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The Madonna [First Album] Era


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·         The Pre- Madonna Era http://www.madonna-infinity.net/forums/index.php?/topic/11688-the-pre-madonna-era/?p=542015

·         The First Album Era http://www.madonna-infinity.net/forums/index.php?/topic/11796-the-madonna-first-album-era/?p=547412

·         The Like a Virgin Era http://www.madonna-infinity.net/forums/index.php?/topic/12035-the-like-a-virgin-era/?p=557045

·         The True Blue Era http://www.madonna-infinity.net/forums/index.php?/topic/12055-the-true-blue-era/?p=557777

·         The Who’s That Girl/You Can Dance Era http://www.madonna-infinity.net/forums/index.php?/topic/12085-the-whos-that-girlyou-can-dance-era/?p=558619

·         The Like a Prayer Era http://www.madonna-infinity.net/forums/index.php?/topic/12134-the-like-a-prayer-era/?p=560321

·         The Immaculate Breathless Blond Ambition Era http://www.madonna-infinity.net/forums/index.php?/topic/12230-the-immaculate-breathless-blond-ambition-era/?p=562946

·         The Erotic Body of Girlie Sex Show Era http://www.madonna-infinity.net/forums/index.php?/topic/12452-the-erotic-body-of-girlie-sex-show-era/?p=570519

 

The Madonna Era

 

Sources: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Madonna

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/how-madonna-became-madonna-an-oral-history-20130729

Biography by Andrew Morton

FROM GENESIS TO REVELATIONS by Bruce Baron

"Madonna Unreleased" in 'Goldmine'

Encyclopedia Madonnica 2.0 

Madonna Underground

 

Articles:

​

 

 

Overview

·         ‘Madonna’ was released in the USA on July 27, 1983

·         In 1985 the album was re-issued in Europe and retitled ‘The First Album’ with different artwork

·         Madonna was signed to Sire Records by Seymour Stein, the president of the company while he was in the hospital

·         While first Ain’t No Big Deal was considered for a first single release (after listening to the demo tape), the track was later scrapped completely but later released as a B side to Papa Don’t Preach

·         Madonna’s first album was originally titled ‘Lucky Star’, a proof pressing was made (with completely different artwork), but later scrapped and artwork changed to the now famous black/white image. The album was now titled simply ‘Madonna’

·         The Dutch 7″ of Burning Up advertises Madonna’s album as titled ‘Lucky Star’ on the back of the sleeve. Some pressings from South Africa also still have the original title on the label

·         Madonna performed a few club dates to promote the record, in clubs such as Danceteria and Camden Palace (setlist usually included: Everybody, Burning Up, Physical Attraction, Holiday

·         Madonna performed at the legendary American Bandstand show and spoke the now infamous words ‘to rule the world’ after singing Holiday

·         Physical Attraction was released as a promo only single in the USA and Brazil

·         Madonna went on the road for an extensive promo tour where she performed in multiple European and American TV shows, in Europe it was mostly Holiday that was performed

·         She was photographed in Holland by Dutch photographer Kees Tabak, pictures that are still famous today

·         Madonna’s second LP ‘Like a Virgin’ was ready for release, however the first album was such a huge success, they had to delay the release of it

·         Madonna’s first ever magazine cover was for Island October 1983, shot by Curtis Knapp. She did appear with a smaller pic on the cover of Dance Music Report (November 1982)

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Timeline

1980:

Managed by "Mark", a man whose surname is lost to history, this is the trio formed in 1980 by Madonna & fellow ex-Breakfast Club member (and, briefly, lover) Mike Monahan and Gary Burke. The group played publicly only one time, at an NYC club called Eighties, before Monahan quit. When Madonna's ex, Stephen Bray, arrived in NYC and joined the band, it would come to be known as Emmy.

Madonna teams up with Stephen Bray (who had just moved to NYC looking for work), as she needed a drummer for her new band and they form a number of groups together: The Millionaires, Modern Dance and Emmenon or Emanon, the latter of which is "no name" spelled backwards and finally Emmy. Emmy featured herself, Gary Burke, Stephen Bray and a guitarist named Vinny. Vinny was replaced by Mike Monahan, but he became too busy to keep performing, so Brian Symmes joined. The final incarnation of Emmy became roommates while they were working as a band.
They live and rehearse in the Music Building on 8th Avenue. Eventually, they start working together - without the rest of their band – to write music and record demos. (Madonna by Andrew Morton)

Emmy' most high-profile gigs were at Chase Park in July 1980, Botany Talk House (formally 6th Ave. and27th St., NY, NY) in December 1980, and Max's Kansas City (formally 213 Park Ave. S., NY , NY) in March 1981. After its Max's Kansas City gig, Madonna took on Camille Barbone to manage her as a solo artist.

1981:

According to Bray, he and Madonna wrote the songs in 1980 for the demo that will eventually land her a deal with Sire Records. They abandoned playing songs in the hard-rock genre, and got signed by a music management company called Gotham Records, planning to move in a new musical direction. They decided to pursue the funk genre, but the record company was not happy with their musical talents and they were dropped from the label; Madonna and Bray left the band also.

1982:

February: Madonna fires her manager Camille Barbone for taking too long to get her a recording deal. According to Camille, she had been Madonna's manager for almost a year and was close to getting her a deal with Columbia Records.


March: According to several of the unauthorized biographies - but contrary to Bray's recollection - Madonna spent the spring of 1982 putting together a demo tape of 4 tracks to shop around to club DJ's. She does this by resuming her musical collaboration with Steve Bray. She worked out the lyrics and he focused on melody, chord progression and chords.

After several weeks, they felt they had enough material to ask a couple of the musicians who had worked with her over the previous 18 months to help them record a demo tape. They got Madonna her Warner Brother's contract with Sire Records in late 1982. They took over a studio and recorded a 4-track demo for her to take around town. These four tracks:



• "Don't You Know?"
• “Everybodyâ€
• “Ain't No Big Dealâ€
• Early version of “Stay†- Its chorus was combined with verses of “Don’t You Know†and appear on Like A Virgin

 

