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I was going to post some tracks from the Minneapolis Genius album to coincide with this article, but I only have two.  If somebody here has the rest of it, I'd appreciate it if you could please post them here. thanks.
ORIGINS OF THE MINNEAPOLIS GENIUS
Interview with Pepe Willie (conducted by Kristie Lazenberry; Questions supplied by the UPTOWN magazine staff http://www.uptown.se
(Published in the Summer 1995 issue of Uptown magazine)
(Re-printed without permission.)
In 1972, Linster Willie, or Pepe, as he has been known since infanthood, married Prince’s cousin Shantel Manderville. Her mother and Prince’s mother are twins. Pepe got into music at a very young age through his uncle, Clarence Collins, who was a member of Little Anthony and The Imperials, an R&B group. Pepe started off as The Imperial’s valet and errand boy, before moving on to singing and songwriting.
In this exclusive interview, Pepe talks about his background, his group 94 East, and, of course, his work with the “Minneapolis genius,” Prince.
I got into music when I discovered that my uncle, Clarence Collins, was a member of Little Anthony and The Imperials. Clarence was seven years older than me, and when I met him and went backstage to one of their shows, I was hooked right there and then. It was something that I had always wanted to do. I loved meeting all the stars and find out that they were like real people. My sister even went out with Stevie Wonder for a while and I just started learning all about the ropes and the aspects of the business.
I started playing drums in school and started writing lyrics and playing guitar on my own. I worked for Little Anthony and The Imperials during the holidays, Easter and Christmas. Then I went on tour with them and got to meet a lot of people, like Ike and Tina Turner. My uncle even introduced me to Jimi Hendrix. I met Diana Ross when she was about 17 years old, (damn, Pepe must be OOOLD – MME) and Smokey Robinson and The Miracles, Marvin Gaye, Jackie Wilson, Chuck Jackson, The Temptations, Four Tops, The Righteous Brothers. I can go on and on. It was a multitude of talented people. These were the guys who taught me everything, so when I came here to Minneapolis, I was like the music guru. I was THE GUY.
GOING TO MINNEAPOLIS
Shantel often talked about Prince, and he used to call Pepe in New York, asking him about the music business, publishing and recording contracts. Pepe did not actually meet Prince until he and Shantel moved to Minneapolis, in the winter of 1974/75. Pepe first met Prince when he was playing with his group Grand Central Corporation at a ski party that Shantel’s father was throwing.
“I came out here to Minneapolis because of Shantel. She was my woman at the time, and I just wanted to be together with her and see if we could make things happen. Basically, I just got off the plane and was rushed to this ski party. Prince’s band was playing there. I recall Prince had a big afro.”
“At that time, the group was Morris Day on a seven-piece drum set, Andre Anderson (later known as Andre Cymone) was the bass player, and Prince was the guitar player. Linda Anderson, Andre’s sister, was playing keyboards, and William Daughty was playing percussion. When I came along, Terence Jackson and Charles “Chazz” Smith, Prince’s cousin, had been gone from the group for about two weeks. Morris Day’s mother, LaVonne Daughterty, was also there.”
“I thought they sounded very good. They were playing cover songs and maybe one or two original songs. It was hard to listen to a band at a party, but I thought they were talented. I thought they were very sharp, and they seemed to have the ambition to be in this business. Who was I to say that they couldn’t be in there?”
“Being from Brooklyn, New York, and my family being in the music industry, and all the things that was going on in New York, when I came here to Minneapolis it was like nothing was happening here. They had very few clubs. They would have black singing groups and bands playing, but it was bleak, very bleak. They had a station called KUXL that literally went off when the sun went down. I thought it was a big joke, and I didn’t let people know that I didn’t believe it. A station goes off when the sun goes down! But it was really true. The recording studios weren’t doing a lot of records. I made myself familiar with the Cookhouse Recording studios. I had to tell them about my background, a and how I was raised in the industry, before I started getting the kind of respect or the trust to come into the studio.”
