In this episode of Synergy Loves Company, host Eric explores the intriguing connections between Prince and Disney in the final installment of the eighties pop trinity trilogy. Dive into the Minneapolis music scene of the seventies that shaped Prince's musicianship and his perfectionist approach, drawing parallels to Walt Disney himself. Discover Prince's appearances on Muppets Tonight and his work with Warner Brothers, which sets the stage for unexpected ties to Disney. Eric delves into the history of Sunset Sound, a studio with both Disney and Prince history, exploring Bob Cavallo's transition from Prince's manager to a key figure in Disney's music division. Uncover how Powerline, from A Goofy Movie, is deeply connected to Prince through shared musicians and studios, and learn about Prince's favorite film, Finding Nemo. Join Eric as he connects the dots and finds the Disney connections in Prince’s legacy.
Thanks for enjoying Synergy Loves Company: How Disney Connects to Everything.
https://www.synergylovescompany.com
Donate to the show: https://ko-fi.com/synergylovescompany
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@synergylovescompany Twitter: https://twitter.com/EricHSynergy Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/synergylovescompany Instagram and Threads :https://www.instagram.com/synergylovescompany/
00:03 --> 06:44 Dearly beloved, we are gathered here to get through this thing called Synergy Loves Company. We have this coterie of rich franchises. The company now that people want to engage with. I came here to try and continue what was Walt Disney and his associates set in motion 50 years ago, which is to experiment with every new and innovative kind of entertainment possible. It's what they hope to do here is to really develop something that, well, it's just more than an entertainment enterprise. It's something that contributes in many other ways. Hey, this is Synergy Loves Company, where we explore how Disney connects to everything. So you can connect to Disney when you can't get to the parks. So let's discover some magic together. I'm Eric, and we are in the final part of our eighties pop Trinity trilogy of episodes about how the biggest pop stars of the 1980s connect to Disneyland. If you missed the previous episodes, we talked about Madonna and Michael Jackson and Disney, but you don't have to listen to these in order so you could check those ones out after this one if you haven't yet. But today we are here for someone with the most Disney est of names, prince. And you might not know this about me because I usually only talk about Disney, but I am a huge prince fan, like almost as much as I love Disney. And I'm super excited to get into this one. So let's go crazy. Let's get nuts for Prince and Disney. Ladies and gentlemen, this is Synergy Loves company. Prince Rogers Nelson was born on June 7, 1958 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. And if you've been keeping score at home, Prince, Michael Jackson, and Madonna were all born in the summer of 1940 in the northern midwest. What are the odds of that? Like, for real, where Michael Jackson was known for his dance moves and Madonna was known for her style evolution, Prince was all about his musicianship. He got into music, especially playing guitar in the Minneapolis music scene of the 1970s. It was a collection of clubs and musicians who would shape Prince, who would then go on to shape the Minneapolis sound and the music of the eighties. Prince excelled on guitar, but he was a multi instrumentalist. He played dozens of musical instruments, and a lot of times he was the only one who played every note on a song or an album. So if you were going to be playing in a band with Prince, you better be up to his standards. When he became the leader of the band, he was not dissimilar to a Walt Disney like character. He knew what he wanted and it was perfection. And he wouldn't rest until it was just right. So he put together bands of great musicians who would practice with him. He would push them to their limits. And kind of like Walt, Prince wasn't interested in just one thing. Prince's artistic aspirations were varied. He didn't just stop at music. He made films. He pioneered selling music online. Prince was a visionary in his field, but he recorded music for Warner Brothers, and he made movies and soundtracks for Warner Brothers. And then when he wanted to leave Warner Bros. He changed his name to a symbol and made music for himself. But he didn't make music for Disney. I mean, how could he? He was the guy who caused Tipper Gore to start the Parents music Resource center and put these parental advisory stickers on albums. Not exactly the Disney image. Okay, there is one thing. There's one thing. Prince was the special guest on Muppets tonight in 1997. Muppets Tonight was a 1990s refresh of the classic Muppet variety show format that brought them to superstardom in the 1970s when Prince hosted in the second season, he starred in a number of sketches and performed a couple songs, starfish and coffee, from his album Sign of the Times. And she gave her angels, a song that showed up on his digital download box set, crystal Ball. Muppets Tonight was a Jim Henson production that aired on Disney's ABC and aired reruns on the Disney Channel. And that's it. I'm sorry, guys. There's really nothing. Prince didn't really connect with Disney that much. I think. I think. I think this just might be it. Wait, wait. What? Can you hear that? Those drums. Can you hear them? I don't. I don't have anything else plugged in. What was that?
