With a little help from Prince, Rick James releases the R&B album of the year

Rick James : Give It To Me Baby

On April 7, 1981 Rick James, "The Punk of Funk",  released Street Songs, an album that would top the R&B charts for twenty straight weeks and sell four million copies thanks to songs like "Give It To Me Baby" and "Super Freak".

According to his protégé Teena Marie, James had a bitter rivalry with Prince, allegedly stealing Prince’s programmed synthesizers following a tour together and using them on Street Songs, and then sending them back to him “with a thank-you card.”  

Soon after joining the U.S. Naval Reserves at 15, James went A.W.O.L. and ended up in Toronto where he formed The Mynah Birds with Neil Young and Bruce Palmer (later of Buffalo Springfield) and future Steppenwolf Goldie McJohn. They signed to Motown but nothing came of it so James spent years as a sideman. Then, in 1978 Motown signed him again and James began producing a series of hit albums and singles as well as producing two artists who show up on Street Songs : Teena Marie and The Temptations.

Street Songs is Rick James at the height of his powers. After all, it contains "Super Freak" (later co-opted by MC Hammer for his smash hit "U Can't Touch This"). Strangely, the reviewer for Billboard doesn't mention this super freaky song in the 1981 review. It's a little like visiting Seattle and never mentioning the Space Needle.

Street Songs finished as the  #9 best album of the year in the Village Voice Pazz and Jop Critics Poll.

NELSON GEORGE'S PAZZ AND JOP BALLOT:

 

 Rick James: Street Songs (Gordy) 20; 

 Slave: Show Time (Cotillion) 15; 

 Fela Anikulapo Kuti: Black President (Arista import) 10; 

 Chaka Khan: What'cha Gonna Do for Me (Warner Bros.) 10; 

 Ray Parker & Raydio: A Woman Needs Love (Arista) 10; 

 Maze featuring Frankie Beverly: Live in New Orleans (Capitol) 10; 

 Earth, Wind & Fire: Raise! (Columbia) 10;

 Linx: Intuition (Chrysalis) 5; 

 Steely Dan: Gaucho (MCA); 5

Curtis Mayfield: Love Is the Place (Boardwalk) 5.

Why nobody was talking about Prince's Saturday Night Live debut

Prince : Partyup

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On February 21, 1981 a 22 year old Prince performed the Dirty Mind track  "Partyup" on Saturday Night Live. He wasn't actually the designated musical guest that night. That honor went to Todd Rundgren. But when Prince got his chance to play, he took it. Producer at the time, Jean Doumanian, said of the performance to Rolling Stone: “I was blown away, he was just the most original act I had seen in a long time.” 

This might have been the performance everyone talked about Sunday morning had Charlie Rocket not said fuck that night on live television

Prince shocks the world with his Dirty Mind

Prince : Dirty Mind

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On October 8 Prince released Dirty Mind, his exhilarating third album that combines funk and new wave in a way that's never been duplicated. To this day, I believe it's his best album. From his home studio in Minneapolis, Prince had stripped down the music to explore new themes that would get some attention : oral sex, incest, threesomes and ejaculation. Forty years later, it's more than a bit shocking. 

The critics were certainly shocked by what they heard. Ken Tucker of Rolling Stone wrote "Prince's first two collections established him as a doe-eyed romantic. Nothing could have prepared us for the liberating lewdness of Dirty Mind. Dirty Mind jolts with the unsettling tension that arises from rubbing complex erotic wordplay against clean, simple melodies. Across this ELECTRIC surface glides Prince's graceful quaver, tossing off lyrics with an exhilarating breathlessness. He takes the sweet romanticism of Smokey Robinson and combines it with the powerful vulgate poetry of Richard Pryor. The result is cool music dealing with hot emotions. At its best, Dirty Mind is positively filthy." 

