Album: The Rebels (1979)

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(Prince)
Unreleased Albums
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1982: Unreleased project.png Untitled The Hookers album
Untitled The Rebels album

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Album details


Intended Release Date: 1979
Label(s): Warner Bros.
Studio(s): Mountain Ears Sound Studio, Boulder, CO, USA

See also


   
This entry details a planned album for The Rebels, Prince’s backing band which was named so for the occasion. 9 tracks were recorded during a 12-day recording sessions from 10 to 21 July 1979 at Mountain Ears Sound Studio in Boulder, Colorado (shortly after Prince finished work on his second album Prince).

Although Dez Dickerson has once said he believed The Rebels' "album" was never more than an incentive for the band rather than a real album idea. But despite Dikerson’s claim it is still highly probable that the sessions were intended to produce an album by the group. Matt Fink said in an interview that Prince told his band: “We're going to Colorado and I want to make another record with you guys. I'm going to create a separate group." Prince’s cousin, Charles "Chazz" Smith (who was still close to some band members at that time), said that Prince went as far as envisioning the cover of the album which was going to be “the silhouettes of the faces of the group, just the shapes of their heads and no faces, so no one could see who it was”. In a later interview, Dez Dickerson also confirmed that there were talks about a cover for the album.

With The Rebels project, Prince eased some tension by allowing Andre Cymone and Dez Dickerson to write and record their own songs. The studio in Boulder, Colorado, was chosen by Perry Jones (who worked for Bob Cavallo and Joe Ruffalo at that time), because he had connections with the studio management. The sessions were engineered Bob Mockler, whom Prince met during the recording of his second album.

7 songs and 2 instrumentals were recorded during these sessions: Dez Dickerson wrote two songs on which he also sings lead (Too Long, Disco Away) and an untitled instrumental while Andre Cymone wrote a song (Thrill You Or Kill You, that was demoed 5 months earlier) and an untitled instrumental. Prince contributed four songs for the project: three were sung by Gayle Chapman (You, If I Love You Tonight and The Loser) and the fourth (Hard To Get) by him and Andre Cymone. Most of The Rebels' music was more rock and guitar-oriented than Prince's first two albums, showing Dez Dickerson's influence.

None of this songs has ever been released under the name The Rebels and the band never toured or made promotional appearance under that name. According to Matt Fink, Warner Bros. didn’t want to release The Rebels album fearing that a release “under another name would confuse people”. The album was shelved but some of the song were re-recorded in the following years.

You was later re-recorded and released (as U) by Paula Abdul on her 1991 album Spellbound. If I Love You Tonight was later re-recorded and released (as If I Love U 2 Nite by Mica Paris on her album Contribution (and later by Mayte as If EyeBlue.png Love U 2night on her album Child Of The Sun). Hard To Get was re-recorded by Prince in 1981 but the song remains unreleased as are Too Long, Disco Away, Thrill You Or Kill You, The Loser, Hard To Get, the untitled instrumental by Dez Dickerson and the untitled instrumental by André Cymone.



Track listing
LP

The specific sequence of tracks is unknown, but tracks known to have been included are:

All tracks written by Prince (assumed) except where noted
1 Written by Dez Dickerson
2 Written by Andre Cymone



Personnel
Musicians


Production


 
Additional Information

Trivia


References
  • Books:

The Vault: The Definitive Guide to the Musical World of Prince (2004)

Prince 1958-2016: Stories from the Purple Underground, Mobeen Azhar (2016)

Prince: The Man and His Music, Matt Thorne (2016)

  • Press:

Feel Better, Feel Good, Feel Wonderful: Dr. Fink Talks 2 Beautiful Nights by K Nicola Dyes (beautifulnightschitown.blogspot.com: 24 March 2013)

Unreleased project.png None
See unreleased related artist albums
Unreleased Albums
(Prince)
Unreleased Albums
(Related Artists)
1982
Untitled The Hookers album
Unreleased project.png