Classic-Era Backing Band For Prince Returns To Bay Area

By Dave Pehling

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) -- The gifted band that Prince fronted during his creative peak in the early-tom-mid 1980s brings their ongoing tribute to the late musical genius to the Bay Area this weekend when the Revolution headlines two shows in Berkeley and San Francisco.

Along with such legendary backing bands as James Brown's Famous Flames and JBs or Sly Stone's Family Stone (whose mix of race and gender Prince admitted to emulating), the Revolution established themselves as one of modern music's most significant support units, helping push their leader to some of the greatest heights of his career. The virtuoso Minneapolis multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Prince Rogers Nelson had already become a rising R&B star with a string of hit albums Dirty Mind and Controversy when he scored his massive commercial breakthrough with "Little Red Corvette" "Delirious" and the title tune of his smash 1982 double album 1999.

That record cover was the first time he alluded to his backing band -- then featuring longtime collaborators Lisa Coleman and Dr. Fink on keyboards, bassist Brown Mark and drummer Bobby Z as well as guitarist Dez Dickerson -- as The Revolution, albeit in small text. With Dickerson departing to be replaced by Coleman's childhood Wendy Melvoin on guitar, the band received full billing and production credit on the landmark follow-up effort, Purple Rain.

One of the most critically and commercially successful albums of the decade, the record and its attendant movie and tour established Prince and his band as one of the biggest acts on the planet. While Coleman and Melvoin would only get co-songwriting credit on "Computer Blue," the Revolution helped bring Prince's vision to fruition, especially on several tracks built from live performances recorded at the First Avenue Club in Minneapolis. Five of the record's nine songs would become charting singles ("When Doves Cry," "Let's Go Crazy," "Purple Rain," "I Would Die 4 U" and "Take Me with U") and the band's barnstorming tour of the U.S. presented Prince's electrifying live show to 1.7 million fans.

Prince continued his collaboration with the Revolution on the more psychedelic and experimental effort Around the World In a Day in 1985 and the lushly orchestrated album Parade the following year that served as the soundtrack to Prince's second movie, the box office bomb Under a Cherry Moon that marked the musician's directorial debut. An expanded line-up of the band hit the road to promote the record (boosted by another massive hit single, "Kiss"), but tensions surfaced among the original members of the Revolution over the addition of the new dancers and musicians as well as a move from their earlier sound into a more R&B/funk direction. Shortly after the end of the European tour for Parade, Prince disbanded the group.

After being fired, Melvoin and Coleman would go on to work together as a duo under the moniker Wendy and Lisa, while Bobby Z was replaced in Prince's live band by Sheila E. and Brown Mark resigned from the band, leaving only Dr. Fink to continue with Prince until he too departed in 1991. A last Prince album including material recorded by the band -- the unreleased double album Dream Factory -- would be scrapped, though Prince would release some of those songs on the seminal Sign O' the Times in 1987.

The musicians would continue to work on their own, with Melvoin and Coleman doing extensive session and soundtrack work and other members issuing their own albums. There were rumors of a reunion with Prince to record a new album Roadhouse Garden that fell apart when Melvoin and Coleman left the project in a reputed disagreement over financial compensation. The group would come together again without Prince for several benefit performances over the years, but did not have a permanent reunion until after the songwriter's sudden death in 2016.

Since then, the principle quintet of Wendy and Lisa, Dr. Fink, Bobby Z and Brown Mark has played together regularly for Prince's fans, first for a celebratory series of emotional tribute shows at First Avenue in September of that year before returning to the road to tour in 2017. In addition to focusing on the songs from Purple Rain, Parade, Around the World In a Day and 1999, the group (along with guest vocalist Stokley Williams) digs into other classic hits from Prince's early catalog. The band has already visited the Bay Area -- long a stronghold for some of Prince's most fanatical fans -- to play ecstatically received shows at the Fillmore and an amazing season finale at Stern Grove this past summer to a delirious capacity crowd. The band returns to pay proper funky homage to the Purple One with two shows this weekend at the UC Theatre in Berkeley Saturday and a return date at the Fillmore in San Francisco Sunday.

The Revolution

Saturday, January 19, 8 p.m., $26-$52
The UC Theatre

Sunday, January 20, 8 p.m., $49.50
The Fillmore