When Wendy & Lisa released their Girl Bros. album on the Internet in September 1998 like O(+> had done with Crystal Ball, they told Rolling Stone: “When last we spoke (with O(+>) he wanted us to do a reunion for the VH1 Honors, and we thought, ‘Oh that could be a really cool idea. We’d go onstage and do like four of the old tunes on a couple of acoustic guitars and a piano.’ You know, like really strip it down, get rid of all the fluff. He came back to us with a proposal that we would dance through the audience with these outfits on and have a huge parade of people behind us, waving banners and playing like five of the songs, but only like ten seconds of each song and the rest is just jamming. We were like, ‘How about if we do it this way: No one else onstage but the three of us, no big deal, la la la – that would really be something.’ We never heard from him again on the subject. That was two years ago.”
Instead of a reunion with Wendy & Lisa, O(+> performed The Holy River from his Emancipation album at the VH1 Honors on 10 April 1997, but later he began to consider making an album with Prince And The Revolution – the first since Parade in 1986. However, it would be made up of Prince And The Revolution tracks from his Vault instead of getting the band together to make new music. The album was to be called Roadhouse Garden and would be made in much the same fashion as the Crystal Ball compilation released in 1998. Both of these compilations derived their titles from unreleased albums with Roadhouse Garden originally being the title of a Prince And The Revolution album made in between Parade in 1985 and Dream Factory in 1986.
Paisley Park Recording Engineer H. M. Buff revealed that in a 2018 interview with The Violet Reality: “And then we actually started Roadhouse Garden. I got another list with songs. Splash was among them and Roadhouse Garden. That came out of the vault, but we only worked on that for like two days. We did that in ‘98. And I’m personally glad he didn’t do it because I remember Roadhouse Garden, he actually transferred the mix to tape and then started doing overdubs. Yeah, so…”
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| Lisa Coleman & Wendy Melvoin |
Abandoned after updating three tracks
On 7 October 1998, O(+> announced on his Love 4 One Another website that he was working on a new Prince And The Revolution album entitled Roadhouse Garden named after the unreleased 1984 track. The album would consist of “things left unfinished” when the band broke up and “several new cuts that O(+> is putting together using parts from many tunes.” O(+> claimed to have offered Lisa Coleman and Wendy Melvoin co-production work on the project, something which they later denied. It was initially planned for a 1999 release.
On 19 January 1999, O(+> chatted with with a webmaster for his Love4OneAnother website. He mentioned two tracks intended for Roadhouse Garden, the previously mentioned Splash and Witness 4 The Prosecution.
In an email to SonicNet published 3 March 1999, O(+> said: “Eye have been allowing 4 the run of Girl Bros. b4 the release of the Garden record. It has songs on it that feature The Revolution in a front role, as a band; where songs on Crystal Ball were more recent “bootlegs” with various other musicians. Some song titles include: Splash, All My Dreams and In a Dark Room with No Light. The beauty of r ownership of the master tapes will b felt when one hears the REMIXED newly digitized versions of these classic REVOLUTION songs.”
However, the Roadhouse Garden project was quickly abandoned. Prince then said anyone wanting to know what happened to the project should ask Wendy and Lisa, so Matt Thorne – author of the biography Prince from 2012 - did. They told him: “Because we’re gay. The Lord thinks we’re evil, and we’re damning the Revolution to hell.”
H. M. Buff further told Matt Thorne: “I’m glad it didn’t work out, to be honest with you. I was very excited about it, but he thought he could improve on things, so I would transfer the mix of what was there, and he would add those keyboards he liked so much at the time. But we didn’t work on many songs. I remember Splash was worked on. Roadhouse Garden. And Wonderful Ass once again came out of the vault. Maybe there were a couple of more that I don’t remember.”
When asked by a fan in a Q&A on his Love4OneAnother website what happened to the song Empty Room released as a video in 1995, O(+> had replied, “Empty Room will b released with many other gems on a new compilation called Prince and the Revolution’s Roadhouse Garden,” so that song was definitely included. Other tracks considered for Roadhouse Garden included Go, A Place In Heaven and Moonbeam Levels.
Prince & The Revolution: Roadhouse Garden (October 1998)
Track list unknown, but includes Roadhouse Garden, Splash**, Witness 4 The Prosecution, All My Dreams, In A Large Room With No Light, Wonderful Ass, Empty Room* and possibly Go, A Place In Heaven & Moonbeam Levels
In an interview with MTV on 6 November 1999, Kurt Loder asked O(+>: “There’s been some talk of some old tracks with The Revolution, your previous band, your old band, coming out as an album called Roadhouse Garden. Is that possibly, maybe, going to happen?”
O(+> replied: “We did three tracks for the record, meaning I went in and finished them, and then I put Roadhouse Garden on the backburner, so nothing’s really happening with it.”
Not exactly a Prince And The Revolution release
In early November 1998, Warner Brothers re-issued the 1982 Prince single 1999. It reached as high as number 10 on the UK chart. O(+> criticized the release on his Love 4 One Another website, complaining that the bulk of the profits went to the owner of the master recording, Warner Bros. He then announced that he himself was preparing to release several new versions of 1999.
