Night Calls (1991) / The Vault… Old Friends 4 Sale (1999)
To the dismay of any musicians who’ve spent their whole career trying to create blues perfection like 5 Women, Prince rustles this song up in an afternoon and throws it over his shoulder for Joe Cocker to catch like it ain’t no thing. And blues isn’t even within his top 10 genres! That’s gotta hurt. Eventually, Prince realised the outtake was a keeper (although he’s walked away from better songs than this) and rerecorded and released a version himself to see out his Warner Bros contract. The smooth centre of a smooth album. If this hasn’t in your life soundtracked a late night card game then you’re missing out my friend.
