Teena Marie on Prince and Rick James
[Rick] James's charisma was matched only by his audacity and Teena [Marie] was able to see these sides of the King of Punk Funk both on-stage and off. In 1980, Prince opened for James on the Fire It Up tour. James complained that Prince stole his stage moves and according to Marie, Rick paid Prince back by stealing his gear. "Back then people weren't really programming their own synthesizers," says Teena. "Prince - you know – he's a genius... he was one of the only one's who could really do that – probably him and Stevie [Wonder] were the only one's really doing it…[Prince] was programming all his synthesizers and setting the presets with his own sound and …at the end of the tour [Rick] took [Prince's] synthesizers." Teena cannot help but chuckle as she recounts the story. "He took them to Sausalito and he actually used them on the Street Songs album and then he sent them back to [Prince] with a thank you card. He was a piece of work…and a brilliant genius, too!"
Teena later found herself wedged between the two future legends when she went on the road with Prince. "We were on the Dirty Mind tour together… [Prince and I] never had a problem. We would kick it…neither one of us drank so after the concerts we'd go and sit and have our little orange juice or whatever. He had a lot of respect for me. There were some nights that I would come on stage and I would kick his butt, you know, and [afterwards] he'd walk by me and go "Whew! I have to work hard tonight' and there were some nights that he would come by and say 'I whooped you! I whooped you tonight!' so it was really awesome and he's always been really wonderful to me."
For James, however, it was a different story. "I don't think Rick really liked the fact that [Prince and I] were friends but you know….The rivalry to me as I look back on it - it was really Rick. It wasn't really Prince. It was more Rick than anything. I never really saw Prince feeding into it too much. It really actually saddened me because I think the two of them would have made some amazing music together. It would have been ridiculous…but you know…it was what it was…I'm not really sure why it started. Rick always said it was because Prince snubbed his mother." Indeed, James claimed that Prince had insulted his mother at the 1982 American Music Awards by refusing to give her an autograph. The mood should have been celebratory - Teena was nominated for Favorite Soul R&B Female Artist and Rick won Best Soul/R&B Album for Street Songs - but Rick was having none of it. Backstage, Prince's manager at the time (the late Steve Fargnoli) hastily arranged for Prince to apologize but James ignored him. Even today, Teena views the story skeptically. "I really find that hard to believe and if it did happen, I don't think it was intentional because Prince just isn't that kind of guy. So it could have just been unintentional where she was around and he didn't see her, you know what I'm saying? And Rick really knew how to take stuff and run with it…but from everything that I know [Rick] really, really did like [Prince's] music…." Laughing, Teena adds one more caveat: "Although he would never admit to it. He would never admit to that."
Peace, Love & Light [& Stay Funky] ...
http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/TheFloridaNPG/
http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/PurpleMusicMansion/
http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/Live_4_Love_Minneapolis/
NPG Member 4 Life ... [Live 4 Love]
No comments:
Post a Comment