Morris Day’s mother, LaVonne Daughterty, was managing Grand Central Corporation and she was more or less supporting them with money. She asked Pepe to work with the band in order to improve on their material.
“LaVonne wanted somebody who was in the music industry, someone who knew what to do with them. They needed to be rehearsed and they needed to play more original material. I wanted to help as much as I could. I considered Prince family, so I wanted to tell him everything that I possibly knew. I wanted to see what they could do, so I just had everybody play. It was obvious that Prince was the main guy because of the fact that he would stop in the middle of a song and say, ‘Wait a minute,’ and go over to the keyboard and talk to Linda Anderson and play a few chords and tell her that this is what he wanted her to play. And then he’d get back to start playing and then he would stop again and play a line for Andre and say, ‘This is the line I want you to play.’ He’d play it on his guitar and Andre knew exactly what he wanted. But it seems like Prince was the one who was directing the whole band. He played the keyboard parts for Linda Anderson and he was playing guitar and he could play bass. I wasn’t shocked, but I was kind of like, ‘Wow, this guy can play three instruments.’ I thought that was great, but I didn’t know he could play them to the extent that he was playing them. The guitar was his main instrument, and I didn’t know if he really knew how to play keyboards.”
“They had some great ideas but their material wasn’t constructed properly. There was no song construction. They would just start playing and singing, and then they would jam for 15 minutes. I’d ask them to play me a song and I would go, ‘What was that? What was the name of the song? I forgot the name of the song. You know, when you guys do this, you have got to have an intro, you have got to have a chorus and you have to have an ending. You need a hook in there so people can remember what the song was.’ Everybody was playing together, that wasn’t the problem. The problem was that they weren’t singing together. I told them to put down their instruments. Prince was the most talented guitar player, and I would have him play the chords and get them all to sing together. Andre might be singing ‘You remind me of me,’ and Morris would be going ‘You remind me of she’, while William or Linda would be going ‘You remind me of her.’ It was evident that they weren’t really particular about what they were saying. Morris had a seven-piece drum set and he would only play on three. ‘Look man, you have got to play all of your drums. You’ve got them here, so you’d better play them.’ I was a drummer myself at the time so it was easy for me to relate to him how to play on the whole drum set. So he started doing bigger turnarounds. It was evident, now when I look back at it, that Prince and Andre were the main two characters in the group. They were the glue that held everything together. You would not see Andre without Prince or Prince without Andre. They constantly worked together.”
After working with the group for some months, Pepe arranged for a friend called Dale Menton to take a look at the band. Dale co-owned the Cookhouse studio, where the band set up and went through part of their own repertoire, including “39th Street Party,” “You Remind Me of Me,” and “Machine.” But when Dale asked them to play a couple of cover tune, it was immediately obvious that they had mastered the delivery of other people’s songs better than their own material.
“I felt that they were doing enough of their own original material to go into the studio. I was recording at Cookhouse recording studios and I had met one of the owners there, Dale Menton. I told him about this band that I was working with, and he gave me a chance to bring the group in without paying for studio time. I wanted Dale to see in the group what I saw in the group, that they had the potential to be signed with a major recording label, that they could do records. They were just as good or just as bad as anybody else that was out there at that time. This was the first time these guys had ever been in a recording studio performing. They played their original material and then Dale came up and said, ‘Let them play a cover tune, a top 40 song.’ I told them to play an Earth, Wind & Fire tune or whatever, I don’t remember the song that they played. And after they played that, Dale told me that they played the cover tune much better than they played their original material. That said to me that they had to go back to the drawing board and work on their own songs, so that they would be as confident in their own material as they were when playing covers.”
