Listen: For Love / Jill Jones
For Love / Jill Jones

Just like artists, labels can go from nothing very collectible for ages to suddenly more desirable and even, sometimes seemingly overnight, through the roof.

Paisley Park isn’t quite the latter yet, but with the sudden realization that Prince is a living legend, my guess is some of the more obscure releases, in near mint condition, will start to dry up.

The label design was always beautiful, and in particular, UK pressings are stunning. 7′s by Mavis Staples, The Time, Sheila E and George Clinton are impossible to pass on. But heads up, despite the packaging and font, do not sleep on Jill Jones.

’87 was the year. As a back-up singer for his various projects from the start of the decade, her only Prince written/produced album, JILL JONES, dropped in February of that year. Prince was credited as a co-writer with Jones, but apparently wrote all of the songs himself. Upon its release, the album received positive reviews from critics, but shockingly failed to chart anywhere and has been out of print for many years.

The three singles it spawned are even harder finds, with the last of them, ‘For Love’, in my opinion, being the best.

Signature Prince is all over this one, the squeals, the wallops, his meticulously clean rhythm playing, it’s all there. Very few records swing like ‘For Love’. I bet I played this twenty, maybe thirty times tonight alone.

Prince does another in his series of seemingly endless Madison Square Garden shows this evening. Better than ever, if you can believe it. Last week he opened with ‘Kiss’ and that was just the beginning.