April: Meanwhile, she had written and developed some songs on her own. She carried rough tapes of three of the songs, "Everybodyâ€, "Ain't No Big Deal" and "Burning Up". At that time she was frequenting the Danceteria nightclub in New York. It was here that Madonna convinced the DJ Mark Kamins to play "Everybody". The song was received positively by the crowd, and Kamins decided that he should get Madonna a record deal, on the understanding that he would get to produce the single. He took her to his boss Chris Blackwell, who owned Island Records, but Blackwell refused to sign Madonna so they approached Sire Records. Michael Rosenblatt, who worked at the artists and repertoire department of Sire, offered Madonna $5,000 in advance, plus $10,000 in royalties, for each song she wrote.
Madonna was ultimately signed for two 12" singles by the President of Sire, Seymour Stein, who was impressed by her singing, after listening to "Everybody" at a hospital in Lenox Hill where he was admitted. The 12" version of "Everybody" was produced by Mark Kamins at Blank Tapes Studios in New York, who took over the production work from Steve Bray. The new recording ran 5:56 on one side and 9:23 for the dub version on the reverse side. Madonna and Kamins had to record the single at their own cost. Arthur Baker, friend of Mark Kamins, guided him through the role of a music producer and provided him with studio musician Fred Zarr who played keyboards on the track. Zarr became one of the common musical threads on the album by eventually performing on every track. Due to restrained budget the recording was done hurriedly. Madonna and Kamins had difficulty in understanding each other's inputs for the sessions. Rosenblatt wanted to release "Everybody" with "Ain't No Big Deal" on the other side, but later changed his mind and put "Everybody" on both sides of the vinyl record after hearing the recorded version of "Ain't No Big Deal".

In an interview with Andrew Morton, Rosenblatt says that it was "Ain't No Big Deal" on the initial demo that got her the contract, not "Everybody." However, those were the two songs he wanted them to professionally record for release.

Once Madonna signed to Warner Brother's, much of her material from her first three Sire albums started out as demos produced by Madonna, and Bray. Bray described the process this way; "I would call her up and say 'I have another track for you', then we would get together. I am used to collaborating with others, so we would just work on a few songs, and she would use some of them later."

At first this author tried to group these recordings into album "sessions" for Goldmine, but as Bray described; "We would just get together and work. If there was something she had them in mind for, she never told me." Often recordings from the same session would end up on different albums.

Early Bray-Madonna collaborations were apparently divided into individual song writing credits once Madonna got her album deal. "Everybody" was originally submitted to the copyright office as "Everybody, Dance" written by both Madonna and Stephen Bray. Later Madonna alone would get authorship for this song on her self-titled debut album as Bray explained; " There was an agreement between Madonna and I not to consider "Everybody" as a co-write, but I guess the Library Of Congress never got word of the change in ownership." In the end, Bray received credit alone for "Ain't No Big Deal".

After Madonna was signed in late 1982, several versions of "Ain't No Big Deal" were recorded with different producers in an effort to get the most out of the song. The first production was a 24track master recorded with Stephen Bray. The second production was done with Mark Kamins, and the third version was done with Reggie Lucas. The final production was a remix by Jellybean Benitez based on the Bray version. Once the record company decided to spend the time to produce several different versions of "Ain't No Big Deal", "Everybody" was issued as Madonna's first single instead.

Kamins was allowed to produce the songs, This infuriated Steve Bray who wanted producer credit for tracks that he co-wrote. Since Kamins had an arrangement with Madonna that he would produce for her if he got her a record deal with a label, her hands were somewhat tied and it is not believed that she made the choice of who would produce at this time.

May/SUMMER: There is reportedly trouble in the studio as Kamins was not a very experienced producer and had trouble directing Madonna in her studio singing. After Madonna and Kamins recorded both songs for release on Sire, "Ain't No Big Deal" was considered the weaker of the two songs. Rosenblatt decided to release "Everybody" instead (as both the A and B sides of the single), relegating "Ain't No Big Deal" to the vaults for the time being.

 

September: Konk Party - Produced and Directed by Ed Steinberg, of RockAmerica. The next weekend he shot Madonna's Everybody 

Madonna at 02:03 dancing with a man.

C2-EHLdWgAEcHqj.jpg

 

October 6:
The “Everybody†single was commercially released in October 1982 and became a dance hit in the United States. This led to Sire signing Madonna for an LP and two more singles.

Everybody" is released commercially and serviced to the dance club circuit. The single cover does not feature Madonna. Instead it is an illustration by her friend Martin Burgoyne. Many at Sire realized Madonna sounded "black" and therefore, the single was initially worked heavily at WKTU in NYC - a station known for its heavy black and Latino listener demographic. Fab 5 Freddy - a graffitti artist and rapper at the time - said in an interview that all the young black and Puerto Rican kids were listening to this song on their boomboxes in the street. He said they - along with the gay dance club patrons - were her first core audience. The single is a minor hit and ends up selling 80,000 copies despite limited radio airplay.




Madonna: "I was living on the Upper West Side, 99th and Riverside, and about 7:00 at night I had the radio on in my bedroom, on WKTU, and I heard “Everybodyâ€. I said 'Oh, my God, that's me coming out of that box.' It was an amazing feeling.

—Madonna talking about hearing "Everybody" first time on radio to Rolling Stone magazine

https://books.google.com/books?id=5RWXAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA69&lpg=PA69&dq=Madonna+talking+about+hearing+%22Everybody%22+first+time+on+radio+to+Rolling+Stone+magazine&source=bl&ots=7Wly9O6lYU&sig=Rvq3gCqAgeHTEpAqF2lGrkDN6o8&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjd26zG9ovUAhVCWCYKHb5yBOAQ6AEIMzAC#v=onepage&q=Madonna%20talking%20about%20hearing%20%22Everybody%22%20first%20time%20on%20radio%20to%20Rolling%20Stone%20magazine&f=false

 

October: Everybody" is released as a 12-inch single in US. (A video for "Everybody" is made on a $1,500 budget, directed by Ed Steinberg and features Madonna at The Paradise Garage club in New York, NY but will not be released on MTV).

 

October: Madonna performs Everybody on Dancing on Air.


 

 

October/November:
"Everybody" was commercially released as Madonna's first single in October 6, 1982, and came with a Lou Beach-designed sleeve depicting a hip hop–style NYC street scene. Because of the ambiguous nature of the record sleeve and the R&B groove of the song, Madonna was widely believed to be a black artist when the single was released. According to Matthew Lindsay of The Quietus, it was ironic that the record sleeve did not depict Madonna on the cover, being that she would become, as he described, "the face of the 80s.
Madonna got to know everyone at Sire and what they do there. She accompanied Sire's dance department head, Bobby Shaw, around the NYC club circuit while he did "milk runs" (dropping by to plug Sire artists with local DJ's). During one of these runs at the dance club, The Funhouse, Madonna met the DJ John "Jellybean" Benitez. They hit it off and began dating later on. However a professional relationship started almost immediately.