SESSIONS WITH Prince
The first time Prince recorded in a studio was in December 1975, when Pepe employed him as a guitarist on some demos he was recording at Cookhouse with his group, which was comprised of Pierre Lewis (keyboards), Wendell Thomas (bass), Dale Alexander (drums), and backing singers Kristie Lazenberry and Marcy Ingvoldstad. Pepe played guitar and sang lead vocals. They recorded five songs at Cookhouse: “Games”, “I’ll Always Love You,” “But If We Don’t,” “Better Than You Think I do,” and “If You See Me,” which later became known as “Do Yourself a Favor” when Jesse Johnson recorded the song for his 1986 “Shockadelica” album).
“Prince had shown a lot of talent with his guitar and I wanted to use him as a guitarist in my sessions. I was working on some of my own material at Cookhouse, so I hired him and paid hi to play on my sessions. That was the first time he ever played in a studio and get paid. I thought he was the perfect guitar to make my stuff work for me. I was playing mostly acoustic guitar, but he played the hell out of electric guitar. He was very funky and I liked his style and his input. He had a lot of creative ideas.”
Pepe took the finished Cookhouse demos to Hank Cosby, who worked as an A&R man for Polydor Records in New York. Formerly a writer and producer with Motown, Cosby is perhaps best known as co-author and producer of Steve Wonder’s “My Cherie Amour.” Pepe got a recording deal with Polydor and record two songs for a single, “10:15” and “Fortune Teller.” The lead vocal for the latter song was sung by a young singer named Colonel Abrams. Lacking a name to put on the label of their planned debut single release, Pepe came up with 94 East, which is the main interstate out of the Twin Cities.
“We came to Minneapolis to record our single at Sound 80, and Prince happened to be there at the same time. He was doing his own demo. Owen Husney was now backing him up. We recorded “Fortune Teller,” written by Hank Cosby, and “10:15”, which was written by myself. Prince played guitar and sang background on that session. The first time I worked with Hank Cosby in New York, we happened to run across a young singer named Colonel Abrams. Hank Cosby had met him and we took him into the studio and recorded the lead vocals to “Fortune Teller.” “Love, Love, Love” was written by Prince and myself. I went to New York with the backing tracks. Colonel Abrams was looking for a deal and I thought that he could use this particular song. I gave him the backing tracks and asked him to try to write some lyrics for it. He came up with “Love, Love, Love” and it was really good. But Colonel never worked with Prince. The group 94 East was first Wendell Thomas, who was playing bass, Pierre Lewis, keyboards, Wendell’s half brother Dale Alexander was playing drums, Andre Lewis joined us later to play guitar. Dale kept coming late to rehearsals and I just couldn’t tolerate it because I was very disciplined about being on time. I was trying to show a lot of musicians that it was very important to show loyalty, to show that you really wanted to be in a band and to show respect to other band members. And Dale kept being late and he would not call ahead of time to say that he was going to be late. Even though he was a great drummer, and believe me, he was and still is a really great drummer, we had to fire him. We put an ad in the paper and Bobby Z Rivkin answered along with other drummers. Sonny Thompson was one of them. I don’t know why we didn’t hire Sonny, but we decided to go with Bobby Z. 94 East was a group that was going to perform live, but I did not believe in performing until we had a record deal. That was the only way that we were going to make any money performing.”
Pepe’s deal with Polydor fell through when Hank Cosby got fired and the 94 East project was shelved. Nonetheless, Pepe continued recording songs, often using Prince and Andre Anderson as session musicians.
“Hank Cosby got fired just before we had a release date. They had a new guy coming, and he brought a whole new staff in. he assured us that the record was going to be released, but it never was. When I told Prince and Andre about this, they were very, very upset and said, ‘Well, we’ve got to help Pepe out now. I can’t see how they just did that to him, because those were song great songs.’ So we went into Sound 80 practically the same day. We recorded some new stuff like “Just Another Sucker,” which I wrote with Prince, and “Dance To the Music of The World,” a song that I wrote. We also cut “Loving Cup,” which I wrote together with another friend of mine, Isaiah Page. Prince played guitar, keyboards and drums on those sessions. Andre played bass.”
