Listen to Prince's "17 Days" Piano Demo from 1983

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Listen to Prince’s “17 Days” Piano Demo from 1983

Piano & A Microphone 1983 Due Out September 21 via Warner Bros.

Sep 06, 2018 By Christopher Roberts Photography by Allen Beaulieu Prince

When Prince passed away in 2016 he left behind a huge vault filled with unreleased material and so we can probably expect new albums from him for years to come. The new album Piano & A Microphone 1983, which is due out on Warner Bros. on September 21, is culled from a previously unheard home studio cassette recorded in 1983 at Prince’s Kiowa Trail home studio in Chanhassen, MN and just features Prince singing and playing piano. Previously the album’s version of “Mary Don’t Weep,” a cover of a 19th century spiritual, was shared. Now another track from the album has been shared, a piano demo of “17 Days.” The final version of the song became the B-side to 1985’s “When Doves Cry” single. Listen to the demo below.

“Mary Don’t Weep” was also featured in the end credits Spike Lee’s movie BlacKkKlansman, which came out last month. Piano & A Microphone 1983 includes an early version of future hit “Purple Rain” and a cover of Joni Mitchell’s “A Case of You.” The booklet will include new liner written by Prince’s then engineer Don Batts, plus previously unseen candid photos of Prince. The cover art is a backstage photo of Prince taken by frequent collaborator Allen Beaulieu during the 1999 tour.

Prince Estate entertainment adviser Troy Carter had this to say about the album in a previous press release: “This raw, intimate recording, which took place at the start of Prince’s career right before he achieved international stardom, is similar in format to the Piano & A Microphone Tour that he ended his career with in 2016. The Estate is excited to be able to give fans a glimpse of his evolution and show how his career ultimately came full circle with just him and his piano.”

Piano & A Microphone 1983 Tracklist:

01 17 Days
02 Purple Rain
03 A Case of You
04 Mary Don’t You Weep
05 Strange Relationship
06 International Lover
07 Wednesday
08 Cold Coffee & Cocaine
09 Why the Butterflies

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January 28th 2019
10:14pm

Thank you so much for the making this site for the help of the user and we can easily use now this site for the work.

Dan Akelroy
April 23rd 2019
7:20am

While not a part of an official Prince album until the 1993 compilation “The Hits/The B-Sides,” Prince slipped the song into many live sets from 1984 until 2014. The album I first saw in piano store boston, features versions of “Purple Rain” and “17 Days,” which were released the following year, as well as a cover of Joni Mitchell’s “A Case of You,” which he performed live with the Revolution around that time. While the album shares a title with Prince’s final concert tour, the album pre-dates it by some 33 years.

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