November: After some initial good dance club response to “Everybody,†Seymour Stein and Michael Rosenblatt offered Madonna a record contract to do a full-length album. They decided that “Burning Up†should be the next single. But they preferred having a different producer at the helm of the project. Although it is not clear if it is Warner’s disappointment or Madonna’s that “Ain’t No Big Deal†didn’t turn out better, Mark Kamins was not considered for the job of producing the rest of the album. Warner brought in Reggie Lucas, a black songwriter and producer who had scored a #1 R&B hit (and won a Grammy award for Best R&B Female Performance) for Stephanie Mills’ “I Never knew Love Like This Before†a year earlier.

Lucas brought two songs for the album – “Borderline†and “Physical Attraction†– that he wrote. These tracks, along with Madonna’s “Everybody,†“Burning Up†and “Lucky Starâ€, a new song she had just recently written about Mark Kamins. Lucky Star was her supposedly nickname for him since he landed her a recording deal) – all which became the foundation for the new album. They later added "Think of Me" and "I Know It" which Madonna wrote during these recording sessions.

According to Steve Bray (Goldmine Article by Bruce Baron, 1999), Madonna wrote “Physical Attraction†on her own, but he assumes there must have been some kind of deal to give Lucas 100% writing credit. Bray says he clearly remembers Madonna having written that song and the US Copyright office also listed Madonna as the only songwriter. Bray also reveals that “Everybody†was credited solely to Madonna even though it was a Bray/Madonna collaboration. He said they had an agreement that she would take full writing credit for “Everybody†and in return he would get full writing credit for “Ain’t No Big Deal.†Bray however got the sole writing credit for "Ain't No Big Deal" and in the meantime sold his publishing rights to July Fourth Music. Disco act Barracuda then recorded and released their own version on Epic Records before Warner Brothers had selected which Madonna version to use for her release. The song was then dropped from her first album and Madonna's then boyfriend Jellybean Benitez found and produced what would later become Madonna's first American top 40 single "Holiday" as the replacement. Years later the Reggie Lucas production of "Aint No Big Deal" was released on the B-side of the "True Blue" single, but the other versions remain unreleased. Bray added; "There was also another version of "Everybody " that Madonna used during club performances remixed by Jellybean Benitez, which has also has never been released."

November 17-23: The album was primarily recorded at Sigma Sound Studios in New York City. There she recorded several rough versions of “Burning Up†and “Physical Attraction.†The latter was to be the B-side of the “Burning Up†single. Madonna opted not to work with either Kamins or Bray, but chose Reggie Lucas, a Warner Bros. producer. Bray decided to push her in the musical direction of pop, and recorded the song "Burning Up" with her. However, Madonna still did not have enough material to generate a full album. The songs available were, "Lucky Star", a new version of "Ain't No Big Deal", "Think of Me" and "I Know It". Lucas brought another two songs to the project, "Physical Attraction" and "Borderline". As he recorded the tracks he deviated considerably from the original versions of the demos. One such altered song was "Lucky Star". The song was written by Madonna for Kamins, who previously promised to play the track at Danceteria. However, the track was instead used by Madonna for the album, which she planned to call Lucky Star. She believed that "Lucky Star", along with "Borderline", were the perfect foundation for her album.

December 16: Madonna performed “Everybody†live for the first time ever at Haoui Montaug’s No Entiendes cabaret show at Danceteria



Seymour Stein, Michael Rosenblatt and other Sire personnel were present at the gig. Although they were not “bowled over†by her live performance, they decided that Madonna had a strong visual presence and deserved a music video. Rosenblatt contacted Ed Steinberg, who ran the Rock America video company and asked him if he could spare a few hours to make a music video for "Everybody" with Madonna on stage at her next performance in Danceteria. The idea was to play the video as promotion across the United States so that people will come to recognize an image of Madonna and her performance. Rosenblatt offered Steinberg $1,000 for the in-house production video, when artists like Duran Duran and Michael Jackson were spending six figure sums on videos. They finally agreed on $1,500. With the low-budget, the video was directed by Steinberg. Steinberg suggested shooting the video on location at the Paradise Garage, a downtown gay disco, instead of filming a live performance. Madonna's friend Debi Mazar did the makeup and joined her other backup dancers, namely Erika Belle and Bags Rilez. Mazar brought a few of her friends to act as a disco crowd in the video, including African-American graffiti artist Michael Stewart. Steinberg was impressed by Madonna's professionalism on the set and he helped to send copies of the tape to nightclubs across America which used dance music videos for their entertainment. This promotion helped the song to grow from being a dance hit in New York to a nationwide hit.

 

December 25: "Everybody" hits US #107. 


1983:
January: At some point this month, Madonna does a series of live show dates around NYC – particularly at the Roxy and also at the Peppermint Lounge. She sings “Everybody†and “Physical Attraction.â€

 

January 8: "Everybody" hits #3 on US Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart and fails to enter the Hot 100 singles chart.

February: Madonna travels with Mark Kamins to the UK to drum-up club support for her upcoming single, “Burning Up.†She performs for the first time ever in the UK at the Hacienda Club in Manchester. The audience (reportedly) does not respond well. She also promotes in London at a club called Heaven, as well as Camden Palace and the Beatroot Club.

February (mid-to-late): Upon returning to NYC, Madonna begins finishing her debut album by finishing the recordings for several tracks. During the production process, Madonna had different ideas and concepts for the album but Lucas went ahead and produced it his way. Keyboardist Fred Zarr (who was the keyboard player in these studio sessions and who also played on the original 4-song demo with “Everybody†that got Madonna signed) said that Madonna and Lucas were constantly at loggerheads in the studio. He says that Madonna felt Lucas largely “overproduced†the tracks, and she preferred a simplier, more direct kind of sound.

Problems arose between her and Lucas during the recording of the songs. Madonna was unhappy with the way the final versions turned out. According to her, Lucas used too many instruments and did not consider her ideas for the songs. This led to a dispute between the two and, after finishing the album, Lucas left the project without tailoring the songs to Madonna's specifications. Madonna, unsatisfied with the finished product, took the completed album to her friend John “Jellybean†Benitez to remix the available tracks. In the meantime, due to a conflict of interest, Bray had sold "Ain't No Big Deal" to an act on another label, rendering it unavailable for Madonna's project. It was Benitez who discovered a new song, written by Curtis Hudson and Lisa Stevens of the pop group Pure Energy. The song, titled "Holiday", had been turned down by Phyllis Hyman and Mary Wilson, formerly of The Supremes. Jellybean and Madonna sent the demo to their friend, Fred Zarr so he could embellish the arrangement and program the synthesizer lines. After vocals were recorded by Madonna, Benitez spent four days trying to enhance the commercial appeal of the track before the April 1983 deadline. Just before it was completed, Madonna and Benitez met Fred Zarr at Sigma Sound in Manhattan, where Zarr added the now familiar piano solo towards the end of the track.