06:46 --> 06:52 Tell me who in this house to know about prince? I mean, really. I mean, really. If you know about Disney, say, oh, yeah.
06:52 --> 06:55 Oh, yeah. Camille.
06:56 --> 06:56 Yay.
06:57 --> 07:32 Okay. Some prince lore. Camille was an alter ego of prince. He pitched his voice up a couple of octaves to create a more androgynous Persona. Prince was always exploring gender, masculinity, femininity, and how both reside in all of us. In fact, that symbol that he changed his name to, the love symbol, was a combination of the symbols for male and female. He was going to release a whole album of music as Camille, but he shelved the project and instead released some of the tracks on his album, Sign of the times.
07:32 --> 07:33 Eric.
07:34 --> 07:35 Yes, Camille.
07:35 --> 07:37 Is the water warm enough?
07:37 --> 07:39 Yes, Camille.
07:39 --> 07:41 Shall we begin?
07:41 --> 13:58 I guess. Camille. Okay. Camille seems to think there's something more here. Prince and Disney. So let's get digging, and we'll figure out what it might be. So that whole water warm enough thing. That's from computer blue on Purple Rain. Maybe the Disney connection has something to do with Purple Rain. It is Prince's biggest album, and it was his big movie hithenne. So let's see, tracks from Purple Rain. Ooh. Some of the tracks from Purple Rain were recorded at Sunset Sound in LA. In fact, most of Prince's early recordings happened at Sunset Sound in LA. He kind of loved that recording studio. And the Sunset Sound recording studio was founded by Disney legend Tutti Camarada in 1958, the same year Prince, Madonna and Michael Jackson were born. Before opening Sunset Sound, Tutti Camarada was the director of audio recording for Walt Disney Productions. Camarada was the one who ran most of the recording sessions for Disneyland records and Buena Vista records. And he was a musician himself. In the late fifties, Disney started getting into the record business, and they mostly made soundtracks and story records of Disney movies. But they eventually started recording musicians albums for mainstream release. These were what spun off into Buena Vista Records. Tutti Camarado is one of these recording artists who released music under Disney's labels, but he also worked composing music for Disney's records and performing the technical job of engineering the recordings for these records that were going to be released in 1958. Camarada saw how much Disney was racking up in bills at local recording studios, and he approached Walt about Disney buying their own or building their own recording studio. Walt told Tutti that he'd rather not own his own recording studio. He would rather be Camarada's client. So Tutti Camarada opened Sunset Sound and moved recording for Disneyland Records in Buena Vista to the facilities. But they also opened their doors to anyone who wanted to record music like Prince. Prince loved recording at Sunset Sound. It became one of his go to recording studios. From 1981 through the rest of his career, he recorded music there. Tracks from iconic albums like Purple Rain, Sign of the Times in 1999 were recorded at Sunset Sound, the same studios where music from Mary Poppins was recorded and where Idina Menzel recorded the vocal for Let it Go from Frozen. Sunset Sound has a lot of Disney history and a lot of Prince history, but its not a direct connection. Hmm. Okay. Okay. That quote from Purple Rain about the water being warm enough. It was Wendy and Lisa, band members from the revolution who said it at the beginning of the song. So maybe we're supposed to find a connection to Prince through someone connected to him. Hmm. Someone connected to Prince, purple Rain. Wait a minute. Bob Cavallo. From 1979 until 1989, Bob Cavallo was Prince's manager. And this was the time period where Prince really blew up on the music scene. Bob Cavallo was there when Prince was writing and conceptualizing Purple Rain, and he even was a co producer on the film and some of Prince's other films too, like under the Cherry Moon and the concert movie Sign of the times. Cavallo left Prince in 1989 and started a management firm called Third Rail that represented more nineties bands like the Goo Goo Dolls, Green Day