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The Like a Virgin Era


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Interview with Stephen Bray and the Breakfast Club

 

Full Interview @

http://www.madonnatribe.com/interviews/madonnatribe-meets-stephen-bray-breakfast-club/

 

APRIL 23, 2016

 

Now, Into The Groove really is one of my all time favourite Madonna songs, I just love every version of it! Do you remember the exact day when you two came up with the music and lyrics?

Stephen: Thank you! I don’t remember the exact day but I do have a vivid picture of where and how. It was really low budget – a Tascam 8 track, a small Ramsa console and a Shure 58 microphone.

That and a ton of wires connecting Oberheim and Roland and Sequential Circuits gear all crammed into a little apartment on the east side of Manhattan. I’m pretty sure you can hear dogs barking and people yelling in the airshaft on the vocal tracks. Madonna was shooting Desperately Seeking Susan right down the street so it’s easy to pin point the time period.

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Yearly Most Successful Female Album: The Divas

http://chartmasters.org/2018/03/yearly-most-successful-female-album-the-divas-1983-1998/3/

1984 – MADONNA – LIKE A VIRGIN

The promising debut of Madonna was quickly confirmed with the release of Like A Virgin. A chart topper on both the US and the UK, some 7 months Top 10 in both countries too, the album was unstoppable. It was a beast Worldwide too, selling 1 million units in Canada and coming close in Germany and in France. It all happened thanks to the 4-million selling title track. From that point, she was on a roll. Material Girl, Dress You Up and Angel were all hits for the album selling at least 1 million units each. This led the LP to over 21 million sales to date, the second oldest female album to break 20 million after Carole King‘s Tapestry.

Material Girl and Like A Virgin combine for over 120 million streams on Spotify, proving their strength, a strength translated into album sales of The Immaculate Collection. Totals of the album are stunning: 21 million pure album sales, over 11 million physical singles, over 14 million sales of compilations created and over 3 million digital units, in other words this represents nearly 40 million equivalent album sales overall!

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Unreleased Madonna Songs by https://vk.com/madonnarandd

Like a Virgin Era

 

1984 ANGEL Confirmed original Madonna demo produced with Stephen Bray. Released version was produced by Nile Rodgers on the "Like A Virgin" album.

1984 CRAZY FOR YOU Unreleased version produced by Jellybean prior to arrival of the arranger. The arranger of the song (Rob Mounsey) recently spoke with Bruce Baron, and adds these interesting notes about "Crazy For You": "I know that there was a previous version produced by Phil Ramone, who somehow got maneuvered out of the gig by Jellybean. I've worked a great deal with Phil since then, and he seems very resentful about it, but I don't really understand what happened. Jellybean was persuaded by Michael Ostin of Warners that, since the song was a ballad, he needed an arranger. So Michael brought me in, since he was familiar with me from my production/arranging work with Michael Franks. Basically, the track was created by drummer Stephen Bray and myself. I wrote out an orchestral arrangement as if a real orchestra were going to perform it, and then overdubbed it myself line by line, mainly on my old Roland Jupiter-8 with a custom analog CV breath controller. I also used two Yamaha DX-7s MIDI'd together and each distorted with its own little green Ibanez Tube Screamer stomp box (the distant sliding thirds in the intro and midway in the verses). Jellybean wasn't around for much of this, which all happened at Sigma Sound in NYC. Jellybean's main contribution seems to have been the "Bong bong bong" carillon background vocals. He was Madonna's boyfriend at the time, and she had just broken with "Like a Virgin". The oboe solos were Madonna's idea, and a good idea too. They were performed by the late George Marge, the greatest studio double-reed player of his time, whose untimely death shortly afterward saddened us all. Madonna, as I understand it, never liked the song and didn't want to record it."

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1984 DESPERATELY SEEKING SUSAN Never released title track from the film written by Michael Bramon & produced with Stephen Bray. Different than "Into The Grove". Existence confirmed by Bray. The actual writer of this song (Michael Bramon) has recently (late August, 2001) emailed me, and give me a lot of into about this track, since he wrote it! He writes:

 

It was written in 1984, not 1985. Stephen Bray did not write it. My sister, Risa Bramon (see her Filmography at http://www.imdb.com, as well as mine), cast Madonna into Desperately Seeking Susan back in the day. In fact, the really interesting thing about that was that Susan Seidelman and Risa got stuck casting that role originally and Risa called me one day and said "Hey Michael- you know I'm casting Desperately Seeking Susan, my first movie, u know, with Rosanna Arquette, and we're looking for a cool weird East Village kind of girl that could play a small role in the movie. And since you know all those kind of people- maybe you can recommend someone- u know someone funky, maybe a singer like Lene Lovich or Annie Golden from The Slits. We tried our Annie but she isn't right for it. She's too old." Well, the first thing out of my mouth was- "How about that new singer Madonna- the chick who used to hang around Danceteria and shit. You know the one on MTV now." Risa replied, "Madonna, yeah! She sings. This is great. I gotta get hold of her manager. Thanks Michael (to which she promptly hung up the phone on me). Any ways, when Madonna was cast into the role and they were all looking for music for the film (in fact Seidelman asked Madonna for a song- not the other way around), Madonna and Stephen Bray put together at the last second, "Get Into The Groove," and I submiited "Desperately Seeking Susan" (formerly called "Tragic Camera") with local NYC singer Juliette Hanlon singing. Madonna heard it and recorded a rough vocal.