March 9: "Burning Up" was released as the second single in the US on March 9, 1983, and later issued in some countries as a double A-side single with "Physical Attraction". The single peaked at number three on the dance chart in the US, and became Madonna's first top twenty hit in Australia The single cover is designed by Madonna’s friend and illustrator Martin Burgoyne from photographs of Madonna taken by David Cunningham. Almost immediately after, Madonna does a small club tour (3-song routine) in NYC and in Florida – in Fort Lauderdale and Copa in Key West (accompanied by Sire's Bobby Shaw) with back-up dancers Erika Belle and Bags Rilez.
A video is also commissioned for "Burning Up" (although it doesn't debut on MTV until the following October) when interest for Madonna starts to build in the mainstream. The music video portrays Madonna writhing passionately on an empty road before her "lover" approaches in a car from behind. The video ends with Madonna driving the car instead, suggesting that she is ultimately in control. Sire brings in designer Maripol to be the stylist for Madonna, while Madonna's close friend Debi Mazar does the make-up. One of Madonna's many on-again-off-again boyfriends, Ken Compton was cast as the love interest in the video. Steve Barron (who had just come off of directing Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean" video) was hired as the director.

April: This month was the deadline for the completion of the album and Jellybean turned it in just in time (after modifying the production to Madonna’s liking).

May: Madonna performed “Holiday†at Studio 54 this month to build buzz for her new album – currently titled Lucky Star – due in the summer.

[The album’s name is changed at the last minute to MADONNA. The name is considered “more iconic†by the record label. It is rumored that the change was SO last minute that there are some pressings that still have the title as Lucky Star – but these were only released briefly in small, overseas markets. (Madonna, Andrew Morton, 2001)]

 

May 13: On May 13 1983, Madonna performed Physical Attraction during a track date at the FunHouse in New York City.

Located at 526 West 26th St, the FunHouse (1979-1985) was a breeding ground for the new electronic sounds of the street and helped to make its resident disc jockey, Jellybean Benitez, one of dance music’s first superstar DJ’s.

Of course, Jellybean’s close association with Madonna certainly didn’t hinder his growing popularity either. His first working collaboration with Madonna was to remix Physical Attraction, the b-side to her sophomore single on Sire Records, Burning Up/Physical Attraction, which may explain why it was chosen over the more frequently performed lead track for her performance at the FunHouse. The same remix of Physical Attraction was later used on her debut album, together with new remixes Jellybean provided for Burning Up and Lucky Star alongside his first full production for Holiday.

madonna-funhouse-may-13-1983-550.jpg

 

May 21: "Burning Up/Physical Attraction" hits #3 on US Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart and fails to enter the Hot 100 singles chart.
 

June: Madonna performs "Holiday" at the Music Machine, London, England.

 

June 17: Madonna performs live at the Celebrity Club in NYC.

 

July : The album was first released in the United States on July 27, 1983 by Sire Records. It was originally slated to be titled Lucky Star, after the track of the same name, but eventually titled simply Madonna, perhaps that this singular name could have star power. “Holiday†is chosen as the single to launch the album with and is serviced to dance clubs this month. [The album was re-released in 1985 for the European market and re-packaged as Madonna: The First Album with a different artwork created by photographer George Holy.]

 

September 7: "Holiday" was released on September 7, 1983, and became Madonna's first hit single and remained on the charts from the timespan of Thanksgiving to Christmas in 1983. It was Madonna's first song to enter the Billboard Hot 100, at 88 on the issue dated October 29, 1983. and reached a peak of 16 on January 28, 1984 and was on the chart for 21 weeks. The song debuted at eight on the Hot Dance Club Play chart on the issue dated November 2, 1983 and was Madonna's first number one single on the Hot Dance Club Play chart remaining at the top for five weeks. It was released with "Lucky Star" as a double-A side single. The song also made an entry in the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart and peaked at 25, remaining on the chart for 20 weeks. 

 

Holiday" became Madonna's first top-ten hit in many countries, including Australia, Belgium, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands and the UK. It also became her first entry ever on the Billboard Hot 100, reaching number 16, and her first number-one hit on the dance chart.
 

Originally released in the UK in September 1983, "Lucky Star" was the fourth single from the album. The single peaked at number four on the Billboard Hot 100. The music video portrayed Madonna dancing in front of a white background, accompanied by her dancers. After the video was released, Madonna's style and mannerisms became a fashion trend among the younger generation. Scholars noted that in the video, Madonna portrayed herself as narcissistic and an ambiguous character. She referred to herself as the "lucky star", unlike the lyrical meaning of the song.

 

September 24: Madonna performs "Physical Attraction", "Everybody", "Holiday" and "Burning Up" at Uncle Sam's Club, Levittown, NY. "Holiday" hits #1 on US Hot Dance Music/Club Play Chart - it is her first No. 1 single on the dance charts.



October: "Burning Up" video premieres on MTV.

 

October 13: Madonna performs "Burning Up", "Everybody" and "Holiday" at Camden Palace's Thursday Party Night, London, England.

The following article about Madonna’s performance was originally published on October 15 1983 by The Guardian:

This could be the way pop promotion is going – new artists launched not with a full concert, but with the live equivalent of a video clip.

The scene at the Camden Palace in the early hours was like something from a British version of Flashdance. The place was packed with the usual exotically dressed clientele – there to see and be seen rather than just listen to the music – when the dancing was interrupted by what’s known on the American disco scene as a “track date.â€

Pioneered by the likes of Grace Jones, this is a cut-price promotion device in which a disco artist suddenly appears for half an hour, singing live to backing tapes.

This demonstration was by a white girl in her early twenties, known simply as Madonna, a dancer who moved to New York from the Mid-West as an ambitious teenager and is currently the most important new figure in the American dance scene.

She succeeded partly because she makes great records and partly because she has turned the boring idea of a track date into an exotic event.

Dressed in holocaust chic – black top, black skirt and leggings, lots of bare midriff, and hair in ringlets – she sang well, with a husky, black-sounding voice, and danced even better. She hurtled around the stage, mostly swivelling her hips like a belly-dancer while performing her songs like Lucky Star and the stirring Holiday.

Given a full set and a live band behind her, Madonna would seem to have the makings of a major star, so it’s no wonder she is now being managed by the man who guided Michael Jackson’s recent career.

Madonna talked about the performance @ 0:21

 

October 23: Madonna performs on the Discoring  & 'Di Gei' TV Show - Italy, October 23rd, 1983.


 

October 29: "Holiday" enters the Hot 100 US singles chart at #76.
November 22: Madonna films a cameo appearance as a nightclub singer for Harold Becker movie Vision Quest.