By this time, Prince had parted ways with Champagne, which Grand Central Corporation had been renamed in the summer of 1976. After collaborating with studio owner and lyricist Chris Moon on demos for some time, Prince hooked up with Owen Husney who became his manager in late 1976. A new demo was recorded at Sound 80, and in June 1977 Prince signed with Warner Bros. Having recorded his debut album in five months in Sausalito, CA, Prince was back in Minneapolis in early 1978. He went with Pepe to New York in February 1978 for sessions at Music Farm Studios. Tony silvester, the leader of the group The Main Ingredient, was going to produce The Imperials, and needed some musicians to make demos of songs he was considering recording with them.
“We did “I Feel For You,” “If You Feel Like Dancing,” “Thrill You Or Kill You,” and “One Man Jam” in New York. “Thrill You or Kill You” was Andre’s song. Prince played “I Feel For You” on piano. I think Andre also played “Do Me, Baby” when we were in New York. As far as I remember Andre Cymone was the writer of it because he was showing it to all of us. When we came back from New York, Prince claimed the song because he did it on Controversy. Andre came up to me later and said, “Pepe, do you remember that we did that song in New York, and that I was my song?” And I told him I did.”
WORKING WITH PRINCE
After the release of Prince’s first album, For You, Pepe did some promo work with Prince. He also helped Prince put together his first band by introducing him to Gayle Chapman, who became one of the group’s two keyboard players.
“I did some promo work with Prince and Owen Husney in Chicago and North Carolina. I was very experienced about security, having worked with The Imperials. We were in North Carolina to do promotion, signing posters and records. One of the guys from Cameo was there. There was a long line in front of Prince’s table and a much shorter one for the Cameo guy. (Damn! – mme) I felt security was getting a little bit weak and at one point, I told Prince that we had to get out of there. He said, “Just let me sign a few more albums.” I said “OK, but the next time I whisper into your ear, just grab on to me and we are getting out of here.” I found some security people and had them line up and get the car outside the backdoor ready, and when I gave Prince the signal, he just got right up and we just flew right out of there. He told he felt like a piece of meat when we got back to the hotel. Owen and I also did promotion in Chicago. They were asking where Prince was, because they thought that he was going to be there too. Prince stayed at home. I don’t know why he wasn’t there. We didn’t think that he needed to be there, I guess. We went to some record stores. They all wanted to see Prince and many stores had a lot of kids outside. Owen was very scared, to say the least. I guess that’s why he took me: I was the brother going into “the hood” of Chicago. All of a sudden, you get 2-3,000 screaming kids saying that they love him and he didn’t understand that, and he is saying to me: “how can they love me, they don’t even know me.” He was very loyal to his fans. He wanted to sign every autograph, he wanted to sign every album, he wanted to talk to every fan. He wasn’t comfortable with the “brass,” the record company people, the disc jockeys or the press. Prince wanted a mixed band, so that he wouldn’t be trapped into the black “chitlin circuit.” He wanted to go pop, and he knew that the only way that he was going to succeed and have the success that he wanted was to go pop. He didn’t want to be stigmatized into becoming just another black R&B act. Prince said that he wanted to have people from home, w which was a great idea. The band members that you pick and the people that you are going to be with on tour is your family, so you’ve got to have people that you trust. He trusted his hometown musicians. I used to write songs together with Gayle. It was Chazz who brought her over. She was a very strong young lady. She could hold her own. I explained to all the band members, Matt Fink, Gayle, Bobby, Andre and Dez (Dickerson), that is was very important to support Prince because he was the one who was signed and later on, he would be able to help them out, individually or collectively.”
Pepe watched Prince rehearsing his band during marathon sessions in a building called Del’s Tyre Mart. After a robbery, some of the equipment was stolen and rehearsals continued in the basement of Pepe’s house.