 Robert Chrisgtau of the Village Voice gave the album an A, writing:

After going gold in 1979 as an utterly uncrossedover falsetto love man, he takes care of the songwriting, transmutes the persona, revs up the guitar, muscles into the vocals, leans down hard on a rock-steady, funk-tinged four-four, and conceptualizes--about sex, mostly. Thus he becomes the first commercially viable artist in a decade to claim the visionary high ground of Lennon and Dylan and Hendrix (and Jim Morrison), whose rebel turf has been ceded to such marginal heroes-by-fiat as Patti Smith and John Rotten-Lydon. Brashly lubricious where the typical love man plays the lead in "He's So Shy," he specializes here in full-fledged fuckbook fantasies--the kid sleeps with his sister and digs it, sleeps with his girlfriend's boyfriend and doesn't, stops a wedding by gamahuching the bride on her way to church. Mick Jagger should fold up his penis and go home

The album finished #9 in the Village Voice Pazz and Jop Critics Poll. My guess is not all of the critic were aware of the album or it would have finished in the top 3.

10 funkiest songs of 1980

A few very famous funk anthems lead this list but  stick around. If I turn you on to Defunkt and Junie Morrison my work here is done.

1
Zapp : More Bounce To The Ounce

Dayton Ohio's Zapp recorded the funkiest song of the year, a #2 hit on the R+B charts.

2
The Gap Band: I Don't Believe You Want To Get Up And Dance 

Oops Upside Your head! Inspired by his cousin Bootsy Collins (ding!), The Gap Band's Charlie Wilson pays tribute to the P-Funk sound with an unforgettable anthem.

3 

Prince : Head

Prince's song about oral sex just might be the funkiest song he ever recorded.

4 
Defunkt : Strangling Me With You Love

Funk meet jazz with a side order of punk. Partially responsible for the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

5 
Fatback: Gotta Get My Hands On Some Money

A #6 R+B hit for this NYC funk outfit. Even features some old skool rap.

6
Cameo : Throw It Down

Aaron Mills's pulsating bass gets the lead off track from Feel Me on he list. 

7

Sweat Band : Freak to Freak

When Bootsy Collins (ding!) lost the name Rubber Band in a lawsuit, he changed the band's name to Sweat and invited all of his P-Funk friends to the party.

9

Bootsy Collins : Fat Cat

The Sweat Band sessions also lead to Ultra Wave, Bootsy's ( ding!) solo album.

9
Con Funk Shun : Got To Be Enough

This #8 R +B hit also got a lot of play at the disco for obvious reasons. It makes the list for the bass line by Cedric Martin. 

10
Junie Morrison : Love Has Taken Me Over (Be My Baby)

The musical director of P-Funk recorded this Bread Alone track in 1980. De La Soul sampled the solo on "Me Myself and I". 

More Than Just a Physical Dream

Prince : I Feel For You

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On October 19, 1979, the greatest record release day of the year, Prince's self titled album hit record stores ( along with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers' Damn the Torpedoes and the debut album by The Specials ). To these ears, Prince is a giant leap forward from the debut, For You,  and would be followed by another giant leap forward with 1980's Dirty Mind.

Like For You, this album was written, arranged, composed, produced and performed entirely by Prince. Among the deep tracks is "I Feel For You", a US#3 hit for Chaka Khan in 1984.

The demo released in 2019:

The critics would finally catch on with this album. Rolling Stone's Stephen Holden who writes:

Not only does Prince possess the most thrilling R +B falsetto since Smokey Robinson, but this nineteen-year-old. Minneapolis-bred Wunderkind is his own writer-producer and one-man band, playing synthesizer, guitar, drums and percussion. Whereas Prince's debut album (last year's For You) stressed his instrumental virtuosity, Prince teems with hooks that echo everyone from the Temptations to Jimi Hendrix to Todd Rundgren.

That Hendrix reference comes through on "Bambi", another song that took decades for his fans to discover. Here he is playing the song about a lesbian love interest (All your lovers/they look just like you/ But they can only do the things that you do/ Come on, baby, and take me by the hand /I'm gonna show what it's like to be loved by a man) in 2004...for Ellen DeGeneres. Not sure she would have appreciated the song's contention that straight sex is better than gay sex or that line "Bambi, maybe you need to bleed!"

Robert Christgau was another critic who caught on thanks to the second album, which he graded with a B+. (Every album that followed would score higher until LoveSexy in 1988):

This boy is going to be a big star, and he deserves it--he's got a great line. "I want to come inside you" is good enough, but (in a different song) the simple "I'm physically attracted to you" sets news standards of "naive," winning candor. The vulnerable teen-macho falsetto idea is pretty good too. But he does leave something to be desired in the depth-of-feeling department--you know, soul.