 

By the way, I played a band member in the movie (see credits). After Desperately Seeking Susan became a hit, Risa got a call to do her third film, "At Close Range" with Sean Penn and Chris Walken attached to the movie. Madonna called me to ask me if I'd heard that Risa was doing a new movie with Sean Penn. I hadn't even heard yet, and here was Madonna already aware! Amazing. I said I would check into it. I called Risa and she said yes it was going to happen. I told her that Madonna called me and had asked me to ask you to arrange for her to meet Sean "on the set." Risa laughed and said she's called Madonna herself. And that's how that all really went down- because I think Madonna was shooting the video for " Material Girl" at the time and Madonna actually excused herself from her set to go over to the At Close Range set to meet Risa and "arrange to meet Sean." Which she did and the rest is history. Bizarre.

 

Yet, another, anecdote related to this- at the press screening for At Close Range, which I was at here in NYC, one of the actresses who Risa had put into the movie came over after the movie to our row of seats in the theater and asked Risa what she thought of the movie. Risa replied (and I was standing right there) "I was very disappointed, I thought it was nothing more than Sean Penn *******ating himself." The actress walked down the theater to where Madonna and Sean were standing getting ready to leave the theater. She whispered somthing to Sean, and I remember Sean whipping around and glaring at Risa and me and then marching out of the theater. The next day, Risa called me from Paramount (where she was casting the Whoopie Boys) her voice shaking and told me that Sean had just called her and threatened to break her legs if he'd heard her say any more crap to anyone about the movie! I offered to beat him up (for real- I was ****ing livid). She told me that wasn't necessary, but did say that Sean told her that her and Madonna were in love and that it seemed that because it seemed to him that Madonna had a strange respect and facination with Risa- that he didn't want Risa talking or communicating with her again! And this is exactly what came to be, because Madonna and Risa wouldn't talk to each other again for years until Madonna suddenly called Risa out of the blue during the pre-casting of EVITA to beg Risa to introduce her to Alan Parker (for whom Risa has done a few movies, like Angel Heart). This whole thing really hurt Risa because Risa had been a big influence on Madonna during the Desperately Seeking Susan phase and Risa and Madonna knew it- In fact there was Madonna pre-Risa and Madonna post-Risa. 2 different people. I remember Madonna always asking Risa tons of questions- like to a big sister. I remember Risa screaming at Madonna (Risa's a screamer), in public places and at the Furco offices where I would go during pre-production (as I was invloved with the movie too to a samll extent). On several occassions Risa chided Madonna about "needing to grow up" and I remember Madonna always telling me that Risa was an amazing person, one of the few people she had ever had respect for.

 

Anyways- after Sean had forbade Madonna from talking to Risa- Madonna edned up running nearly everyday around the NYC reservoir in Central Park with Risa's casting partner and best friend, Billy Hopkins.

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1984 GAMBLER Confirmed original demo produced with Stephen Bray not Jellybean.

1984 LIKE A VIRGIN (REMIX) Remix by Nile Rodgers shelved infavor of remix by Jellybean Benitez as reported in Rodgers interview late '80s.

1984 OVER AND OVER Confirmed original Madonna demo produced with Stephen Bray, released version was produced by Nile Rodgers on "Like A Virgin" album.

1984 SHOO BE DOO Confirmed original Madonna demo produced with Stephen Bray. The released version was produced with Nile Rodgers.

1984 UNCONFIRMED TITLE Recorded at the same session as demos for "Gambler", "Warning Signs", "Shoo-Bee-Doo" says Stehen Bray. Title of song not recalled by Bray.

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1984 WARNING SIGNS (Song never used for Vision Quest Soundtrack, Madonna demo written & produced with Stephen Bray). Listed at Library Of Congress as Pau-590-962. Bruce Baron notes that this song was registered on Feb 21st 1984, and is clearly marked on Warner Bros Pub sheet music as being for the "Vision Quest" soundtrack. The original sheet music was discarded, and a copy has been retained on microfilm at the copyright office. The song starts with a Madonna spoken intro: "I see danger up ahead." The song continues with music: "Warning (echo), Warning (echo)" The chorus: "Warning I see danger up ahead. I can see it in your eyes, and it's really no surprise. Because - I can see your warning signs". Unfortunately, no recording was available to listen to. This was probably the biggest disappointment during my visit. I do know that Stephen Bray has preserved a copy of this collaboration, but he doesn't know why it was dropped from the film soundtrack. It was written during the same recording session as "Gambler" and "Shoo-Be-Do". I recall back in the day when this missing "Vision Quest" soundtrack cut was the ONLY known unreleased Madonna song to exist. I have researched it since the early days for MLC, The Madonna Fanzine. The bootleg market tried to pass off I-Levels "Lies In Your Eyes" as this missing track on some of her first bootleg vinyl issues. We now know this to be fake. This was long before MP3's, Napster, CD-R's and white label remixes. What a difference 15 years can make !!

Like a Virgin/Vision Quest Outtakes:

ANGEL (Stephen Bray Demo)

CRAZY FOR YOU (Phil Ramone Demo)

CRAZY FOR YOU (Jellybean Demo)

DESPERATELY SEEKING SUSAN

GAMBLER (Stephen Bray Demo)

LIKE A VIRGIN (Nile Rodgers Remix)

OVER AND OVER (Stephen Bray Demo)

SHOO BE DOO (Stephen Bray Demo)

UNTITLED STEPHEN BRAY COLLABORATION

WARNING SIGNS

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