“The rehearsals were very intense. You have to understand how badly Prince wanted the success. This guy could have worked the band 24 hours a day. They came to rehearsal usually around 10 to 11’o’clock in the morning, and they wouldn’t leave until 10 or 11 at night. They might just take a break once for about an hour, and that was it. They didn’t even stop to eat! These guys just rehearsed and rehearsed and rehearsed all the time. He was a perfectionist. He made sure that everybody knew their part like second nature. They could sing the lyrics or play the melody in their sleep. This is how he wanted them, he wanted them that tight and that’s how it had to be. Prince knew that a lot of money was spent on his first album, he did not want to fail. That was the whole thing. He wanted band members who had that same drive and hungerness that he had. Since he was working so hard he thought that it would all rub in and everybody would have the same drive and eagerness, that never-want-to-stop-type of thing like he did. I kept drilling into Prince what it would take in order for him to be successful. I drilled it into him what it would take and the more I drilled it into him, the harder he worked. I said to him that once he makes it to the pop market that’s when he can help me. That’s when he can just say my name and then the debt is paid back.”
In late 1978, Prince parted ways with Owen Husney, and for some time Pepe found himself involved in a kind of shuttle diplomacy between the two, relaying messages back and forth. Prince was disappointed in the lack of success for For You and he wanted it to happen faster.
Prince had his drum sets set up in the basement of his apartment. It was kind of cold down there, and he got angry at Owen one time because he needed space heaters. He felt that Owen should be a manager 24 hours a day. I guess Prince needed a full-time personal assistant, because he was all about music. They kind of out-grew each other. I was going back and forth between Prince and Owen. Prince was family to me so I felt that I could not leave him out there all alone with no one. He was very vulnerable at that time and he needed strong management. He needed help and not the hassles of manager problems. I helped Prince start his first publishing company, Ecnirp Music. I told him all about publishing and that it was going to be his insurance. It would be something that they could not take away from him.”
Pepe helped organize and promote Prince’s first concerts as a solo artist, in January 1979 at the Capri Theatre in Minneapolis. Despite several delays for technical problems, the debut concert was well received. Jon Bream, Minneapolis Star, called Prince’s debut “encouraging”, and said that “combined with careful direction, time, experience and refinement, that should spell a royal future for Prince.” The second night, Prince performed for Warner Bros. VIPs, who were eager to see the young studio whiz kid live. Even though the concert went well, it was decided that Prince was not yet ready to do a full-scale tour.
Kristie Lazenberry, Marcy Ingvoldstad and I worked diligently to get this thing happening. We even printed the tickets. Prince was psyched because of the fact that the Warner Bros. people were going to be there. It was his big show. “Is he ready? Is he ready to go on tour? Are these guys gonna back him up, give him tour support to get out there so that he can make money?” he wanted the full support of the record company and he wanted it to go really well. It was also a chance for Prince and the band members to have their families come and see them perform. They were away 10 to 12 hours each day, so their families were wondering what they were doing. I might be biased, but I thought that they were great. I thought they were excellent. I was pulling for them, I was voting for them. I was there for those guys to succeed, and I thought they did great. I gave the Warner Bros. bigwigs nice places up on the balcony, where they could stand. I remember it was cold that day. They had their limo outside the theatre with the motor running during the entire show. I watched them and tried to guess their reaction to the concert, but I couldn’t tell. The Warner Bros. people didn’t think they were ready yet. I was shocked when I heard that. You know, they came into a small town and I think they just couldn’t accept it like that. I definitely think that Prince and the band were ready. Prince was disappointed. I was disappointed, the band was disappointed. Everybody was disappointed, but I think I said to him, “Hey man, all we have to do now is work harder. That’s all. Back to the drawing board and work harder.” Prince didn’t want to hear anybody telling him that his band wasn’t ready, so therefore he took it upon himself to work the band until they got super tight. I don’t think they were hurt. It was just that they really wanted to go out on the road. As far as they were concerned, they were ready! They didn’t want to rehearse any more. They were tired of rehearsing, and they wanted to go out and play for people.”