In the U.K. critics would still need some convincing. A 1980 review by Red Starr of Smash Hits scores the album a 5/10 with the dismissive line "different, but hardly electrifying".

I Wanna Be Your Lover

Prince : I Wanna Be Your Lover

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In August of 1979 Prince released " I Wanna Be Your Lover". His breakout hit, "I Wanna Be Your Lover" would sell two million copies, topping the R+B charts for two weeks in December and peaking at U.S. #11 on the pop charts.  Pitchfork's Jason Heller calls this Prince's "Hail Mary", following the commercial failure of Prince's debut album, For You:

Immaculately sculpted and emotionally cool, the song spotlighted everything the burgeoning genius had on tap: skills, hooks, precocious sex appeal, and a preternatural sense of his pivotal place in history. “I Wanna Be Your Lover” is a thing of its era—supple, sleek, and disco-esque—yet it points toward lusher, more ambitious triumphs to come. And as a dance floor jam, then and now, it simply slays. But it’s also the apotheosis of ’70s funk, boiling down a decade’s worth of musical upheaval and innovation to one essential exit track; after this, pop would never be the same.

In the video Prince is seen playing all the instruments and singing in a leopard skin leotard. On the album, the song goes on for two minutes longer than the single with Prince jamming on various synthesizers. 

I Got a Sugarcane

Prince : Soft and Wet

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On April 7, 1978 Prince released For You, his debut album featuring songs composed, arranged, produced and performed by Prince. Much of it at the Record Plant in Sausalito where Fleetwood Mac had recorded Rumours. 

Even as a 19 year old, Prince wouldn't take direction. He plays acoustic and electric guitars, acoustic piano and Fender Rhodes piano, synth bass, various keyboard synths by Oberheim, Moog and Arp, orchestra bells, drums, percussion and bass guitar. When it came to shooting his album cover, Prince passed on the studio's choice and booked his own photographer.

I actually like these unreleased demos better than the album which were overworked. The vocals on the title cut featured more than 40 tracks.

Early reviews were lukewarm. Robert Chrisgtau scoring For You a B- , writing:

Like most in-studio one-man bands, the nineteen-year-old kid who pieced this disco-rock-pop-funk concoction together has a weakness for the programmatic--lots of chops, not much challenge. But I like "Baby," about making one, and "Soft and Wet," ditto only he doesn't know it yet. And his falsetto beats Stevie Wonder's, not to mention Emitt Rhodes's

Prince Concert, Tacoma, December 20,2011

On the last night of what must have been an exhausting tour, the purple gnome played a predictable set that, even with two encores, timed out shorter than a Winnie The Pooh movie. Maybe he was in a bad mood. Maybe was feeling that short-timer thing. Maybe he had a bad case of the Muhnnnn-Days.

Prince failed to sell out The Tacoma Dome. My wife and I bought cheap seats and got moved up to Row 25.
Wearing a black doo rag, high heeled shoes and several pounds of silver jewelry, Prince emerged from a smoke screen playing "Let's Go Crazy" followed by "Delirious" and "1999". The crowd went wild. He would also play "Little Red Corvette", "Raspberry Beret", "When Doves Cry" and "Kiss". Prince's guitar work reportedly made Pearl Jam's Mike McCready drop his jaw.  Yes, at times we were in the presence of a master showman.

Then there were other times. He brought 68-year old Maceo Parker out  a few times too many to show us all what a sax can do. Is this not a too obvious attempt to grab the "King Of Soul" scepter from James Brown? Some of his supposed ad-libs ("You don't have to watch Dynasty ...or Real Housewives" from Kiss) were at least part of his Vancouver act. And when he sat down at what looked like a piano, it appeared instead that he was playing a karaoke machine ( for "Alphabet Street" and "I Would Die 4 U"). What's worse? Lip-syncing to real instruments or singing karaoke? Finally he made the classic "old and in the way" speech about radio play: "You want to occupy something? Let's occupy the radio stations" before launching into an over-the-top rendition of "Nothing Compares 2 U".

After two brief encores of "Purple Rain" and "Controversy", the Prince had left the building. It was 10 PM. The lights went up but nobody believed the show could possibly be over. It was for us....and the people who had paid $200 for floor tickets. But not for Prince who  headed up to Seattle for an after party where he jammed with his band for 90 straight minutes.

I finally got to see Prince. I probably don't need to see Prince again.