and Savage Garden. I know, I know. Okay, I'll get to the Disney. Because of his work on film and music management, Bob was the perfect candidate to take over the Buena Vista music Group, Disney's music arm, in 1998. Buena Vista Music Group was the evolution of what was happening in the 1950s and sixties with Tutti camaradae. Bob Cavallo was in charge of all of Disney's record labels. Walt Disney Records, Hollywood Records. He stayed on at Disney until 2012. The Buena Vista music Group during that time became the Disney music Group. And under Cavallo, they launched the musical careers of many a Disney Channel star, like Hilary Duff, Miley Cyrus, and they even signed the Jonas Brothers away from Columbia Record Records. The Jonas Brothers? Wait, Nick Jonas? Nick Jonas had his own side project called Nick Jonas and the administration. It was on Disney's Hollywood records too. But the band was not his brothers. The administration had quite the awesome lineup, and three of its members were drummer Michael Blande, keyboardist Tommy Barbarella, and bassist Sunny T. And all of them were members of Prince's backing band, the new power generation. So three fifths of Nick Jonas and the administration were from Prince's new power generation. Nick Jonas was first introduced to his princely band members by minnesotan producer John Fields, who was friends with Michael Blande. Ugh. Okay, I know I'm starting to sound like the six degrees of Kevin Bacon. This isn't working. We're getting close to Prince, but we're not quite getting to Prince.
13:59 --> 14:07 Everybody wants to find the perfect one. Everybody's looking for, everybody's looking for, everybody's looking for Camille.
14:07 --> 20:19 That's not helpful. No, wait. Oh, that's from Graffiti Bridge. Everybody's looking for. Yeah. Graffiti Bridge was an album and Prince's sequel movie to Purple Rain. It was much lesser known than Purple Rain, but it was right off the heels of the soundtrack album Prince did for Tim Burton's Batman. And I got the sense that he was itching to get back into the movies. It does have a pretty big cast of musical performers. Prince pretty much debuted his new band, the new Power Generation. Morris Day and the time are back. In this one, Mavis Staples is there and Tevin. Oh my goodness. I think I got it. Power line is Prince. Powerline. You know, Powerline from a goofy movie. He's essentially the Macguffin of a goofy movie. He's Max's favorite pop star. Max tries to impress Roxanne using Powerline's music, and even claims he's going to perform with Powerline, even though he has no real way of getting himself to that concert. Powerline both leads to the collapse and the rebuilding of goofy and Max's father son relationship. Powerline is so important to a goofy movie. And he has so much prints, DNA. Okay, okay, I know maybe you've heard that Powerline is an amalgam of Michael Jackson, Bobby Brown, and Prince. But he's mostly Prince, and here's why. When they were making a goofy movie, director Kevin Lima knew that the powerline concert scene was going to make or break the film. So the music had to be good. Music producer on the film Bambi Moe, understood the assignment. She needed the song to fit the film, but it also needed to be timeless, and it needed to fit the pop music landscape of the nineties. So she turned to songwriter Patrick Deremer to write the powerline songs for the movie. Doremer was a Minneapolis native who grew up performing in the same Minneapolis music scene as Prince. In the 1970s, Deremmer co wrote the songs Eye to Eye and stand out for the character power line. The song title, eye to Eye, the number two, is reflective of what Prince always did with his song titles. I consider it another nod to Prince, although Prince probably would have used a little picture of an I instead of the letter I. But I guess because we're talking about eyes, he used the letter I. And it's kind of like the reverse of. But Prince would do that all the time with symbology and using the u or two for the words. He did that all the time. But wait, there's more connections to Prince in powerline. So the goofy movie had a song written for power line to sing, but they needed a voice to sing those songs. So music director