Vinyl and cassette will be issued in Jan 2022
In celebration of Prince’s acclaimed Controversy album, originally released 40 years ago on October 14, 1981, The Prince Estate and Warner Records are releasing another hidden gem from Prince’s storied Paisley Park vault: a previously unheard 1979 solo demo-recording of his quintessential slow-jam “Do Me, Baby.”
Available in two limited edition physical formats exclusively from the Official Prince Store: a special replica cassette single –limited to 1,981 units and sold out by this writing — and an etched 7-inch single pressed on purple vinyl. The replica cassette matches the original source format stored in Prince’s Paisley Park vault for decades, and the 7-inch vinyl incorporates Prince’s original hand-written lyrics for the song. Both are expected to ship by February 2022.
“Do Me, Baby” is best known as the centerpiece of 1981’s Controversy, but Prince first recorded the song years earlier. A demo featuring Prince and his best friend and creative collaborator André Cymone was initially recorded in 1978. Then a year later, Prince fully reimagined the track as a solo recording during the April 1979 recording sessions for Prince at Alpha Studios in North Hollywood, CA, with overdubs added in the same period at Hollywood Sound Records in Hollywood, CA.
From that 2-inch multitrack master tape, a cassette rough mix – recently discovered in Prince’s legendary vault and labeled in the artist’s own handwriting – was rendered but ultimately shelved. This special release of “Do Me, Baby (Demo)” has been newly mixed to match the original demo cassette specs by Prince’s GRAMMY-nominated engineer Chris James, and mastered by Prince’s longtime collaborator and multiple GRAMMY-winning engineer Bernie Grundman.
As was typical with Prince, he revisited the song afresh more than two years later when he created an entirely new solo recording of “Do Me, Baby” at Sunset Sound in June 1981. That master recording was released on October 14, 1981, as the epic final song on Side A of Controversy.
