Recording
The song was recorded during a benefit concert for the Minnesota Dance Theatre at the First Avenue nightclub in Minneapolis on August 3, 1983. The performance was guitarist Wendy Melvoin's live debut with The Revolution, at age nineteen. City Pages described the 70-minute performance as Prince's "sweatiest and most soulful hometown concert yet", and drummer Bobby Z stated, "it certainly was one of the best concerts we ever did".
The concert was recorded by David Rivkin using a mobile recording unit brought in from the Record Plant in New York City, staffed by engineers Dave Hewitt and Kooster McAllister. The basic tracks for three songs were used on the Purple Rain soundtrack: "Purple Rain", "I Would Die 4 U", and "Baby I'm a Star". Prince performed overdubs and re-recorded the vocals while working at Sunset Sound in Los Angeles from August–September 1983. A solo and verse from the original recording were edited out, changing the length from eleven to eight minutes. The extra verse was about money, but was removed because it diluted the emotional impact of the song.
After recording the song, Prince phoned Jonathan Cain from Journey asking him to hear it, worried it might be too similar to "Faithfully", a Journey single composed by Cain which had recently been in the charts. Cain reassured Prince telling him the songs only shared the same four chords.
Read more about this topic: Purple Rain (song)
Famous quotes containing the word recording:
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—Henry Miller (1891–1980)
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—Jane Heap (c. 1880–1964)