Prince Vault:Today's Feature Article/August 19

The Family (Album)

The Family is the first album by The Family. While Prince was only credited with writing Nothing Compares 2 U, he wrote seven of the eight songs and played almost all the instruments on the album (Bobby Z. wrote the remaining track, River Run Dry). Vocals were provided by St. Paul Peterson and Susannah Melvoin. The album also feature saxophone by Eric Leeds and string orchestration by Clare Fischer. There was little promotion for the album, as Jerome Benton and Susannah Melvoin flew to France with Prince to film the Under The Cherry Moon movie at the time of the album's release, and St. Paul Peterson was taking acting and dancing lessons in Los Angeles to prepare for a future (undetermined) Prince film project. As such, a planned tour and other promotional activities were put on hold. The Family played only one show at the time of the album's release, on 13 August, 1985 at First Avenue in Minneapolis. Perhaps due to the lack of promotion, the album reached only #62 on the US Billboard Pop Chart, and #17 on the US Billboard Black Chart... >> Read more.

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