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 on the album was interrupted in the Spring of 1998 when Prince and his band went on tour in the United States and Europe (for the New Power Soul and New Power Soul Festival tours) . At the end of these, Prince suggested that Marva King should continue recording on her own at Paisley Park and gave her free access to one of his studios. She chose to go to Los Angeles to rest for a while and regain strength, but although she continued to sing on stage with Prince in 1999 and again between 2007 and 2009, she never returned to recording for this project. The album therefore remained unfinished.
Only 4 songs are known to have been a part of this project: Playtime, Hotel Blues, a cover of Shania Twain’s You’re Still The One re-titled U’re Still The One, and a fourth unidentified rock’n’roll track that was demoed but never finished. Hotel Blues is the only known song written by Prince specifically for this album. Playtime dates back from 1995 and was pulled from the vault for this project after being listed on a configuration for a Playtime By Versace project that same year. U’re Still The One was recorded as a duet with Prince. Those 3 songs were performed at least once during one-off shows given between 1997 and 1998 with Marva King at the 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 not known if additional work for this project was done when Marva King returned in Prince’s band as a member of The NPG between 2007 and 2011 or if any of the songs they worked on together was considered for Marva King’s album “Soul Sistah” released in 2006.
| 
Untitled Jacob Armen album ◄
