2002: One Nite Alone / One Nite Alone....Live! / One Nite Alone...Live: Up All Nite With Prince And The NPG
Image: NPG Records / Prince Estate
NPGMC’s Dilemma
The first year of the NPGMC was predictably rough. Prince and his team were sailing uncharted waters. There was no precedent for what Prince was trying to accomplish. He had promised an awful lot to his fans. Roughly an EP a month, and a music video or two at the minimum. That was a lot of content, even for Prince, and there was reason to believe Prince was beginning to feel the pinch.
Even though I have gone on at great length about the seemingly bottomless well of content that is the vault (and will continue to do so, because that is what it is), there is a reality at work here that most fans do not reckon with. Warner Bros.’ reluctance to “flood the market” with Prince’s work wasn’t the only thing that filled up the vault. At this point, Prince had been a free agent for seven years, and while his rate of output had increased, it hadn’t exactly exploded. The reason the vault became so full is because there was a wealth of material that – for whatever reason, quality or otherwise – Prince did not want to release to the public.
Plus, Prince’s new faith meant that the content of some of the things in the vault were no longer suitable for release. Personally, I feared he would feel the need to go through the vault and permanently alter recordings to make them more in line with his beliefs. Thankfully, this turned out to be untrue. He did create edits or special “censored” versions for NPGMC releases, but he never altered original masters for Club releases.
NPGMC Year Two Begins
The Club seemed to have found a more even footing in its second year. The DRM was a thing of the past, and newer content was included in the monthly drops. The membership was still a hardcore fandom, however, and fandom is toxic, so they were never really going to be fully pleased with anything Prince did, but there was little justifiable outrage as there was with the first year. Honestly, Prince trying to have his own proprietary music file format was completely bazoo, but it’s almost understandable. Almost.
On the other hand, it’s easy to forget he was flying blind. Nobody had attempted anything like this before. It would have been difficult for most other artists to attempt to do something like this. The Grateful Dead or Dave Matthews Band, with their extensive touring schedule and their ability to use live recordings as material for monthly downloads might be able to do something similar, but those are the only comparable situations I can imagine offhand in terms of material. In terms of motivated fan bases, you could also add Taylor Swift to that list. She would also be the most likely to try something like this in terms of business priorities. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Prince would very much approve of the way Taylor Swift (justifiably) believes in her fan base when taking business and artistic risks.
But even the mighty Swift probably wouldn't try to have her own file format. Image: AP / George Walker IV
Truly New Material
Meanwhile back in the early 2000’s Prince had a growing issue with his ability to deliver fan service to his fan club. The Rainbow Children was, to say the very least, challenging. The next album needed to be something much more palatable to the membership and hopefully quick, easy and cheap to produce. Surveys went out to the club to supplement those taken at the Celebration, and in the Spring of 2001 he set out to give his most dedicated fans…if not exactly what they wanted, something very close. Fans had indicated they had enjoyed The Truth and its stripped-back guitar-forward approach. They would also have liked a solo piano album. The third thing that Prince’s informal, non-scientific market research indicated was that Prince’s most fanatical fans shared Prince’s keen interest in his most recent work. The die hard fans were definitely interested in Exodus outtakes, but the stuff that we most wanted to hear was what he had recorded yesterday – or better yet, earlier today. We really wanted an album of completely new material, which Prince set out to record during the same period that The Rainbow Children was being mastered.
That album is One Nite Alone, and is billed as “Solo piano and voice by Prince,” but like The Truth, it also contains limited samples, sound effects, and even drums by John Blackwell on a few tracks. It is, like most of Prince’s albums released through the NPGMC, among his least-known works. It’s unfortunate, because it shows off Prince’s ability as a pianist more than any other album except perhaps the posthumous release Piano And A Microphone 1983, and that was an unstructured rehearsal tape that was mostly Prince noodling around in the early 80’s. By 2001, Prince was simply a better songwriter, arranger and musician than he was in 1983 and it shows.
There is also a new kind of confidence present in his work from The Rainbow Children onward that I think goes largely unrecognized by critics and even fans. Here is Prince delivering what is absolutely an album of fan service. By definition, that is what One Nite Alone must be. His fans literally asked for it and he is now delivering it. This is not something Prince would normally be expected to do. At the very least, I would personally expect him to it poorly, but ONA is an excellent album, free of most of Prince’s self-indulgence, over production and excesses. I think this ability to give his fans what they wanted successfully (as opposed to unsuccessfully a la Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic) is somehow connected to his newfound ability to connect to people more easily.
Prince’s conversion to the Jehovah’s Witnesses had many detrimental effects, but it did make him more able to relate to people on a personal level and he seemed genuinely happy for the first time in years. He also rediscovered his freewheeling love of musical experimentation, this time in a more jazzy direction. There isn’t much evidence of this on One Nite Alone, but the next year or so’s worth of releases (and the upcoming tour) would definitely bear this out.
