Prince and Mavis Staples – Olympic Studios, London – July 27, 1988
|
|
This article belongs to the story Prince and Mavis Staples, friendship and beautiful music. |
This article contains a video showing bits from the recording session of Prince and Mavis Staples on July 27, 1988, at the Olympic Studios in London during a day off from the European leg of the fabulous Lovesexy tour.
The images below stem from the 1988 mini documentary Prince A Musical Portrait. Those images were also used in 1991 in the spuerb BBC Omnibus documentary The Prince Of Paisley Park. There, Mavis Staples mentions their work together.
He came on the phone and he said, “Mavis, how would you like to go in the studio tomorrow?”.
I said, “What are we gonna do, Prince?”
He said, “I have this song I’ve written, a gospel song.”
I said, “Wait a minute Prince, let me look at your lyrics here.”
When he first told me, he said, “God is coming“, he said, “like a dog in heat.”
I said, “Wait a minute, Prince, God is coming like a dog in heat??”
And he said, “But wait Mavis, you gotta hear the rest, you gotta hear the rest.
He went on, God is coming like a dog in heat. He’s looking for soldiers with strong feet. That can dance on whoever can’t say his name. God is alive, this is not a game.”
And I just said, “Well alright then, we can go with that.” You know, because I, sho nuff, you know, there was nothing wrong with it. And if He’s coming like a dog in heat, He’s coming to let us know something. He wants to be recognized. See, so, check it out. And I didn’t see anything wrong with it. I said, “Ok, we can put that down.”
See the images below.
God Is Alive was first recorded in June 1988 at Paisley Park Studios, just before Prince and his band were leaving for Europe on the Lovesexy tour. On July 27, 1988, Mavis Staples recorded her vocals in London.
On September 25, 1988, the song was planned for inclusion on one of the first configurations of Graffiti Bridge (that album was released in 1990). On October 27, 1988, the song became part of the Rave Unto The Joy Fantastic tracklist. That album wouldn’t see the light of day until 199, in a completely different configuratuion.
Unfortunately, God Is Alive has never been released. It is an exquisite song Prince obviously dedicated a lot of his time to. Musically irresistible.
Het muzikale thema van het nummer was onderdeel van de verlengde uitvoering van Eye Wish U Heaven tijdens de Lovesexy tour.