Bambi Moe again was looking for who's the right person for the job. And she happened to be at Capitol Records for a totally different project when she heard a young and up and comer, Tevin Campbell singing. And she knew instantly that he had to be the voice of Powerline. When she asked about who he was and what kind of work he had done, she found out that he was Prince's. Young protege and that he had sung in Prince's movie Graffiti Bridge. His first hit single was actually the Prince written and produced track round and round from the graffiti Bridge albumen movie. So to entice Tevin Campbell to the project and get a sound that would fit him, Bambi Moe got ahold of David Z Rivkin, Prince's producer since back in the day. David Z would produce and arrange the tracks with a cool nineties sound. And he even enlisted Paul St. Paul Peterson to play some of the instruments on the tracks. St. Paul was all over Prince side projects and associated groups like Morris Day and the Time, as well as fronting Prince's project, the Family, David Z and St. Paul decided to record the tracks for Powerline at Prince's Paisley park studios in Chanhassen, Minnesota, Prince's home studio. There is a chance that Prince could have been around. Well, they were working on eye to eye and stand out. No proof, but there's a chance. And that's not all. Tevin Campbell didn't get to go out to Paisley park to record his vocals. So he recorded his vocals at Prince's other favorite recording studio, Tutti Camarada's Sunset Sound. And at those vocal sessions, he was joined by Rosie Gaines to sing backup on Eye to Eye. She's that female voice you hear on the track. Rosie Gaines was Prince's powerhouse female vocalist in his band, the new Power generation. Rosie was one of Prince's favorite duet partners of all time. Okay, let's recap. Powerline from a goofy movie's songs were written by a peer of Prince in the Minneapolis scene. The songs were produced and performed by Prince's producer and a former bandmate, and the songs were sung by Prince's protege and a current bandmate of his. And all of this work was done at his personal recording studio and his other favorite recording studio. Powerline has more prints DNA than anything. Okay, Camille, I think we're done. That was it, right? I got it, right?
20:21 --> 20:22 Your heart.
20:22 --> 20:24 Yeah. I said Paisley Park.
20:24 --> 20:27 Paisley park is in your.
20:27 --> 21:56 But that was it, right? So. So that's not it. I did mention Paisley park. So there's something else at Paisley Park. Paisley park, like I mentioned, was Prince's recording complex in the suburbs of the Twin Cities. It was not far from his home, so he could be there all the time. But it wasn't just a recording studio. It had a soundstage. It had secret rooms, practice spaces. It was a multimedia lab for creativity and performance. And other performers, of course, could book it out as well, okay. Okay. Let's see. Hmm. The Minneapolis based family band the jets recorded a lot at Paisley park. You might know them for their big hit crush on you, but there's a very good chance that their end credits version of Chippendale rescue rangers was recorded at Paisley park. Maybe. Oh. Or maybe it was the Muppet babies. In 1988, the touring show of Muppet babies live rented out the soundstage at Paisley park to rehearse for their show. They actually kept Prince from using the soundstage for himself for a concerte. He had to perform that concert in the parking lot of Paisley Park. I know Prince could sometimes be difficult to work with, but he had nothing on Miss Piggy.
21:56 --> 22:00 You need to purify yourself in the waters of Lake Minnetonka.
22:01 --> 22:43 Okay. It's still not it. Purify yourself in the waters of Lake Minnetonka. That's a famous line from Purple Rain again. But we're talking about water again. Okay. Okay. Oh. Prince had a big hit that was used in a pretty prominent way in Disney. Touchstone's pretty woman with water, I might add. In the movie, Julia Roberts character famously sings along to the Prince song Kiss on her walkman while she takes a bath. Purifying herself, maybe. Well, she listens to Prince. How about that?
22:43 --> 22:46 Something in the water does not compute.
