The Prince Estate releases unheard 1979 demo version of ‘Do Me, Baby’
The recording was found in Prince's Paisley Park vault
By Jen Thomas
To celebrate the 40th anniversary of Prince’s much-loved ‘Controversy’ album, The Prince Estate has released an unheard demo version of ‘Do Me, Baby’ from 1979.
The album was originally released on October 14, 1981.
The Prince Estate has teamed up with Warner Records to release the hidden gem from the Paisley Park vault.
The track is a previously-unheard solo demo recording of a fan favourite track.
‘Do Me, Baby’ is available to be streamed, and fans can also pre-order two limited edition physical formats.
They include a special replica cassette single of “Do Me, Baby (Demo)” which is limited to 1,981 units.
There’s also an etched 7” single pressed on the essential Prince purple vinyl, which incorporates Prince’s original hand-written lyrics for the song.
The cassette matches the original source tape, that was stored in Prince’s Paisley Park vault for decades.
You can pre-order them both here.
A press release states: “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.”
Several of Prince’s collaborators have worked on this new release.
It has been mixed again to match the original demo cassette specs by engineer Chris James, and mastered by Bernie Grundman, who Prince worked with for many years.
After this 1979 demo, Prince revisited the song again two years later.
He created an entirely new recording of ‘Do Me, Baby’ at Sunset Sound in June 1981.
This re-record was then released on October 14, 1981, as the final song on Side A of the ‘Controversy’ album.
‘Do Me, Baby’ follows news of a special edition release of ‘Purple Rain’ on November 12.
The ‘Purple Rain’ vinyl features the 2015 Paisley Park remastered audio pressed on 180g purple vinyl.
It’s been a good year for Prince fans, with the release of ‘Hot Summer’ on July 22.
It was the third track from the previously unreleased album ‘Welcome 2 America’, which came out in August.