The citizens of Punxsutawney have the groundhog to tell them whether there’ll be an early spring (much to Phil Connors’ disgust).
But my yardstick is generally: is it time to listen to 3 Feet High And Rising yet? Perhaps prompted by the recent freakishly-warm weather in London, the answer is a resounding yes.
Because De La Soul’s debut album, released 30 years ago today, can refresh the most jaded of pop palettes and may be the ultimate summer record.
At my school, it was all the rage and a relief from the incessant INXS, Simple Minds and U2. Probably because De La Soul were from the suburbs of Long Island rather than the inner city, they brought a playful spirit and much-needed humour to hip-hop.
It also reminded older music fans (or – let’s be honest – music critics) of that other ‘summer of love’ anthem, Sgt Pepper, even if the band denied any knowledge of that album.
To my ears, it was the first time sampling was used to bring about a truly surreal vision of music. This was a carefree world where it was perfectly normal for a ‘how to speak French’ lesson to accompany The Turtles’ ‘You Showed Me’, or for Sly Stone’s ‘Poet’ to back up some nursery-rhyme rapping.
Liberace, The Headhunters, Fats Domino; they were all fair game (though controversial – see below). If it sounded good, it was good.
There’s a silly-but-funny fake quiz show schtick running through the album and it’s not often you hear a whispered rap. Almost every track is under three minutes.
There are rhymes about school, haircuts and soap, and if you don’t like one song, there’ll be another one along very shortly.
3 Feet High And Rising was the gateway to some brilliant retro music too, especially for my generation who were too young or not even born the first time around.
A theory: it single-handedly led to a resurgence of interest in Hall & Oates, Steely Dan, early Michael Jackson and Funkadelic.
At the time of writing, the album is unavailable on streaming platforms, pending a stand-off between the band and Tommy Boy Records. Is it karmic payback for the boys being so trigger-happy with the samples? Who knows.
But it doesn’t stop 3 Feet High And Rising being a classic of the ’80s or any other decade.
Paisley Park/Warner Bros, released 30th March 1987
Album chart position: #6 (US), #4 (UK)
Singles released: ‘Sign O’ The Times’ (#3 US, #10 UK)
‘If I Was Your Girlfriend’ (#67 US, #20 UK)
‘U Got The Look’ (#2 US, #11 UK)
‘I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man’ (#10 US, #29 UK)
At the time of Sign O’ The Times’release, the general critical consensus seemed to be that it was a great double album but, shorn of a few tracks, would have made a sensational single album.
But what the press probably didn’t know was that Prince had actually intended to release a triple album!
He believed the three-record set Crystal Ball would have been be a huge artistic statement after a relatively disappointing 1986, but the idea scared the hell out of Warner Bros and also his manager Bob Cavallo. Prince was reluctantly forced to back down.
The tracks intended for Crystal Ball but later abandoned for Sign O’ The Times were ‘Rebirth Of The Flesh’, ‘Rockhard In A Funky Place’, ‘The Ball’, ‘Joy In Repetition’, ‘Shockadelica’, and ‘Good Love’ (all hoovered up from two other aborted album projects, Dream Factory and Camille).
But even after Prince removed these, he was still left with a 16-track double album, a brilliant mix of the sacred and profane, and a record which many fans believe was his finest hour.
The famous title track was recorded on 15th July 1986 in a single ten-hour session at LA’s Sunset Sound. Prince was experimenting with a new piece of kit – the Fairlight sampler/synth – but characteristically made the technology swing in a way that no other artist could.
The track also demonstrates his love of space; it’s essentially just a minimalist blues featuring a three-note melody line, some sampled drums/bass and a bit of electric guitar. Listening again on the day after the Westminster Bridge ‘terrorist’ attack of 23rd March, the song’s lyric also seems as relevant now as it was in 1987:
Hurricane Annie ripped the ceiling of a church and killed everyone inside You turn on the telly and every other story is tellin’ you somebody died Sister killed her baby cos she couldn’t afford to feed it And we’re sending people to the moon In September my cousin tried reefer for the very first time Now he’s doing horse, it’s June
It’s silly, no? When a rocket ship explodes And everybody still wants to fly Some say a man ain’t happy Until a man truly dies
‘Play In The Sunshine’ and ‘Housequake’ are pure party pop – it’s scarcely believable that Prince alone could generate such a raucous studio atmosphere with only Susannah Melvoin’s backing vocals, a few guests and Eric Leeds’ sax for company. The latter also represents his first recorded attempt at hip-hop (unless you count the brief ‘rap’ in ‘Girls & Boys’), typically supplying something usually missing from the genre: humour.
‘The Ballad Of Dorothy Parker’, recorded in Prince’s Minneapolis home studio on 15th March 1986, may be his most psychedelic recording, the soundtrack to a dream with seemingly-spontaneous musical moments that no one else could have created. He demonstrates his mastery with the LM-1 drum machine and, vocally, sets up a novel ‘Greek chorus’ effect.
