As my birthday approached this year, an item I set my sights on was the rare CD release of The Family. It was one I had on my radar for quite some time, but never really got around to pulling the trigger on. Being only released on disc format in the UK and Europe, it's not one you're going to come across every day, which contributed to my sporadic searching for it. The one I ended up with ultimately came from the UK, and at rocket speed, I might ad.
The Family was built from the remnants of The Time. While the departure of Morris Day in 1984 left Jesse Johnson the de facto leader, Prince would recommend restructuring with new lead singer Paul Pertson, which Johnson opposed. This would lead to him leaving as well, taking a few Time members with him.
As a result, when they released their one and only self-titled debut, the band consisted of St. Paul Peterson on lead vocals, Eric Leads on saxophone, Clare Fischer on string instrumentation, and Revolution alum Wendy and Susanah Melvoin providing rhythm guitars and backing vocals, respectfully. Prince would oversee all other instrumentation.
The album would be a relative success, and cross over three different charts, peaking at number sixty-two on the Billboard 200, seventeen on the US R&B charts, and twenty-three on the US gospel charts.
The overall package delivers a mixture of sung and instrumental tracks. While most of it focuses on R&B jazz infusion, there are also sprinklings of the pop sound Prince made popular in that particular period of time. This is most prevalent in songs that utilize the Fairlight CMI digital workstation, which creates that all too familiar drum sound from the Revolution's prime.
While it's a decent album from start to finish, I will say that I don't particularly care for the instrumental tunes. This is mainly because they tend to lean the heaviest into jazz, which isn't among my favorite genres.
I will also say that Peterson has been given the same hand that Morris Day had previously been dealt. By that, I mean that he really only serves as Prince's mouthpiece, most likely being picked because he could produce a sound similar to his own and hit all the required keys. Nothing on the album sounds like it was written for anyone other than Prince, and frankly, I would have rather he sung the songs himself anyway.
Though it does contain the original release of Nothing Compares 2 U, I'd be lying if I said this was among my favorites. In fact, only one song really made the cut for my shuffle list, that being River Run Dry. I enjoyed it so much that I actually went looking to see if there was a version that had Prince on vocals. Well, if there is, I couldn't find it.
Peterson left The Family following the album's release to pursue a solo career and released five albums between 1987 and 2022. He's also reunited with The Family for a few one-off events and even worked with four of the five Family members to release the studio albums Gaslight (2011), Relit (2012), and AM Static (2014). However, these would be under the name fDeluxe to avoid issues with Prince's estate. As such, The Family is still technically around, and active.
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