOL!

Chelsea Rodgers

Xtraloveable (AGAIN A DREAM COME TRUE I’VE ALWAYS WANTED TO HEAR THIS LIVE WITH THESE GUYS DOING THE HORNS!)

Big City

Welcome 2 the Dawn (SO glad they did this instead of Purple Rain! Amazing choice! A Great song!)

Paisley Park

All the Critics Love You in New York/Housequake Jumps

Alphabet Street (Sheila E came out and crowd surfed for a bit)

Very good job! They were very tight, funky, and kept everyone’s spirits WAY up, especially with the EXCELLENT choice of Welcome 2 the Dawn being the only slow song.

This day was the 21st and honestly it was a BLUR. Even if I hadn’t gotten chosen by Ghost Prince to go up, the experience the band gave us with their energy and love made it hard to be sad this day. For me, interestingly I had a harder time on the 20th seeing him up there at the Big Screen event and with all the news that came out on the previous Thursday...did stay in bed for a bit that day to be honest...but “the day” was so full of just AMAZING like he legit came down like “ya’ll don’t cry for me...look at all this that I left behind for you to enjoy!” This day was was distracting with so much information followed by such an explosive show! Everyone was on their feet dancing, singing, hands in the air, just the whole time!

I’m very glad the days for the arena event got switched because it honestly would have been too much for me if it fell on this day...

Last part here!

#prince #prince celebration 2018 #purple homecoming 2018

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