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94 East (feat. Prince) - Minneapolis Genius: The Historic 1977 Recordings (1987)

Posted By: Designol

Date: 16 May 2024 20:16:33

Minneapolis Genius is the first collection of studio recordings by 94 East, the band name given to a number of tracks recorded by Pepé Willie and Prince with occasional other musicians (it is misleading to consider it an "album", as the tracks have been rearranged many times for reissues under different titles). The collection contained one song with writing input by Prince, Just Another Sucker, and Prince appeared as a musician on all tracks, stemming from recording sessions between 1975 and 1979 (the cover subtitle incorrectly labels the sessions as "the historic 1977 recordings"). Prince had no input into the final release, however, and was upset at its release, leading to a heated discussion between Prince and Pepé Willie in First Avenue in Minneapolis upon its release.

Prince Rogers Nelson worked his way up the Minneapolis music scene of the 1970's as something of a local Stevie Wonder/youth prodigy type figure. In 1975 he and his bassist/guitarist friend and roomie Andre "Cymone" Anderson joined up with local multi instrumentalist Pepe Wille. They pair joined him and his band 94 East-who at the time also consisted of vocalists Marcy Inglovstad and Kristie Lazenberry. It wasn't too long after 94 East began to break up that Prince signed with Warner's and proceeded to record his debut album For You-soon bringing Andre' with him and…well the rest is history. Almost two decades ago at the now defunct record store in the Maine city of Waterville and found this CD among the Prince releases. It of course touted itself as being "the historic 1977 recordings" of Prince and Andre' Cymone. It was at…shall we say a highly reduced price and not having much money in the late 90's I picked it up-I believe on the same day I bought aforementioned 1978 debut on CD if I recall. I had no clue what to expect from this. On many levels in the end? I really enjoy it.

Primarily this album is a collection of four instrumental jams,one vocal dance number and a slow jam. "If You Feel Like Dancin'" is a highly rhythmic funk jam that's filled with huge snare drum kicks that are mixed up high over Prince's guitar solo which really does showcase his comments on how Carlos Santana influenced his guitar playing style. "Lovin' Cup" is a glassy electric piano led slow groove ballad where Prince plays the majority of the instruments over repetitive vocal chanting of the title. "Games" is a very synthesizer oriented funk number that builds in rhythmic intensity with Prince mainly playing guitar. Again on "Just Another Sucker",the only song with a full vocal and pop song structure is a catchy,uptempo funk number with a nice thick bass line and again Prince playing most of the instruments. Same instrumental approach from Prince goes for "Dance To The Music Of The World",a fast uptempo funk number kicked off by Prince on another of his Santana-like guitar riffs before he takes off on clavinet and synthesizer on a number which could've come off of his debut a year or so later. "One Man Jam" prominently features Prince playing rhythmically stacked keyboard lines on a tight,stripped down dance groove.

When I first heard this album which was originally released on vinyl in 1987,I thought all the songs had been re-rerecorded by its distributor Castle Communications and Hot Pink Records to sound more contemporary. Because I can hear very distinct solos on the Yamaha DX-7,a synthesizer released around 1982,I can only guess that Pepe Willie took these incomplete songs and completed them for the purpose of this album. And ended up doing so with contemporary musical instruments as well. This has a lot to do with demo type releases of this album showing up on later sets such as Symbolic Beginning. There's been a lot of debate about the legitimacy of this album as well. Some seem to think Pepe Willie was trying to cash in on Prince's time with 94 East. Also the fact that Prince seemed to have a lot more to do with these recordings than he wanted to acknowledge,somehow. Taken for what is presented? This is very enjoyable garage band funk basically. The sound is very much of a group jamming together and getting their instrumental legs. And from what I hear? Its certain Prince had the upper hand on that level. So this isn't essential for Prince admirers and collectors. But worth any such person to pick up for its funkiness and historical value.

Review by Andre S. Grindle

94 East at Wiki

Tracklist:

01. If You Feel Like Dancin' (07:13)
02. Lovin' Cup (04:23)
03. Games (05:03)
04. Just Another Sucker (05:24)
05. Dance To The Music Of The World (05:11)
06. One Man Jam (06:17)

EAC log

Exact Audio Copy V1.0 beta 3 from 29. August 2011

EAC extraction logfile from 12. April 2015, 22:21

94 East / Minneapolis Genius

Used drive : hp DVD A DH16ABSH Adapter: 0 ID: 0

Read mode : Secure
Utilize accurate stream : Yes
Defeat audio cache : Yes
Make use of C2 pointers : No

Read offset correction : 6
Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out : No
Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes
Delete leading and trailing silent blocks : No
Null samples used in CRC calculations : Yes
Used interface : Native Win32 interface for Win NT & 2000
Gap handling : Appended to previous track