Of Course It Got A Little Weird
It wouldn’t be an NPGMC album release if things were not a little shady for the fans. It started out fine. In May of 2002, ONA shipped out to Club members and was generally well-received. A tour called “One Nite Alone with Prince and the NPG” but it was really more of a tour supporting The Rainbow Children and the Club itself, although several songs from ONA were played on the tour, which began almost three months before the album shipped.
The weirdness came in November of that year. After the tour, Prince released his first live album, a box set called One Nite Alone…Live! It received a retail release in December, but Club members received a special version of the set at no extra cost as part of their membership. The thing is the membership promised five physical albums that year. The retail box set contained a double album that approximated a concert from the ONA tour, a third disc called One Nite Alone…The Aftershow: It Ain’t Over! which had tracks culled from the many aftershows on the tour…and a copy of One Nite Alone. If you had gone to a show and gotten a membership as a result, this is a good deal for you. If you were one of the majority, however, and your five-CD commitment was being met by having a duplicate shipped to you, this is a little upsetting. How Prince avoided lawsuits I’ll never know.
Image: NPG Records / Prince Estate
A Better, Smaller Tour
The One Nite Alone tour was different from any other tour Prince undertook in his career. He was the kind of artist who usually attempted to do things as large as possible. This tour was intentionally done on a smaller scale. Most of the venues were 5,000 seats or less – very small for a star of his size. Some of the venues he played were normally the ones he would be playing as aftershows.
This was done for a few reasons. The primary one being practical – he was touring to promote The Rainbow Children, after all, and if you’re going to open with your ten-minute misogynist jazz odyssey about how God thinks you’re better than your ex-wife, you should probably not plan on selling out Madison Square Garden. Although it should be noted that by the time the tour started, he had started to reel that back in already. Usually the only words recited were “Through the accurate understanding of God and his law, they set about the work of building a new nation – The Rainbow Children.”
The other reason was he wanted to promote the Club as well, and felt that it would be difficult to promote it as a small, exclusive experience in massive arenas. He wanted people to feel like the club got you close to him and his band, so the shows should also do the same. He extended this idea to the soundchecks. Members were invited to the soundchecks. Prince and the band would mill about in the audience talking to people. Prince would occasionally gently proselytize, but apart from that, it was all good fun. Occasionally, they would play new music for the club, or he would say something along the lines of, “I’m getting bored, anybody out there know how to play guitar?” and someone would find themself on stage with Prince’s guitar while he sashayed back to their seat and took a break.
From the ONA tour soundcheck in Hollywood. Image: NPG Records
Prince took advantage of the smaller scale of the tour in other ways. He played plenty of songs from his catalog, but he dropped the majority of his greatest hits. There was no “Purple Rain,” or “When Doves Cry,” or “Let’s Go Crazy” on the tour. He even liked to quip “If you’re looking for a Little Red Corvette, you might be surprised at what you’re going to get.” Instead, he went back for songs that were looked for by his fans, but normally wouldn’t have made into a setlist because they would be edged out for more well-known songs. It was nice to hear “Strange Relationship,” “When You Were Mine,” and especially the superb live version of “The Other Side Of The Pillow” be brought out, especially with this version of the NPG.
One extra attraction of the live album is the inclusion of the song “Xenophobia,” which is a twelve-minute long instrumental that is very much in the style of the JB’s records from their 70’s heyday a la “Pass The Peas” or “Givin’ Up Food For Funk.” It was meant to be the centerpiece of the album that became Xpectation, but for whatever reason, the song was cut from that album and its only official release is on this album.
Image: NPG Records / Prince Estate
As good as One Nite Alone…Live! Is, the real treat of the package is It Ain’t Over. The aftershow-focused disc really does capture the feeling of what that band’s late night gigs felt like, and the cherry-picked performances represent what are probably the best of the bunch. The opening track is a blistering extended “Joy in Repetition,” and it continues on from there in a similar fashion. “Dorothy Parker” even makes an appearance. All these albums are streaming, and are worth your time to take a listen.
Image: NPG Records / Prince Estate
There was also a DVD release of edited highlights from an NPGMC-only performance at the Aladdin Las Vegas, and there are some good performances on it, but overall, it’s not as good as the albums, even if it does include the cover of “Pass the Peas” the band did almost every night that the albums cut. The DVD is just too truncated. “The Rainbow Children” isn’t even included, so the opening number of the show is cut out of the concert film. It feels a bit cowardly. Although the show is noteworthy for having the last live performance of “The Work, Pt. 1” which was released on the DVD, so it does have that going for it.
Image: NPG Records / Prince Estate
The best way to see the DVD now is to get a hold of the box set Up All Nite With Prince which contains all the albums mentioned here on CD and the DVD in a single box set for a reasonable price.
TRACKLIST
Since the live albums consist almost exclusively of previously-released songs, I’m going to consider what I have already said about them to be sufficient criticism, so what follows is a track-by-track for One Nite Alone only:
One Nite Alone
In its own way, this album challenges the listener as much as The Rainbow Children. When I first heard it a year or two after its release I don’t think I was ready for it. As the title implies, it’s a very intimate album, and it’s recorded that way. The title track sounds like Prince is in a large room singing and playing about three feet from the listener. If you have good enough ears (and good enough headphones) you can even hear that Prince’s left and right hands on the keyboard have different positions in the stereo field.
