Ramsay Hunt Experience
Footballguy
The Prince mentor that Eephus and I were looking for was Andre Cymone, whose Prince produced album, Surviving in the 80s was pretty good.Prepare for faux Princification...
First, my actual choice:
22.xx I Didn't Mean To Turn You On - Robert Palmer (Princesque)
Let me apologize to Scooby (and anyone else) who thinks I've copped out here and not gotten funky enough. I like this version better than the original Cherrelle version. Her's definitely is pure Minneapolis sound, but her vocals just don't get to the same level as Palmer's and more importantly (to me), not only does Palmer carry over the Jam/Lewis production crew from the previous version, but he's got Bernard Edwards and Tony Thompson backing him. Tony Thompson playing on a track will put it over the top in just about every case for me. And ultimately I just like the Palmer track a whole lot. It frequently pops up in my regular life rotation, while I don't even feel compelled to have the Cherrelle version in my library.
My very, very close runner up in this category was:
Waterfall - Wendy & Lisa
I went with Palmer over this because I was trying to keep my beats per minute up as much as possible throughout the draft. But this song is also in my regular life rotation. The lyrics aren't tops, but the music is fantastic. These two often get lost in the mix when thinking of Prince's proteges, but they've done some decent work out on their own in production, most notably Seal's debut album.
Some honorable mentions, feel free to add:
I Feel For You - Chaka Khan
Sugarwalls - Sheena Easton (also in my regular rotation, I might have gone with this had I not used it in the songs about vice draft)
Nasty Girl - Vanity 6 (oh mamma, I liked her better before she found God.)
Oh Sheila - Ready For The World, worst fake British accent ever?
Be Your Man - Jesse Johnson (a regular rotation staple, I can't watch the video, or the scene from Soul Man, or any of Soul Man - how the #### did that movie even get made?)
I Just Want To Get To Know You - Jesse Johnson (another regular rotation staple, used in a slightly better movie, I'm still not really sure that this isn't Prince himself)
And of course, everything by The Time, most notably:
Cool, The Walk, Jungle Love, The Bird, Jerkout
I'm sure I've missed a ton.
I was tempted to take Miguel, who has no actual connection to Prince, but is pretty much Prince 2.0. One problem is that the recorded version of the The Thrill is nowhere near as good as several versions available on YouTube (or the version he did on Later! with Jools Holland, which I can't find).
Other Prince affiliated acts:
Tevin Campbell
The Family
Nona Gaye
Rosie Gaines
Patti Labelle
Mavis Staples
Bria Valente