22:46 --> 29:48 Does not compute. Okay. Okay. Yeah, those ones weren't really that connected either. In fact, none of my connections are really that direct. They haven't really connected Prince to Disney directly. Even that power line stuff, man, I thought that was really good. And the clues, Camille, they're not really helping. All this stuff about water. There's too much water, too many clues. Is the water warm enough? Purify yourself in the water. Something in the water does not compute. Then you were talking about, everybody's looking for. Everybody's looking for water. Looking for Paisley park water. Looking for. I don't know. There's no direct connection, or I just can't find it. Wait. Water. Looking for. Finding water. Finding in the water. Finding Nemo. Finding Nemo. Is that it? Paisley park turned into a Prince museum guided tour experience after Prince passed away in 2016. A few years back, I visited Paisley park, and they showed us around the entire complex. There were recording studios, the recording studios where the music of Powerline was recorded. There was a giant, vast soundstage where Prince staged his concert tours and filmed music videos. And it was the one where the Muppet babies practiced. But then there was a side door off of the soundstage, and it led us into a smaller room it was an intimate club space, cabaret tables, but also cozy purple couches and chairs. And there were small intimate spaces to have a conversation, but also a bar and a stage like you would find in a small music club. When we entered the space, our tour guide told us that Prince would often host small parties and get together with friends here. Sometimes he would debut new music to friends on this stage. He had performed some concerts here with his most recent bandaid third Eye girl before they launched their record. However, we were told that most often Prince would end up playing his favorite movie of all time on the big screen behind the stage. Finding Nemo Prince's favorite movie was finding Nemo and he watched it all of the time at Paisley park. But not just at Paisley park. His love of finding Nemo didnt just end at home. He took Nemo and Dory and Marlin on the road with him too. Theres a very famous story that Questlove tells about Prince. I just love a story about Prince. You may know Questlove from the roots or as Jimmy Fallon's bandleader on the Tonight show. Anyway, during Prince's musicology tour in 2004, Questlove and some friends of his were going to the tour stop in Philadelphia. Prince asked Questlove to throw him a party after the show and Questlove had to pull a lot of strings to get it set up exactly as Prince requested. Best of all, though, Questlove would get to dj the party. At this post show party, Questlove started playing some records by Faela Cootie. He knew that Prince would love Fela's music based on the kind of music that Prince makes and the kind of music that he listens to and is inspired by. But quickly, Prince asked him to play something else. Questlove put on another Fela song and all of a sudden, Prince's assistant came over to him with a dvd case and asked him to play this instead. When he opened the case, it was a copy of finding Nemo. The way Questlove tells the story, he was replaced by finding Nemo at the party. But I don't know if that's truly the story. From what I've heard and what I've read, it just kind of seems that Prince always loved to end the night by watching finding Nemo multiple times. He just really loved finding Nemo that much. There you go. I think that's it. Camille. Camille. That must be it. There you go. We finally found it. Prince's Disney connection. Like a clownfish in a dentist office waiting room. Just there we had to go and find it anyway. Prince was the third and final look into our eighties pop Trinity and how they connect to Disney. I had a lot of fun digging through these connections and I hope you love looking into these connections too. If you didn't check out those other episodes, Michael Jackson and Madonna and Disney, what are you waiting for? You need to get to them right now. And I got more great Disney Connection episodes coming right up. So if you want to make sure that you don't miss any of them, make sure that you are subscribed or following this show. Wherever you are enjoying Synergy loves company right now, you might be watching on YouTube, listening on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Wherever you are listening or experiencing synergy loves company, click, follow or subscribe and you will be the first to know when a new episode drops. I love finding Disney connections, but I also love connecting with you. So why don't you reach out and follow me on Facebook and Instagram and threads all of those places? I'm company. And if you love this show, why don't you tell someone who would also love this show what you love about it? You could share this show with a friend of yours who would enjoy synergy loves company. Please tell them about this episode or maybe another one that was your favorite. Send them a link on social media and I hope you would tag me so I can say hi. Or you could just tell them to go visit synergylovescompany.com. and remember, this show is listener supported. There's no sponsors. It's just you and me. And if you feel like you get something out of this podcast and you want to show your appreciation, you can support the show on Ko Fi. You can give any amount that you'd like and it helps me keep producing the show no matter how you decide to support the show. I really appreciate you and the time that you spent with me today. So thank you and thanks for exploring Disney's connections with me. Until next time, keep discovering the magic in everything.