Prince estate shares previously unheard demo of ‘Do Me, Baby'

Prince’s estate have shared a previously unheard demo of ‘Do Me, Baby’ – you can listen to it below.

The release coincides with the 40th anniversary celebrations of the original release of Prince’s fourth album from 1981, ‘Controversy’.

The 1979 demo is a complete song, performed entirely by Prince with multiple overdubs. The version is faster than the eventual album and live versions and without the ab-libs of the original song.

You can listen to it here:

A statement about the release explains: “’Do Me, Baby’” is best known as the centre-piece of 1981’s ‘Controversy’ album, but Prince first recorded the song years earlier. A demo featuring Prince and his best friend and creative collaborator André Cymone was initially recorded in 1978.

“Then a year later, Prince fully reimagined the track as a solo recording during the April 1979 recording sessions for Prince at Alpha Studios in North Hollywood, CA, with overdubs added in the same period at Hollywood Sound Records in Hollywood, CA.”

It continued: “From that 2″ multitrack master tape, a cassette rough mix – recently discovered in Prince’s legendary vault and labeled in the artist’s own handwriting – was rendered but ultimately shelved.

“…As was typical with Prince, he revisited the song afresh more than two years later when he created an entirely new solo recording of ‘Do Me, Baby’ at Sunset Sound in June 1981. That master recording was released on October 14, 1981, as the epic final song on Side A of ‘Controversy.’

The release of ‘Do Me, Baby (Demo)’ has been newly mixed to match the original demo cassette specification by Prince’s Grammy-nominated engineer Chris James, and mastered by Prince’s longtime collaborator and multiple Grammy-winning engineer Bernie Grundman.

Back in July, Prince’s ‘lost’ ‘Welcome 2 America’ album was finally released.

Recorded in 2010, the album was due to be released the following year alongside the legend’s US tour of the same name, which went ahead even without the album. After sitting in a vault for a decade, ‘Welcome 2 America’ is now available to listen to via Legacy Recordings.

In a four-star review, NME‘s Andrew Trendell said said ‘Welcome 2 America’ is “an album that speaks to today’s problems and demands to be heard. It’s better to have it now than never. His name was Prince and he was funky, and it seems he has so much more to tell us.”