All this enhances the effectiveness of one of his moodier ballads. The first confirmed performance of this song was March 1, 2002 and the last was October 24 of the same year. He retired this one too soon. I’m surprised that he didn’t at least bring this one back for his last tour, which was a solo piano tour.
U’re Gonna C Me
This song will make another appearance on a later album, and it’s worth coming back to this version to hear the differences. This version is almost like a classic jazz cabaret performance, and has quiet swing to it that feels almost like (and I don’t mean this in a bad way) he’s playing on “Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood.” Usually I don’t care for Prince’s ornate piano filigree nonsense, but somehow he makes it work here.
Here On Earth
This is the first track to feature John Blackwell on drums. There are other keyboards included as well. It’s still basically a piano-focused track…but he’s pushing it. It’s a song that barely gets started, actually. In the context of the album, it feels good, but it does not stand on its own very well.
A Case Of U
I’m not sure if this was Prince’s favorite Joni Mitchell song, but it was certainly the one he seemed to cover by default. In fact, my partner informs me it's the Joni song EVERYONE covers by default, which I never knew before. It’s hard to say to why it took him so long to finally release a version of this, since he sang the song live since the early 80’s. This is the one that gets the furthest from “solo piano and voice,” by which I mean “drums by John Blackwell, additional keys, organ, bass, acoustic guitars, electric guitar and multiple backing vocals by Prince.”
But what the hell. It’s a great track.
Have A Heart
I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s another version of this somewhere in the vault with a more involved arrangement. This is one of those “jilted Prince” songs that benefits from the adherence to the solo piano treatment. Rolls along nicely and doesn’t overstay its welcome.
Objects In The Mirror
This segues from “Have A Heart” and has a completely different vibe. I’m not sure he’s ever done a song about the afterglow before, and it’s a shame, because this one very effective, especially when it grabs the hooks from “Have A Heart” and rolls them into itself. It’s some clever stuff that Prince should have done more of…and maybe he did, but never released it.
Avalanche
This is really the centerpiece of the album for me. Probably the riskiest in terms of subject matter. Here are the lyrics:
"He was not or never had been in favor
Of setting our people free
If it wasn't for the Thirteenth Amendment
We woulda been born in slavery
He was not or never had been in favor
Of letting us vote so you see
Abraham Lincoln was a racist who said
"You cannot escape from history"
[Chorus]
Like the snow coming down the mountain
That landed on Wounded Knee
Nobody wants to take the weight
The responsibility
[Verse 2]
Hear the joyous sound of freedom
The Harlem Renaissance
Hear Duke Ellington and his band
Kick another jungle jam
Ooh, do you wanna dance?
Who's that lurking in the shadows?
Mr. John Hammond with his pen in hand
Saying "Sign your kingdom over to me
And be known throughout the land!"
But, you ain't got no money, no, you ain't got no cash
So you sign your name and he claims innocence
[Chorus]"
Lyrics by Prince (c) NPG Records
The things he talks about here are factually true. Lincoln, while definitely against the institution of slavery, would have happily left it in place if he thought doing so could have ended the Civil War. It’s fair to call him a racist – as was every other White person. Of course, Lincoln’s willingness to sign the Emancipation Proclamation makes these sorts of criticisms unpopular, but it’s impossible to ignore that he was a man of his time.
Criticism of John Hammond is almost as rare as criticism of Lincoln. John Hammond is most widely known as “the man who discovered Billie Holiday.” In truth, he was a key figure in bringing jazz and blues to a White audience. Hammond was a priveleged Yale dropout who became an early record producer for Columbia. He introduced Benny Goodman and Fletcher Henderson, brought Big Bill Bronzy and Count Basie to New York, and was instrumental in laying down much of the framework for how artists were treated by record labels. That is to say, who owned publishing, master recordings, etc. So, while he was bringing Black music to a White audience, he was also bringing the revenue from Black music to White pockets. People don’t normally talk about that.
Pearls B4 The Swine
Another song with a lot of extra instrumentation. Several guitars, a bass and keyboards, a few percussion instruments. It has a pretty melody in spite of the title and unlike most of the songs on the album, this one did get pulled out of mothballs for the 2010 tour.
Young and Beautiful
This is a strangely upbeat song, especially considering the subject matter. “Keep your clothes on” just isn’t one of the subjects you think Prince would write about. Maybe that’s why it’s so short. He just couldn’t think of much to say on the subject.
Arboretum
An atmospheric instrumental closes out the album, and it’s one of the highlights. I wonder if there’s any more like this lying around in the vault. I would listen to an hour’s worth of stuff like this with no trouble at all.
NEXT WEEK: The jazz odyssey continues with a couple of singles and the little known, less heard album Xpectation
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