Christmas Rehearsal 1984

 

The best thing about Prince and his work ethic is the huge amount of rehearsal and practice he puts into his music. And one of the spinoffs of that is there are plenty of rehearsal recordings for us to enjoy, and peek behind the curtain if you will. Rehearsals are always worth a listen, all sorts of ‘off camera’ moments happen and often they are just long jam sessions. The recording I am listening to is the Christmas rehearsal from 1984. It’s worth listening to, for the playing of Another Lonely Christmas in several variations, and some very nice casual moments between Prince and the band. I will be listening to the main show from the 26 December next, so we can get some continuity. Merry Christmas, let's begin.

Christmas Rehearsal 1984

The recording begins the best way possible with a sublime version of “Another Lonely Christmas.” It’s played as an instrumental, and to me, it sounds much better than the original. It’s not so crowded, or over the top, and without the vocals, the music gets your full attention. There is some great piano playing, and that is my main focus. Prince is heard talking at times, it sounds like he is joking with the band (I can invest your money, trust me, I’m a doctor). Just after this, there is some very low-sweet guitar playing, and I realize that this song has a lot of layers. The song comes to an abrupt halt, but I could happily listen to it over and over.
There is then some keyboard, picking out the mainline of the song for a minute. It sounds like Prince is explaining it to Brownmark, because you hear him say “You have to play that, deep notes” Then the bass plays the same line.

 

Prince then says “Alright let's have vocal rehearsal first, When The Saints Go Marching In”. There is a brief moment of Prince's humor here when he says “Did you warm your voice up before you came here, of course, you did, trust me I’m a musician”. He then begins singing, then asks if Wendy knows it, and then if she knows the Rolling Stones. He begins to play and sing, and his bare talent is on display. He sings much lower than he normally does, and it sounds great. So different from his normal sound, and yet it sounds very natural for him. This song is the highlight of the recording for me, I have never heard Prince sing like this before, and it’s a real eye-opener. It's just Prince and Lisa singing together, with a keyboard, but the sound is very authentic and has a nice homely feel to it. Again there is a funny moment later when Prince is trying to encourage Wendy to sing “Come on, sing something, anything” There is another funny moment after another few runs, when Prince turns to a preacher, asking for donations “For a new wing we gotta build, on the back of my crib”

Following this, there is another run-through of “Another Lonely Christmas,” this time just bass, keyboards, and guitar. They run through the changes and progressions several times. It's interesting, Prince playing and the others playing along with him. It takes several minutes and is an interesting insight into Prince showing the band a song.

They follow by playing a full version with the entire band, and with some vocals. Prince only sings part of it, he is often giving instructions to the band. It sounds good, but the buzzing bass does tend to dominate a lot. I do enjoy the keyboard swells, and there is some nice guitar playing by Prince. If fact, the guitar playing here is more upfront, and it does sound great. After some guitar work and singing by Prince, we are left with a minute of bare bass and keyboard, and it’s a nice break from the previous guitar work, then Prince comes back for some more work on the fretboard. He then calls come chords to the band, and the song breaks down and ends. Not much seems to happen, but then after a minute, Prince calls “verse two, E” and the band pick it up again very nicely. This time it seems a little more delicate and when Prince sings there is plenty of room to hear him. The song changes several times, and the verse is repeated, all the time the band stays with it. It’s an excellent snapshot of the band at work. The song plays on for quite a long time, and near the end, there is a lot of Prince playing guitar, no bad thing at all, he is sounding on top of his game here. The whole thing is more than twenty minutes, and worth every second of it.

 

The familiar beat of “Let’s Go Crazy” begins the next section. There is some keyboard work while Prince calls various song titles. But it all stops after a minute. After some brief chat, the band starts to jam over a beat that Prince describes as sleazy. It’s a very accurate description and sounds familiar as part of the long jam played during “I’m A Star.” Its starts and stops several times, and has a nice rubbery bass sound to it.

Then we are back to “Let’s Go Crazy,” this time in a more familiar guise. The guitar and keyboard sound is prominent, and again it stops after a minute, then resumes again after a short break. There are no vocals, only the first section played several times.

The recording then ends with several minutes of testing the Linn drum. Although interesting, there isn’t much to be said about it, and it’s certainly nowhere near approaching a song. However I do enjoy this sort of thing, I guess I am a real Prince geek.

Rehearsals are very interesting to listen to, but almost impossible to write about! I have a few rehearsal recordings and all of them are worth listening to. This one is notable for the “Another Lonely Christmas” being worked on, and then played later on December 26th. Fairly short, compared to other rehearsals, it’s still well worth listening to.