Prince and Formation
The band was assembled under a clause in Prince's contract
with Warner Bros. that allowed him to recruit and produce other artists for the
label. Inspired by the 1980 film The Idol maker, Prince decided to put together
a pop-funk group that would serve as an outlet for material in the vein of his
own early albums, while he explored other genres and styles in his own career.
By 1981, he had built The Time out of an existing Minneapolis
funk unit, "Flyte Time", which featured Jellybean Johnson on drums,
Jimmy Jam and Monte Moir on keyboards, and Terry Lewis on bass. To this base
were added Jesse Johnson on guitar and a lead singer and childhood friend named
Morris Day, and Jerome Benton who a promoter drawn from another local band was
called "Enterprise", who became Day's comic foil. Prince had used an
Enterprise song, "Party up", on his Dirty Mind album, and his
selection of Day was essentially a reward; he had originally tapped Alexander O'Neal
N yet another player in the Minneapolis Uptown funk scene for the vocalist
slot, but O'Neal wanted too much money, himself being quoted as saying, "I
basically didn't see no point in being a superstar with no money."
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