The Royal Court (September 1987) Prince’s Protégée's Step Into the Spotlight – Q Magazine Feature

A stylish, in-depth profile on Prince’s longtime protégés

SOURCE DETAILS Publication: Q Magazine Date: September 1987 Country: United Kingdom Section / Pages: Two-page feature

THE STORY This extensive article presents Jill Jones as an engaging, gifted, and independent artist who has long been part of Prince’s inner circle. It traces her journey from singing backup on the Dirty Mind tour (alongside Teena Marie), through vocal contributions on 1999, to the release of her solo debut on Paisley Park. The piece highlights Prince’s role as mentor and co-writer while celebrating Jones’ strong personality, eclectic tastes, and sensual, self-assured style.

CONTEXT & NOTES By 1987, Jill Jones had been connected to Prince for nearly a decade. This Q feature captures her at the pivotal moment of stepping into the spotlight with her own album, offering rare insight into the “Paisley Park family” dynamic and the creative support Prince provided to his protégées. The article also contrasts Jones with earlier Paisley acts like Vanity 6 and Apollonia 6, noting her greater artistic depth.

FEATURE HIGHLIGHTS Event: Major profile on Jill Jones’ debut solo album Era: 1987 – Paisley Park golden period Tone: Sophisticated, admiring, and slightly irreverent Photography: Multiple striking images of Jill Jones across both pages Audience: Serious music fans and Q readers

WHAT THE CLIPPING SHOWS A glossy two-page spread featuring large, stylish photographs of Jill Jones. The layout includes bold headlines, detailed text exploring her long relationship with Prince (“like his sister”), her personality, songwriting, and the making of her debut album. Classic high-production Q Magazine design from the late 1980s.

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COPYRIGHT NOTICE All magazine artwork, photographs, logos, and original text excerpts remain the property of their respective copyright holders. This entry is a transformative, non-commercial archival summary created for historical documentation and educational reference.

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, indelibl