‘Forever In My Life’ takes a melody line very similar to Sly And The Family Stone’s ‘Everyday People’ (and maintains Sly’s key of G) but again demonstrates Prince’s remarkable sense of space and also features another extraordinary backing vocal arrangement.
The heartfelt lyric was written when he believed he would settle down with fiancée Susannah Melvoin (twin sister of Wendy) – sadly it wasn’t to be.
‘It’, another bold experiment with the Fairlight, returns to the cold, sexualised world of 1999, while ‘Hot Thing’ is its flipside, a funky, James Brown-inspired one-chord romp with some great Leeds tenor sax.
‘If I Was Your Girlfriend’ (another song about Susannah/Wendy), ‘Strange Relationship’ (another big nod to Sly), ‘It’s Gonna Be A Beautiful Night’, ‘Starfish And Coffee’, ‘U Got The Look’ and ‘I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man’ are just brilliantly performed, beautifully written pop tunes with dashes of psychedelia and soul.
According to engineer Susan Rogers, Prince was very influenced by Kate Bush’s Hounds Of Love during the recording of SOTT, the track ‘Cloudbusting’ a particular favourite. Other songs showed contemporary influences too – ‘Adore’ was apparently Prince’s response to the popularity of Luther Vandross’s Give Me The Reason and Patti Labelle’s The Winner In You, and it also hugely influenced the neo-soul movement, particularly D’Angelo’s ballad style.
‘U Got The Look’ – the last song recorded for Sign O’ The Times on 21st December 1986 – was apparently inspired by Robert Palmer’s ‘Addicted To Love’.
Sign O’ The Times sold 1.8 million copies in the US, a very similar number to Parade. Some believed the slightly disappointing sales were due to the choice of ‘If I Was Your Girlfriend’ as the second single; it is strange that ‘U Got The Look’ didn’t get the nod. But if Prince’s popularity was levelling out in the States, it was growing across Europe.
Paisley Park/Reprise, released 29th September 1989
Bought: Mr CD, Soho, 1992?
7/10
This is an intriguing, very promising, almost completely forgotten debut album by a young singer and songwriter who very sadly died only three years after its release.
I came across Tony LeMans completely by chance at the Mr CD shop on Berwick Street, Soho. It had piles and piles of albums at five quid a pop, quite a steal by ’90s standards. You just never knew what you would find, in the days when you would take a chance on an album just on the strength of the label, cover, musicians and/or producer.
Me, I saw the words ‘Sylvester Stewart’, ‘David Gamson’ and ‘Paisley Park’ on the back and had to have it.
Gamson plays keyboards and produces beautifully, fresh from Scritti Politti’s Provision. Tony LeMans was released on Prince’s Paisley Park Records – rumours were abound of the Purple One’s involvement, but he doesn’t appear.
But other ’80s funk masters do: Bernard Wright supplies some cracking wah-wah clavinet to a few tunes, though bassist Marcus Miller and guitarist Paul Jackson Jr. are fairly nondescript.
Prince cohort Boni Boyer adds occasional back-up vocals alongside Michael Jackson collaborator Siedah Garrett (phenomenal on the opening ‘Higher Than High’).
The sonic clarity and mastering of Tony LeMans are outstanding; it would make a brilliant CD for auditioning a hi-fi. It’s also a real relief from the over-loud, over-compressed music of today. Musically and lyrically, it initially comes on like a ‘standard’ late-’80s pop/soul/funk album, but closer inspection reveals a strong psychedelic flavour.
Mainly though, due to Gamson’s total involvement, the albumsounds like Provision-era Scritti fronted by Sly Stone.
The opener ‘Highest High’ fuses the synth hook from Prince’s ‘Lovesexy’ with Sly’s ‘The Same Thing’ (though neither get a songwriting credit) to great effect.
‘Forever More’ is a luxuriant ballad with a fine falsetto vocal from LeMans and some classic Gamson chord changes, while ‘Good For You’ is an infectious, catchy slice of doo-wop-influenced pop.
There’s a bit too much filler on side two, but the closing ‘Different Kind Of Thing’ is possibly the stand-out and the nearest thing to a Prince song (very much influenced by ‘Erotic City’), though it was only an extra track on the original CD release.
LeMans toured the album in the States, sometimes supporting MC Hammer (!), and was recording his second Paisley Park album at the time of his death. It was due to feature a Prince composition called ‘Fuschia Light’. Sadly, we’ll probably never hear what it sounds like.
In which freelance writer Malcolm Wyatt jealously guards his own corner of web hyperspace, featuring interviews, reviews and rants involving big names from across the world of music, comedy, literature, film, TV, the arts, and sport.
The citizens of Punxsutawney have the groundhog to tell them whether there’ll be an early spring (much to Phil Connors’ disgust). 
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