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Prince: The Lovesexy Tour @ 30

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I haven’t kept many VHS cassettes: ‘Steve Martin Live’, Japan’s ‘Oil On Canvas’ and King Crimson’s ‘The Noise’ are probably lurking around somewhere, and two vids that definitely won’t be hitting the charity shop any time soon are Prince’s ‘Lovesexy Live: Volumes 1 and 2’ (still unavailable on DVD…).

The Lovesexy tour kicked off 30 years ago this week, on 8th July 1988 at Paris’s Palais Omnisport. The seven-month jaunt, taking in Europe, North America and Japan, was arguably Prince’s greatest ever.

A spectacular in-the-round stage set was designed as a kind of ‘fantasy island’, half a playground and half a dreamscape, with curtains, a mini basketball court, brass bed, swing set and a Ford T-Bird which Prince ‘drove’ around the stage at the start of the show.

The Lovesexy tour band: left to right, Cat Glover, Dr Fink, Boni Boyer, Miko Weaver, Eric Leeds, Prince, Levi Seacer Jr., Matt Blistan, Sheila E

Taped on the last night of the European tour – 9th September 1988, at the Westfalenhalle in Dortmund, Germany – ‘Lovesexy Live’ still makes for a thrilling watch.

Firstly, the music: this band could turn on a dime. It’s hard to imagine any other set of musicians from the era pulling off the ‘Adore’/’Jack U Off’/’Sister’ medley. Prince’s guitar playing is at its best, with creamy, delay-drenched distortion and tight, tasty Telecaster.

And of all the ’80s ‘pop’ acts who incorporated jazz into their work, Prince may be the most successful. In collaboration with his superb horn section (Eric Leeds on saxes, Matt Blistan on trumpet), he often went back to the source: Ellington’s ‘Things Ain’t What They Used To Be’ and Charlie Parker’s ‘Billie’s Bounce’ infiltrate ‘Blues In C/If I Had A Harem’, and Blistan occasionally quotes from ‘It Don’t Mean A Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing’).

Meanwhile Sheila E brings the Bay Area jazz/rock sound so beloved of Prince. Her solo feature is a highlight of his ’80s live work.

Then there’s the ‘story’. The Lovesexy show is structured like one of those old Warner Bros gangster pictures – in the first half (lucky for us), we see an ‘evil’ Prince, seduced by the sins of the flesh and tempted by drugs, money and criminality, giving him an excuse to dust off Black Album standouts ‘Superfunkicalifragisexy’ and ‘Bob George’.

Then there’s punishment, atonement and spiritual conversion. Yes, y’all, the second half of the show is ‘God stuff’. But if you don’t go along with it, the music is enough of a spiritual experience anyway. Anyway, Prince certainly seems genuinely transported during ‘Anna Stesia’ and ‘I Wish U Heaven’.

Europe couldn’t get enough of the tour. There were no less than seven nights at London’s Wembley Arena and a series of famous after-show gigs, particularly at the Camden Palace on 25 July when Mica Paris was picked out from the crowd to sing ‘Just My Imagination’ and Ron Wood joined Prince onstage for a memorable ‘Miss You’.

Ticket sales were not so good in the States (14 September to 29 November) where apparently Prince struggled to sell out many arenas, despite it being his first major tour there for over three years.

But normal service was resumed when the Japan leg kicked off in early February 1989. The last night of the tour on the 13th was apparently an exceptionally emotional one.

When Prince got home to Minneapolis, he commenced work on the ‘Batman’ soundtrack, another project about the duality of man. It’s not hard to see where his head was at as the ’80s drew to a close.

Rod Temperton (1949-2016)

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When MJ and Quincy are requesting your songs, you know you’ve made it.

Rod Temperton’s compositions are timeless, uplifting, full of detail and subtleties, with lots of vamp-busting major-7th/9th chords and joyful melody lines. It’s also important to note that he arranged all his own tunes for Jackson and Quincy too, outlining the rhythm, vocal and keyboard parts.

Like many kids of my age, I was kind of obsessed with Rod’s ‘Thriller’ during the mid-’80s. It was a perfect musical storm. Jackson’s red-hot vocal performance, the killer groove, brilliant horn arrangements, silly but spooky horror-movie lyrics, intriguing sound effects and Vincent Price’s rap/monologue all left an indelible mark.

But there was much more to Rod Temperton’s career than that obvious highlight. He was born in Cleethorpes, Lincolnshire, beginning his public life playing keyboards and writing songs for Heatwave, writing every song on their 1977 debut album Too Hot To Handle including ‘Boogie Nights’ and classic ballads ‘All You Do Is Dial’ and ‘Always & Forever’.

This led to his work on Michael Jackson’s Off The Wall album for which he wrote the title track, ‘Rock With You’ and ‘Burn This Disco Out’.

Temperton started the 1980s contributing to George Benson’s Quincy-produced Give Me The Night, composing the title track, ‘Love X Love’, killer disco/jazz instrumental ‘Off Broadway’ and the extraordinary ‘Star Of The Story’.

There were other classic Rod compositions and arrangements around this time for Patti Austin, The Brothers Johnson, Rufus, Herbie Hancock, Karen Carpenter and Bob James, as well as the classic Donna Summer floorfiller ‘Love Is In Control’.

He contributed to Quincy’s fine 1981 solo album The Dude, supplying the title track, ‘Somethin’ Special’, ‘Turn On The Action’ and of course the stunning ‘Razzamatazz’:

Then came the epochal Thriller. Temperton was all over the record, composing and arranging ‘Baby Be Mine’, soul standard ‘The Lady In My Life’ and of course the title track.

He famously wrote most of Vincent Price’s rap/monologue in a car whilst being rushed over to Ocean Way Studios to join Price’s vocal session. In fact, he was so prolific that he found time to write a third verse for the monologue, edited from the album version but available in outtake form here:

In the mid-’80s, Rod supplied three more classic compositions: Michael McDonald’s ‘Sweet Freedom’, McDonald’s duet with James Ingram ‘Yah Mo B There’ (co-composed by Ingram, McDonald and Quincy) and also the underrated ‘Spice Of Life’ by Manhattan Transfer featuring Stevie Wonder on harmonica.

Rod enjoyed somewhat of a songwriting/arranging/producing renaissance in the early ’90s, including some great work for Mica Paris’s Whisper A Prayer album and also Q’s Jook Joint. His contributions to music won’t be forgotten, and he was by all accounts a lovely fellow too.

Rodney Lynn Temperton, 9th October 1949 – October 2016