1984

January 14: Madonna performs “Holiday†on ABC-TV’s American Bandstand (hosted by Dick Clark)

 

January 21: In Canada, the song debuted at number 48 position of the RPM singles chart on January 21, 1984 and peaked at number 39. The song again entered the chart at number 45 in March 1984, and peaked at number 32 on April 1984. It was present on the chart for a total of 12 weeks.

 

January 26: Madonna performs “Holiday†on BBC1-TV’s Top of The Pops in London, England during a promo visit in UK and was also interviewed by Number One, The Face and Record Mirror magazines.

January 28: “Holiday†hit US#16.

February: Madonna Performed on Channel 4 TV’s The Tube in London, England. “Borderline†video premiered on MTV.

February 15: “Borderline†single was released.

"Borderline" was the fifth single from the album, and was released on February 15, 1984. In the US the song was released before "Lucky Star" and became Madonna's first top-ten hit on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at ten. Elsewhere, the song reached the top twenty of a number of European nations while peaking the chart in Ireland. The accompanying music video portrayed Madonna, with a Latin man as boyfriend. She was enticed by a British photographer to pose and model for him, but later returned to her original boyfriend. The video generated interest amongst academics, who noted the use of power as symbolism in it

February 13-17: In a phone interview with a British journalist, Rick Sky, Madonna said she’d be back in the studio on March 5 to record a new album. She also said she’d been working on a soundtrack for the upcoming film “Vision Questâ€. She said she was singing 3 songs on the soundtrack and that she had a cameo as a club singer in the film. The movie was directed by Harold Becker and produced by the people who did Flashdance. She said it would be out “hopefully in August.†She hoped to be singing the theme song plus two other songs.

February 21: Copyright registration for “Warning Signsâ€, the third Madonna song she wrote for the Vision Quest soundtrack. The song was never used. A collaboration with Stephen Bray from 1984, US copyright registration# PAu-590-962. Bray describes it as a cool synth track. The lyric sheet reveals the opening intro as "I see danger up ahead", "Warning (echo), Warning (echo)". Chorus is "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". Supposed complete lyrics for the song have surfaced online on various lyric websites.
It was written during the same session with Stephen Bray who co-produced “Gambler†and “Shoo Bee Do.†Bray says he has this collaboration preserved but does not know why it was never included on the soundtrack.
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.

March 5: Madonna started work with Nile Rodgers on her sophomore LP. She chose him to produce because she loved his work on David Bowie’s phenomenally successful Let’s Dance (Virgin) album, as well as his work with Sister Sledge.

April 29: In an interview with Australian countdown show host Molly, Madonna said she was working on her new album. She said:
“I have another album coming out in America. I’m working on that right now, so more great music and more great videos. Six songs of mine – we’re doing nine – and three from outside writers. I’m doing it right now, this very moment.â€


June 16: “Borderline†hit US #10.

August: “Lucky Star†single & video were released.

August 14: Madonna album was certified 1x PLATINUM (1 Million units).

October 20: Madonna album hits US#8 and “Lucky Star†hits US #4.

December 3: Madonna" (a 4-videoclip collection: "Burning Up", "Borderline", "Lucky Star", "Like A Virgin") was released on home video.

December 5: Madonna album was certified 2x platinum (2 million units).

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The Players

 

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/how-madonna-became-madonna-an-oral-history-20130729

Thirty years ago this past week, Sire Records released Madonna's debut album. Although it only created one pop icon, Madonna the album was the culmination of months of effort by diverse artists, photographers, executives and musicians. "The first new wave disco music," as one of her friends described it, carried plenty in its DNA: bouncy R&B grooves; traces of the last gasps of the pre-AIDS Downtown NYC culture; and, of course, the force of personality of the future Queen of Pop.

 

In early 1982, Madonna was 23 years old. In the four years since leaving Detroit for New York City, she'd earned her starving-artist bona fides, working at a Dunkin Donuts, sleeping in an abandoned Queens synagogue and rocking studded bracelets, ripped jeans and bleached, cropped hair. She'd traveled as a backup dancer for French disco singer Patrick Hernandez and auditioned for Martin Scorsese's Last Temptation of Christ. She'd also gone into a Times Square studio with her ex-bandmate (and ex-boyfriend) Steven Bray and recorded a demo of four songs. With her music, she hoped to capture the attention of "the kind of people who might like Grace Jones." It was that hope, and that demo, that she brought with her one Saturday night to the Danceteria nightclub.

The 100 Greatest Debut Albums of All Time: 'Madonna'

 

Seymour Stein, founder, Sire Records:
Mark Kamins was the best DJ in New York. I followed him to various clubs – I didn't dance, but I liked the way he spun.  He could mix Portuguse and Indian music with whatever was going on in England at the time. I gave him some work to remix some things for me. One day he said, "I want to be a producer. Let me work with one of your new artists." I said, "I can't do that, Mark. You don't have a track record." But I said, "Why don't you bring me an artist. Then the artist is indebted to you." I gave him $18,000 to record demos for six artists.

 

Michael Rosenblatt, A&R, Sire Records:
Mark Kamins told me there was this girl who had a demo and was trying to get him to play it over the dance floor. And he was going to have none of that â€“ he didn't play any demos. But he said she looked amazing, so I was trying to keep an eye peeled for her.

A friend of mine had just signed a group called Wham! They were about to put out their first single, but before they put it out, my friend wanted them to see the New York club scene. So I was taking them to clubs on a Saturday night – I'm at the Danceteria second-floor bar with George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley, and I see this girl walk across the dance floor and up to the DJ booth to talk to Mark. I figured she had to be the girl with the demo. So I walked up and introduced myself as an A&R guy, and we started talking.

She came by on that Monday and played me that demo. It wasn't amazing. But this girl sitting in my office was just radiating star power. I asked her, "What are you looking for in this?" I always ask that, and the wrong answer is "I want to get my art out," because this is a business. And Madonna's answer was, "I want to rule the world." The next step was getting her signed. I had to play [her demo] for Seymour Stein.

 

Seymour Stein:
I was in the hospital, hooked up to a penicillin drip. I said, "Send it over, please." I listened to "Everybody" – it was the early days of the Sony Walkman – and I loved it.

When Madonna came by, I was caught with dirty pajamas with a slit up the back of my gown. I needed a shave and a shower. But I got it together to meet with her. When she walked in the room, I could tell she wouldn't have cared if I was like Sarah Bernhardt lying in a coffin. All she cared about was that one of my arms moved, that I could sign a contract. What I saw there was even more important than the one song I heard. I saw a young woman who was so determined to be a star.

I shook hands on the deal. It was a deal for three singles and an option for albums afterward. I would have gone down to the bank and withdrawn my own money to sign her if I had to.

