Jimmy Jam’s association with Prince came to an abrupt end in 1983, when he and his songwriting/production partner Terry Lewis were fired from The Time, a band that Prince created, wrote for and produced. However, he still speaks about his former mentor with a huge amount of respect.
This was made clear once again during a recent conversation on Billy Corgan’s The Magnificent Others podcast, in which Jam began by praising Prince’s sheer level of musicianship.
“I was talking to Questlove about this a while back,” he recalled. “We were talking about debut albums, and I said ‘My favourite debut album is For You, the very first Prince album.’ And he said ‘Why?’ And I said, ‘Because if you think about it, if you had no idea who did it, you just put the music on, you’d go, ‘Who’s playing keys on that? Man, who’s singing that? Wait, who’s playing guitar on that? Wait, who’s the bass player on that?’”
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The answer to each of these questions, of course, is the same: “You would think that each musician is some individual just killing it, and it’s all Prince,” Jam points out. “There’s very few people to me that can do that. The only other person, in a whole different sense, is Todd Rundgren. When Todd Rundgren used to do his records with everything, and I thought he was amazing at that.”
Talent is one thing, but Jam went on to say that the thing he learned most from being around Prince was application.
“That Prince work ethic was the thing that he taught me more than anything else,” he said, before telling a memorable anecdote that demonstrates just how demanding Prince could be.
“I remember we were rehearsing 777 9311, The Time record,” remembered Jam, “and he’s watching our rehearsal, and then when we get done doing the song, he goes – and he always called me Jimmy Jam; he never just called me Jimmy, it was Jimmy Jam – ‘Jimmy Jam, what are you doing with your left hand?’ I said ‘I’m not doing anything, Prince. I’m just doubling Terry’s bass part. That’s all I do on the record.’ And he said, ‘It’s gotta be bigger than the record. Mirror Monte’s part.’”
Eager to please, Jam did as he was asked and synced up with Monte Moir, another keyboard player in The Time. “So now I’m like, OK, now I’m playing with both hands. OK, great,’” thought Jam, but this wasn’t enough for Prince.
“He says, ‘Jimmy Jam – what note are you singing on the chorus?’ I said, ‘I’m not singing a note on the chorus. It’s a three-part harmony, they got it.’”
Prince’s response? “Find a note. It’s gotta be bigger than the record.’”
Was he satisfied now? Take a wild guess: “So now I’m playing 777 9311. Great. Song ends,” says Jam. “He goes, ‘Jimmy Jam – why aren’t you doing the choreography?’ I said, ‘Prince, I’m behind the keyboard. What do you want me to do?’ He says, ‘It’s simple choreography. You should be able to do it.’
“So now I’m behind the keyboard. Now I’m trying to hit my note. I’m trying to do the little four corners dance and stuff. Totally frustrated. End the rehearsal, we walk out.”
It all sounds pretty stressful, and Jam must have been cursing as he left, but he was about to learn an important lesson.
“Next day at rehearsal, we walk in,” he continues. “Prince goes, ‘777,’ and I’m like, ‘ah, here we go.’ We start playing the song. I realise about a minute into the song, I’m playing my part, I’m singing my note, I’m hitting the choreography, and now I’ve even found time to take a hanky out my pocket and pat myself, tip my hat, and I realise here’s somebody that saw me better than I saw myself.”
Soon enough, Jam and Lewis would take what they’d learned from Prince and start applying it to their work with other artists – most notably Janet Jackson, with whom they had a string of hits during the ‘80s, ‘90s and beyond. Then, in 1995, they got the chance to work with her brother, Michael, who was frequently cited as Prince’s greatest rival. As such, they had a unique perspective on how the two artists compared.
“Later on in life, we had a chance to work with Michael Jackson, and somebody said, ‘What’s the difference [between him and Prince]?’” says Jam. “And I said, ‘the difference is Prince will start a song at the beginning of the day, and it’s totally done at the end of the day. And I mean totally done.”