The 1999 – The New Master EP was initially planned as a preview of the Roadhouse Garden album by Prince And The Revolution which was said to be only a few months away. Paisley Park Engineer H. M. Buff commented the matter in the 2018 interview with The Violet Reality: “Yes, there was a lot of talk about re-recording the masters and we worked on 1999 and there was one attempt at a remake of Let’s Pretend We’re Married, and I know that Morris Hayes did some really cool backing - almost drums and bassy background tracks - for that, but that’s where that ended. The end of the re-recording project. By the way, it was really interesting for me doing that 1999 thing. Most people don’t know about it and that’s probably okay, but there’s like this Latin part in it and I always thought, ‘What a weird idea to stick that in there,’ and then I got the original tape out so I could listen to it and there’s a Latin part in there, so he just in that version put it out but it had been thought of before.”
1999 – The New Master was released on 2 February 1999 credited to Prince And The Revolution even though no actual members of The Revolution appeared on it. The EP co-credited The New Power Generation and Chaka Khan, Larry Graham, Rosie Gaines (who told biographer Alex Hahn for his 2004 book Possessed – The Rise And Fall Of Prince that she didn’t get paid for her participation), Doug E. Fresh and actress Rosario Dawson appear on some of the tracks. The EP featured seven updated versions of 1999 and peaked at number 150 on Billboard’s Pop Album Chart and number 58 on the R&B Album Chart. It was priced as an EP which is why it didn’t chart as a single.
Prince And The Revolution: 1999 - The New Master EP (1999)
1. 1999 - The New Master (7:09)
2. Rosario (1999) (1:19)
3. 1999 (The Inevitable Mix) (5:46)
4. 1999 (Keepsteppin’) (4:33)
5. 1999 (Rosie Doug E. In A Deep House) (6:23)
6. 1999 - The New Master (Single Edit) (4:30)
7. 1999 (Acapella) (5:11)
An unfulfilled re-recording ambition
“I wanted to buy my masters back from Warner Bros.,” O(+> told Paper in June 1999. “They said no way. So, I’m going to re-record them. All of them. Now you will have two catalogs with pretty much exactly the same music - except mine will be better - and you can either give your money to WB, the big company, or to NPG. You choose.”
Prince had done a re-recording of his 1978 song Soft And Wet prior to 26 January 1999, but if his re-recordings were anything like 1999 – The New Master, no one really wanted him to re-record his old albums. (1999 – The New Master wasn’t very good if you’re not into rap.)
“The plan at the time was to redo the whole 1999 album,” H. M. Buff told Matt Thorne. “He even announced he was going to re-record the original album, but it never went anywhere other than my taking the original tapes and transferring them to digital tapes. (…) A lot of people complained about the Latin part in 1999 – The New Master. Funnily enough, there was a Latin part on the original that was edited out at the time.”
Releasing something under the name “Prince” helped ease O(+>’s upcoming name-change back to Prince into the public consciousness. As a Jehova’s Witness, his name could not be a heathen symbol, and in May 2000 Prince discarded the symbol name and became Prince again.
To celebrate him being called Prince again, the inaugural Prince: A Celebration convention took place at Paisley Park 7-13 June 2000. This special event celebrating Prince’s legacy included an onstage reunion with the male members of The Revolution, Dr. Fink, Bobby Z and Brownmark at the closing show on 13 June at the Northrop Auditorium in central Minneapolis. They performed America. Larry Graham was also present on stage during the show which probably explains the absence of Wendy & Lisa. Because, as Alex Hahn wrote in his 2004 book Possessed – The Rise And Fall Of Prince: “Ex-Revolution drummer Bobby Z. Rivkin, who visited Paisley Park in 2000, was forced to listen to Prince and Larry Graham engage in a homophobic rant, according to another former band member whom Rivkin told about the meeting. Prince explained to Rivkin that prior to any reunion of the Revolution - an idea discussed several times over the years - Wendy and Lisa would be required to publicly renounce their homosexuality. As Rivkin listened incredulously, Prince said he would insist that the women hold a press conference and ‘apologize’ for their lifestyle.”
A Celebration with 20 re-mastered recordings
Skip a year ahead, and in NPG Ahdio Show #4 released 15 May 2001, a Prince album entitled A Celebration was announced. The announcement stated that Prince was in negotiations with a major record store chain to distribute the album, said to contain 20 "remastered re-recordings" of Prince’s greatest hits along with "at least four brand new songs". This album was not released, however, likely due to the Warner Bros. release of The Very Best Of Prince in July 2001.
It is not known which songs would have been included on the album, and how much the track list overlapped with the setlists used on the brief A Celebration tour, which was likely initially intended to promote the album. The tour was canceled after only six concerts, partly to avoid the appearance of supporting The Very Best Of Prince, and partly because of Prince wanting to spend time with his father, whose health was ailing at that point.
UPDATED 16 October 2023: A quote from O(+> himself about remixing tracks for Roadhouse Garden was added to the Abandoned After Updating Three Tracks section. And a quote about re-recordinng his backcatalogue is now at the beginning of the An unfulfilled Re-recording Ambition section.
SvarSletUPDATED 8 February 2024: Mention was made in the first section of text that Roadhouse Garden was originally an unreleased album from in between Parade and Dream Factory. Thanks to Matt Thorne's Prince book.
SvarSlet