 

Michael Rosenblatt:
It was Seymour that signed Madonna. It was simple. There was no bidding war. Nobody else wanted to sign her. Cut and dry, easy and cheap.

 

Seymour Stein:
I told her, "The first night out of the hospital, let's go out to dinner, you, me and Mark." But I forgot about it. I get back to the office, I get a call, it's Madonna. She says, "Where are we going tonight?" I said, "Oh my god, the Talking Heads are in town, I'm going to see them at Forest Hills." She said, "We'll go together!" I introduced them to Chris [Frantz], Tina [Weymouth], Jerry [Harrison] and David [byrne]. David gave me a thumbs-up sign. He was impressed.

 

Fred Zarr, keyboardist:
Mark Kamins brought me in to redo all the keyboards on "Everybody." When she first walked in, I had my back to the door. I know this sounds corny, but I felt this swish of energy come into the room. I turned around, and . . . she had all the makings of a star. She had the style, the way she dressed, and she was very strong-willed.

 

Michael Rosenblatt:
You had this girl coming out of the new wave scene doing dance music. I thought if we were able to do it right, we'd be able to capture a lot of audiences. We'd get the new wave kids, we'd get the pop people, and the dance community. We'd be able to get everybody.

I didn't want her picture on the cover of the "Everybody" single, because I thought I could get a lot of R&B play on that record, because a lot of people thought she was black.

 

Lou Beach, designer, "Everybody" 12":
I'd never heard of Madonna before then, and I didn't get to listen to the music. Warner Brothers told me, "Do a scene of everyday people in the street." So I clipped images from magazines, and threw them together for the collage. I do remember being a little nervous about using the photo of the black-and-white dog from LIFE magazine, but finally I said, "Fuck it, it'll be fine."

 

Michael Rosenblatt:
Madonna needed somebody who could really help her with her vocals.  Mark Kamin's strength was grooves, not working with a girl who's never been in the studio before. That's when I hired Reggie Lucas, with an eye to giving an R&B feel to this dance/new-wave artist. He was having a lot of success with Stephanie Mills and Roberta Flack.

 

Reggie Lucas:
When Warner Brothers called me about working with Madonna, I was the big score. It seems ridiculous in retrospect, but I was an established professional and she was a nobody. I met with her at a tiny little apartment she had in the Lower East Side. I thought she was vivacious and sexy and interesting, and had a lot of energy.

 

I signed on to do the record, and then "Everybody" came out and it made a little noise. It sold 100,000 copies, so I was like, "All right! This artist became a somebody before I even started on the album." So that was nice, that was encouraging. 

 

Most of the people around Madonna at the corporate level did not get her and for the most part did not like her. You could see them recoil from her bohemianism. Everybody thought she was crazy and gross. I would never say she was a punk rocker, but she used to wear little boys' shorts, and white t-shirts with holes in them, and then she had little ring things in her ears. She wasn't the weirdest person I'd ever met, you know? I'd worked with Sun Ra! So after hanging out with the Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra, Madonna didn't seem particularly avant-garde.

 

Michael Rosenblatt:
While Reggie was making the record, nobody at Warner Brothers gave a shit at all. Madonna was just a little dance girl.

 

Reggie Lucas:
She was poor. She borrowed Jean-Michel Basquiat's apartment while he was in Paris, and so I spent a good hour and a half during the record meeting with her at Basquiat's place. He had his art up there, nobody knew who he was.

We had a fun experience. There was no committee rendering judgment from on high, because she was brand new and frankly nobody cared about her that much. And she had a sense of direction.

 

Michael Rosenblatt:
It was great â€“ there wasn't any infighting or any of that kind of shit. Reggie wrote two of the songs, "Borderline" and "Physical Attraction." The rest were Madonna songs.

 

Reggie Lucas:
"Borderline" has a stylistic similarity to "Never Knew Love Like This Before" [the 1980 Grammy-winning Stephanie Mills song that Lucas co-wrote and co-produced], particularly in the front, with Dean Gant's electric piano introduction.

This was the first record I ever used a drum machine instead of a drummer. And the bass on "Borderline" is an ARP 2600 synthesizer, but the great Anthony Jackson – who did that intro on the O'Jays' "For the Love of Money" – is playing along on an electric bass guitar, and they're playing so tight you can't tell the difference.

 

Michael Rosenblatt:
I remember telling Seymour, when he was giving me grief for being in the studio every day, that Madonna was going to be the biggest act he ever worked with. He laughed and said, how big is she going to be? My line was "Seymour, she's going to be bigger than Olivia Newton-John!"

 

Seymour Stein:
I dared to believe this was going to be huge beyond belief, the biggest thing I'd ever had, after I heard "Borderline." The passion that she put into that song, I thought, there's no stopping this girl. All of her energy – my God, I never saw anybody work this hard in my life. And then make it look so easy.

 

Michael Rosenblatt:
During the making of the album, we would walk down the street and people would just stop and gawk. This is before she was famous. She just had that look and that vibe; there was no stylist working with her. It was all her. We'd walk into a restaurant and people would stop eating and just stare.

 

Reggie Lucas:
There's no way to get around it, Madonna exudes a lot of sexuality. She would curse a lot, talk about sexual things a lot in a joking way. She was more liberated. So you picked up her energy when you were around her. You could tell this was somebody who was going to work with being a celebrity well if she was able to achieve it. That's what she wanted more than anything. She would always come into the studio with biographies of famous movie stars from the Thirties, Forties and Fifties. She spent time studying what she was thinking about doing.

 

She'd really put it out there in the studio, and not in a self-conscious way. It wasn't crude, it wasn't coarse, it didn't seem like she was just selling a little sex to sell a few more records. So working with her, you could play off that. She's a pretty good improviser, on the tags – you know, the ends of the records â€“ and on "Burning Up" when she's like "I'm burning up, "Unh! Unh! Unh!" me and the engineer were like "This is great, man!" So we're just like, "Madonna, do it one more time!" So we kept making her do it over and over, just to get off on it. But you hear it on the record; it's a very erotic record.

 

We had this really fun guitar thing on "Lucky Star," and then she had a meltdown about guitarists â€“ she related an experience where a rock guitarist she was sharing the stage with turned up his guitar, and upstaged her with volume. So we never completed that version.

 

Michael Rosenblatt:
We finished the album, and I wanted another song. Something much more uptempo. I needed to get more money to finish the record. So Seymour said, "Take her down to L.A., have her meet the executives at Warner Brothers."

 

Reggie Lucas:
At Warner Brothers, when they first met her – Mo Ostin, Michael Ostin, Lenny Waronker – they said, "She wants to sing black music, so just have her go promote her singles at the black radio stations." Which is what she did. But they didn't have a vision of, "Oh my god, she's going to be an enormous pop star." Because she expressed an interest in black music, they said, "Oh! Go sell it to the black people, then." That's how she was visualized.