DRIFTING APART
Pepe and Prince drifted apart in the ensuing years, but Pepe stayed in touch and followed Prince’s career. He was in attendance for Prince’s next performance in Minneapolis, at the Orpheum Theater in February 1980.
“I saw the show at the Orpheum Theater. We gave him total support there. We knew that he was on his way. He looked and acted more professional, the band was more professional, his management team was a lot more professional. I was very proud of him at that time. We were very close still, but I wasn’t much involved in his career moves. I thought that the Dirty Mind album, but it wasn’t my favorite album. Lot of people loved that album, but I didn’t like it because I didn’t support the sexual things that Prince did. I liked his earlier stuff but when the Dirty Mind album came out, it was a bit hard for me to take. It was funky, it was raw. I loved the music, but I didn’t like the lyrics. We started drifting apart at that time. He was just too busy. He wasn’t rehearsing at my place anymore, but we stayed in contact. I was present at a lot of his parties. I walked in on a lot of his rehearsals, he and the band were always happy to see me and we always had a good time.”
In January 1985, Pepe released the Minneapolis Genius album, consisting of songs he had recorded between 1975 and 1978. All six tracks featured Prince as a studio musician. At the request of the Hot Pink label, many of the original parts were re-recorded and updated with the exceptions of those done by Prince and Andre. “Just Another Sucker” gained some favorable R&B radio play despite never officially being released as a single. The first “real” single, “If You Feel Like Dancin”, never really materialized and the album seemed to exist in obscurity.
“I thought it was time to do it. The vibe just took me into that mould. Everything was starting to fall into place. I was ready to start releasing it because I was mad at Prince because he wasn’t coming back and helping us. I said, “Look, I’ve got this stuff here. I gotta do something.” To me it was my first rebellious act against Prince – I’m sure that’s how he would consider it. The main thing was that I wanted to get the album out, and I guess I mainly wanted to be heard. I wanted people to know that I was involved in a phenomenon. That I was part of that phenomenon – a very important of that phenomenon, and I wanted people to know. There was no one out there telling anyone about me. Everybody else was getting props, and I wasn’t getting any. It just happened that I wanted to get it out there so bad that I wasn’t thinking about leaving it as original. I was thinking about finishing it, because a lot of those tracks were unfinished. When I thought about finishing it with all of the updated studio equipment of that time, it was trying to capture a Prince-feel and trying to make it contemporary. The people who was backing us up wanted to play it in the discos and on mainstream radio. They brought in other mixers to try and come in and mix certain songs. And I didn’t want it. I fought against as much as I could. I didn’t win, obviously. When I was planning the Minneapolis Genius album, I called bob Cavallo in California and told him that I wanted Prince’s support. I wanted to get hold of him so I could tell him what I was doing. Bob didn’t think it was a good idea that Prince should know about it at that time. It was no big thing to me because I was going to release it anyway since it was mostly my songs. I did get some friction from Prince and we had heated discussion at First Avenue one night. I told him how I helped him from day one when I came into this town. I was waiting for Prince to say my name. We had a deal: I said, “Prince, when you make it to the pop market, just mention my name.” that’s all I wanted him to do. I felt that he had no right to be angry with me over my album. He wasn’t doing anything to help me, so I decided to put the album out. That was the only bit of friction I got from him, but that’s all water under the bridge now.”
“Since the mid-80s, I have been writing songs, consulting artists, listening to other artists’ material. I also got involved later on with the reunion of Little Anthony and The Imperials. I recorded and co-produced three or four songs with Little Anthony at Metro Studios here in Minneapolis. I have worked a lot with local artists.”
Games:
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Disco Away:
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____________________________
FUCK DONALD TRUMP
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