This guest post comes to us from New Orleans raised bassist Blyss who currently calls San Francisco home while holding the bass chair in the band of legendary Meters drummer Zig.
That SOTT/BLACK/LOVESEXY era is so special to me personally because it was a time of serious change and transition. Oh man, the golden days when Prince was dropping a record a year… I was 17 in 87, my senior year of High School and that year we were also moving out of my beloved Treme, trading it for an area of New Orleans called Gentilly. Okay, I know I’m supposed to be saying something about these records but, damn, that whole era brings back serious memories!
“Lovesexy” is, in my opinion, one of the last great concept albums with it’s theme of struggle between good and evil. This record isn’t just a collection of songs and even the famously annoying early releases of the CD with all of the songs listed as one track let you know that Prince wanted it to be heard as a complete work. I ain’t mad at him. It really is a record that you can listen to from start to finish.
Prince hadn’t been in town since the “Purple Rain” tour and quite honestly he’d lost quite a few people…a lot of people. I remember camping out downtown to buy tickets from a Ticketmaster inside a department store downtown but not nearly as many people as I’d expected were there. The night of the show much of the Lakefront Arena was empty. You could see large sections of empty spaces but that didn’t bother me. The show was simply fascinating. It was like watching a Broadway musical, the quintessential Rock Opera.