 

Michael Rosenblatt:
But once she went out to L.A., everybody started buzzing. I said to Lenny Waronker, "I need an up-tempo song; will you give me 10 grand?" He said yes.

 

That trip to L.A., Madonna didn't have a manager. We decided to get somebody based in L.A. to deal with Warner Brothers. So we met with Freddy DeMann. At the time, Freddy was managing Michael Jackson. So we go into Freddy's office and we're having this great meeting, his assistant comes in, and says, "Freddy, you have a call. Can you take it?" He says, "You guys stay here, watch this video, let me know what you think. It's premiering on MTV in about two weeks." Freddy puts in a video, presses play, shuts the door. Madonna and I watch the "Beat It" video. As soon as the video ends, I say, "This guy's your fucking manager." She says, "Yeah."

 

So I went back to New York with the money in hand and went to Jellybean [benitez] and Reggie Lucas and maybe two other guys, and said, "Whoever comes up with an up-tempo dance song gets to produce it." Literally three days later, Jellybean comes into the office and plays me a demo of "Holiday," and it's like, "You win."

 

Lisa Stevens, co-writer, "Holiday":
Curtis Hudson and I wrote "Holiday" for the group we were in, Pure Energy.

 

Curtis Hudson, co-writer, "Holiday":
Lisa was playing [sings opening chords], but she was playing it like a ballad. It wasn't even in the rhythm of "Holiday," but I heard something. The whole melody came together in my head over a couple days before I wrote anything down. Then it just poured out of me. We played it for everybody we knew, producers, artists – everybody was excited. Kool & the Gang were like, "Wow, that's a smash."

 

Lisa Stevens:
 We went into Mix-O-Lydian Studios in New Jersey and cut "Holiday." Our record company said it wasn't a hit.

 

Curtis Hudson:
We already had songs that were doing well in the clubs, we just never did break as a pop act. We played the Funhouse, the Paradise Garage, Studio 54. Jellybean was DJing at the Funhouse, so we met Madonna through him. When I first saw her, she had all these rags tied around her dress and all these accessories. I was like "What is she wearing?"

 

Lisa Stevens:
Jellybean told us Madonna was looking for one more song for the album.  He asked us if we had a song for her, and we said, here – we have "Holiday."

 

Curtis Hudson:
So we went into Sigma Sound in New York with Jellybean, and we had the demo tape in the studio, and matched everything to that. I played guitar on it, my brother played the bass, and we brought Bashiri Johnson in to do percussion.

 

Fred Zarr:
Jellybean hired me to put my own touch on it. I was using new equipment at the time. The Oberheim System, which was the OB-X synthesizer, the DMX drum machine, and the DSX sequencer. I was reading the manual while I was programming in the studio. It was very primitive, but it was state of the art at the time. It allowed me to sort of have 12 hands at one time – to program the drums and sync it to the OB-X and some other keyboards – a bass part on the Moog, some string sounds. Jellybean and Madonna came to my house, I pressed play, the computer played part of the track. They loved it. We went in the next day, and I overdubbed the piano solo. Madonna played the cowbell. A couple of days and it was done.

 

Curtis Hudson:
We weren't there when she did the vocal sessions, because she wanted privacy or whatever, so Jellybean said, "Would you guys mind?" We said, "No, if that's the way she likes to record." She didn't know us that well, so maybe with Lisa doing the vocal on the demo, Madonna didn't want to be influenced. When I first heard it, I was like, "Wow, okay, I've got to get used to hearing it without all the soulful riffs that Lisa did." But once I'd really listened to it, I realized it was going to be more universal. Since she was pretty much sticking to the melody, it was all about the song. 

 

Michael Rosenblatt:
At that point the jig was up. Everyone knew she was a little Italian girl. We originally had a drawing of her. But it was a little too soft, so we decided to go with a photo shoot.

 

Carin Goldberg, art director:
When I heard the name Madonna, my eyes just sort of rolled back in my head. I thought, "Just what we need, another gimmicky one-name girl singer who will have one album."

We had a meeting, and she showed me her new loft.  we talked a little bit. Even at that time, she was not warm and fuzzy, she was very focused, very clear about the parameters that this was business and not a friendship. There was no pretense or bullshit, and I really liked that.  She knew what she wanted.

There was no discussion of what she would wear. On the day of the shoot, she showed up at the studio in her "Madonna outfit" and danced to her music while the photographer, Gary Heery, shot. I zeroed in on her bracelets, and borrowed more from Gary's girlfriend, added those to her wrists and told Gary to focus on them. They were clearly her unique trademark. The shoot took no time at all.

 

Michael Rosenblatt:
As soon as we saw the proofs, that it was it. It was just perfect.

 

Sire Records released 'Madonna' on July 27th, 1983. It entered the Billboard 200 chart at Number 190 over a month later. The album has since been certified five times platinum.


 

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Interview: Curtis Hudson & Lisa Stevens, Songwriters of Madonna's "Holiday" (Part 1)

http://blogcritics.org/interview-curtis-hudson-lisa-stevens-songwriters/

 

By Justin Kantor, BLOGCRITICS.ORG | onFebruary 3, 2012

 

Madonna's pop classic, "Holiday," is an institution. It's a worldwide anthem bearing a message that resonates with people of all ages, cultural backgrounds, and faiths. The song, penned by Curtis Hudson and Lisa Stevens, is responsible for jump-starting a massive, 30-years-strong career of proportions which few artists experience. Upon the single's 1983 release, Madonna was a struggling New York performer who had created some buzz in the club world with the dancefloor hits "Everybody" and "Burning Up." In Part One, Hudson and Stevens share with Justin Kantor how their seminal composition was created; and their thoughts on the lady who brought it universal recognition.

 

Tell me how you came up with "Holiday."

 

Lisa Stevens: I woke up, got on the keyboard and started playing those beginning chords over and over for a day or two. I couldn't come up with anything else. I just kept hearing those chords. Curt said, "Lisa, I hear something with that." At first, I said, "Wait a minute. Let me sit with this for awhile." And then, I didn't come up with anything. He came up with the hook-"Holiday, celebrate"-and that funky bassline. We just kicked it back and forth.

 

Curtis Hudson: Lisa wanted to go in a different direction. I was inspired by those first two chords. It kind of sticks in your gut. I wanted to write to it while I had that initial feeling. Maybe a week went by. By the time she said "Go ahead, you can write," I pretty much had the whole song in mind. I had been feeling it, so it poured out of me.