Used output format : User Defined Encoder
Selected bitrate : 896 kBit/s
Quality : High
Add ID3 tag : No
Command line compressor : C:\Program Files (x86)\Exact Audio Copy\Flac\flac.exe
Additional command line options : -8 -V -T "ARTIST=%artist%" -T "TITLE=%title%" -T "ALBUM=%albumtitle%" -T "DATE=%year%" -T "TRACKNUMBER=%tracknr%" -T "TOTALTRACKS=%numtracks%" -T "GENRE=%genre%" -T "ALBUMARTIST=%albumartist%" -T "ALBUM ARTIST=%albumartist%" -T "COMMENT=EAC Secure Mode, Test & Copy, AccurateRip, FLAC -8" %source%

TOC of the extracted CD

Track | Start | Length | Start sector | End sector
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––-
1 | 0:00.33 | 7:13.60 | 33 | 32567
2 | 7:14.18 | 4:23.72 | 32568 | 52364
3 | 11:38.15 | 5:03.65 | 52365 | 75154
4 | 16:42.05 | 5:24.00 | 75155 | 99454
5 | 22:06.05 | 5:11.70 | 99455 | 122849
6 | 27:18.00 | 6:17.55 | 122850 | 151179

Track 1

Filename C:\EAC\94 East - Minneapolis Genius (1987) [FLAC] {Castle Communications, PLC CLACD 132}\01 - If You Feel Like Dancin'.wav

Pre-gap length 0:00:02.33

Peak level 100.0 %
Extraction speed 3.8 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 8C060D90
Copy CRC 8C060D90
Accurately ripped (confidence 2) [04E6C63A] (AR v2)
Copy OK

Track 2

Filename C:\EAC\94 East - Minneapolis Genius (1987) [FLAC] {Castle Communications, PLC CLACD 132}\02 - Lovin' Cup.wav

Pre-gap length 0:00:02.05

Peak level 73.4 %
Extraction speed 3.4 X
Track quality 99.9 %
Test CRC A0E66791
Copy CRC A0E66791
Accurately ripped (confidence 2) [9A39A7AC] (AR v2)
Copy OK

Track 3

Filename C:\EAC\94 East - Minneapolis Genius (1987) [FLAC] {Castle Communications, PLC CLACD 132}\03 - Games.wav

Pre-gap length 0:00:02.30

Peak level 91.2 %
Extraction speed 4.6 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 9DBAC3C7
Copy CRC 9DBAC3C7
Accurately ripped (confidence 2) [5C54D0AD] (AR v2)
Copy OK

Track 4

Filename C:\EAC\94 East - Minneapolis Genius (1987) [FLAC] {Castle Communications, PLC CLACD 132}\04 - Just Another Sucker.wav

Pre-gap length 0:00:02.55

Peak level 88.9 %
Extraction speed 4.3 X
Track quality 99.9 %
Test CRC CC17D8EE
Copy CRC CC17D8EE
Accurately ripped (confidence 2) [F9163FE7] (AR v2)
Copy OK

Track 5

Filename C:\EAC\94 East - Minneapolis Genius (1987) [FLAC] {Castle Communications, PLC CLACD 132}\05 - Dance To The Music Of The World.wav

Pre-gap length 0:00:02.50

Peak level 79.9 %
Extraction speed 5.4 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 88CD1771
Copy CRC 88CD1771
Accurately ripped (confidence 2) [8685E017] (AR v2)
Copy OK

Track 6

Filename C:\EAC\94 East - Minneapolis Genius (1987) [FLAC] {Castle Communications, PLC CLACD 132}\06 - One Man Jam.wav

Pre-gap length 0:00:02.67

Peak level 94.6 %
Extraction speed 5.9 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 3F97D2C9
Copy CRC 3F97D2C9
Accurately ripped (confidence 2) [19D7E76A] (AR v2)
Copy OK

All tracks accurately ripped

No errors occurred

End of status report

==== Log checksum B1A0C635C67BA1544ADFBAAA87BB9B6A0E75DB58BDEF2C1C16939BFF3B2FC811 ====

DR log

foobar2000 1.2 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1
log date: 2016-10-13 15:41:58

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Analyzed: 94 East / Minneapolis Genius
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

DR Peak RMS Duration Track
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
DR14 0.00 dB -15.55 dB 7:14 01-If You Feel Like Dancin'
DR14 -2.68 dB -18.96 dB 4:24 02-Lovin' Cup
DR14 -0.80 dB -17.05 dB 5:04 03-Games
DR13 -1.02 dB -15.95 dB 5:24 04-Just Another Sucker
DR12 -1.94 dB -15.56 dB 5:12 05-Dance To The Music Of The World
DR13 -0.48 dB -15.37 dB 6:18 06-One Man Jam
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Number of tracks: 6
Official DR value: DR13

Samplerate: 44100 Hz
Channels: 2
Bits per sample: 16
Bitrate: 954 kbps
Codec: FLAC
================================================================================

All thanks to original releaser

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