This entry details a planned solo album by Marva King, on which Prince (as  ) worked on between 1997 and early 1998. Only a handful of songs are known to have been recorded for this project as Prince was quite busy during that period with tours (the Jam Of The Year World Tour, the New Power Soul Tour and the New Power Soul Festival Tour) and other recordings (GCS 2000, Come 2 My House and Newpower Soul albums) on which King also performed as a vocalist for The New Power Generation.
Only a handful of songs were recorded for the project before being abandoned as Marva King wanted to do a Funk/R&B album but Prince offered her mostly Pop/Rock tracks to sing on.
Work came to a halt in Spring 1998 when Prince and his band left for U.S. and European performances (the New Power Soul Tour and New Power Soul Festival Tour). At the end of these tours, Prince encouraged Marva King to continue recording on her own at Paisley Park and granted her free access to one of his studios. She instead chose to return to Los Angeles to rest, and although she continued performing on stage with Prince in 1999 and again between 2007 and 2009, she never resumed work on this album. The project therefore remained unfinished.
Only four songs are known to have been part of the project: Playtime, Hotel Blues, a cover of Shania Twain’s You’re Still The One retitled U’re Still The One, and an unidentified Rock’n’Roll track that was demoed but never completed. Hotel Blues is the only confirmed song written by Prince specifically for the album. Playtime dates back to 1995 and was pulled from the vault for the project after being listed on a configuration for the Playtime By Versace project that same year. U’re Still The One was recorded as a duet with Prince. All three songs were performed at least once during one-off shows given between 1997 and 1998 with Marva King featured at center stage.
After being planned but not included as an additional track for the Come On single (by the New Power Generation, indicating that the artist name would have changed), U’re Still The One was made available on Prince’s official website Love4OneAnother.com in January 1999 and NPGOnlineLtd.com in 2000 (credited as a Marva King duet with ). Playtime and Hotel Blues have never been released in any form.
It is unknown whether additional work on this project was undertaken when Marva King rejoined Prince’s band The NPG between 2007 and 2011, or whether any of the material they recorded together was considered for her 2006 album Soul Sistah.
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Untitled Jacob Armen album ◄
