The Royal Court: Sept. 1987

Q magazine, September 1987 two pages

Misty girl drummers turned singers. Raucous funk merchants. Camisoled nymphettes. Regency lackeys with electric guitars. They have all enjoyed the benevolent patronage of Prince.

Jill Jones is an engaging, gifted, and eclectic person, who knows all about Tennessee Williams, and has no qualms whatsoever about displaying what might most decorously be described as an old-fashioned cleavage. Each of these qualities marks her self-titled debut album, the latest piece of output from the Paisley Park label, the regular showcase for friends and protégés of Prince.

"With Prince, it's like I'm his sister," she explains, casually, of a relationship that goes back to the Dirty Mind era, circa 1980, when the Minneapolis mogul first achieved his remarkable crossover from the black music audience to the wider, richer white one. Since that liaison, when she and Teena Marie comprised the support act for the Dirty Mind tour, Jill Jones has maintained her Minneapolis connection, contributing vocals to the 1999 album and its accompanying concert dates, and generally keeping in touch throughout the rude one's ascent to glorious infamy.

As such, hers is a typical Paisley Park career, partly the product of benevolent patronage, partly the expression of a work-related friendship which has endured over a suitable period of time. The fruits of this relationship are also pretty much standard for the Paisley operation. Most of the tracks, including her current single, the frothy and capricious Mia Boccia, have been co-written with the maestro. He has provided the music while she delivers self-composed words which read like the work of a true disciple: "for love, I would suffer kisses from another, if that was what turned you on." Well, really!

"It just happened because I wasn't that serious about singing," she says of an involvement with pop music which began by accident when Teena Marie suggested she help her out years back, when barely a dot on Rick James' horizon. Cruelly, it might be said that an interest in singing has not always been the prime characteristic of the lady friends of Prince. The camisoled nymphettes of Vanity 6 provided perfect visual decoration for his rather muddled sexual politics, but precious little creative output of comparable value. The same goes for Apollonia 6, the instant group formulated during the filming of Purple Rain after Vanity absented herself permanently from the set.

Jill Jones though is different in that, indelibly