 

LS: When I heard that bassline, I said, "Whoa, Curtis! You're the man."

 

What about the verses?

 

CH: I did most of the lyrics.

 

LS: I threw in a couple. Curt was looking for a line when I said, "How about, 'It would be so nice'?"

 

CH: I pretty much wrote it from my head in 30 minutes. I did most of the lyrics and arrangements back then.

 

Do you usually have a concept before you start writing?

 

CH: It just comes together. The music inspires the feeling of the lyrics. At that time, I remember watching the news and thinking, "Wow, things are so depressing. We need to take a universal holiday-just that one day we could get away. That would be a great thing for this world."

 

I've read that the song was submitted to several artists for consideration. How did it land with Madonna?

 

LS: I remember Jellybean asking us for a song. We had presented songs to him before. He said, "This girl's on Warner Bros. She needs one more song. Do you guys have one?" So, we presented it to Madonna.

 

CH: When he heard the song, he was mixing for Prism Records. He had mixed a couple of the records we released as Pure Energy. Wherever we'd see him, he'd say, "I love your sound. You just need that one big record." So, after Prism didn't want to release it on us, we presented it to him. A lot of friends of ours were telling us it was a hit.

 

LS: We were in the same rehearsal space as

Kool & The Gang

. When they heard it, they said the same thing.

 

CH: We knew that the song had that magic to it. Since we weren't going to be able to record it ourselves, we were really hoping it would fall into the hands of someone who was going to do it justice. Jellybean was shopping it, and I think he pitched it to Phyllis Hyman and a couple of other artists. We didn't pitch the songs that much. I was still hoping we could come around to Pure Energy recording it.

 

LS: We were throwing it back and forth. We didn't want it to get lost in the shuffle. We weren't sure whether to hold it. We didn't want it to not get the promotion that it deserved. We were torn about that. It was close to our hearts. We had done the complete recording, and wanted it to be our next single.

 

Curtis, you played on the actual recording of Madonna's version.Tell me about the sessions.

 

CH: It was a complete arrangement with vocals, percussion, and everything. We took the demo into the studio and matched the new tracks to it. Fred Zarr played keyboards. My brother, Raymond, played bass. I played guitar. We pretty much did the same things we did on the demo.

 

LS: Fred added a lick in there, the piano solo at the end of the song. Everything else is exactly like we did it for them to follow; except, I sang all the backgrounds on the demo, and Madonna had the vocalists she was going to use-Norma Jean Wright and Tina Baker

.

CH: We cut the rhythm track in a day and got the song really poppin'. Everybody was really happy. Madonna was in the studio throughout the recording of the rhythm tracks. She's a very hands-on type of person. But matching the demo was a big concern for us-down to the string sounds. I didn't want to get away from that, because Jellybean and Madonna felt the demo had a certain magic. On the demo, I played Rhodes, [programmed] strings, and drums. It was pretty much transferring what we did to a bigger studio. We had used a Linn drum, but Fred Zarr brought in his Oberheim.

 

However, I didn't get a production credit on the record. Jellybean presented the song to the label. They had slated him to produce it, as he had an existing relationship with Madonna. It came with the territory that he would be credited as a producer. We debated amongst the group. I wanted a production credit. But we said, "It's one song. Let that song be the way to get us out there."

 

LS: I was there for the recording of the rhythm tracks; but Madonna wanted to do her own thing on the vocals and backgrounds-with no one else in there. She wanted to get her vibe, and she did a great job.

 

CH: The vocals are one of the major differences between the demo and the master for Madonna. Lisa's were more soulful, had more of a gospel flavor and were a bit more energetic. Madonna's style made it more poppish.

 

CH: The vocals are one of the major differences between the demo and the master for Madonna. Lisa's were more soulful, had more of a gospel flavor and were a bit more energetic. Madonna's style made it more poppish.

 

LS: But she got some of that soul in there. That's what the public was saying. I was real happy with the way it turned out.

 

CH: I think Madonna doing the song is part of the magic of it doing what it did. It was a timing situation. Madonna was ready to happen. Pure Energy needed that one song to legitimize us, to say we can write hit songs. It was a perfect match for Madonna. She's a hardworking artist. She did justice to it. She stayed true to the melody of the song. She didn't take anything away from it.

 

LS: She added her thing to it. I like the fact that she didn't try to copy me. She put herself into it. She's a songwriter herself, and a great artist.

 

Did you know that the song was going to be released as a single?

 

LS: We didn't know. "Lucky Star" was supposed to come out first. But the radio stations picked up "Holiday" and started putting it in regular rotation. The song just took off after that. We were happily surprised. It didn't even have a music video to support it, because Warner Bros. wasn't prepared.

 

CH: We would get calls from radio stations that people knew it was a Pure Energy song. They knew our vibe. At that time, a lot of people also thought Madonna was a black artist. When we'd go around doing radio promotions of our own records, people often would tell us that they sensed "Holiday" was our production, even though they saw Jellybean's name on it. They could hear our stamp all over the song, and they asked, "How could you just give that way?" That could be your number-one song.

 

Madonna has cited "Holiday" as one of her favorite songs she's recorded. What do you think makes it stand out to her?

 

CH: When the song was starting to chart and everybody was buzzing, we would run into her at airports. We were performing in some of the same places. She told us, "Thank you for writing this song. You guys don't know what you did!" She was really excited about it. I think that might be why it's a favorite, because the song really put her out there and made her a legitimate artist.

 

Warner Bros. didn't produce a music video for it at a time when music videos really started to make songs. Had they done a video, then "Holiday" probably would've been a much bigger song than it was at the time; probably #1 pop.

 

What is it about the song that made it such a big hit and such a transformative song for Madonna's career?

 

LS: What the song was saying about love and unity just resonated with the people. And it got its props among musicians and songwriters when they saw that it got her into the pop charts.

 

CH: There are certain songs that God gives you as a writer. "Holiday" was a gift. From our hard work out of the hundreds of songs we worked on, he looked down and said, "I'm gonna bless you with this song." I think that happens to all writers at some point.

 

When I look at the careers of a lot of people, they never got nominated for an award or made it into the top 10-similar to the case with "Holiday." It's surprising that a lot of classic songs only made it to the top 40. But one of the biggest compliments I've gotten is from young artists and producers out now. Several of them have told me that the song was responsible for them starting their writing career. When my son, Eric Hudson, was in the studio producing Kanye West, he called and told me "Dad, I really don't think you understand the impact that 'Holiday' has had on the music industry. Every time I tell people that my parents wrote it, they freak out!" It affects a lot of people in different ways. We never got that back in the day, because we didn't go to a lot of industry events. I just liked doing the work; and if the public likes it once it's done, I'm fine.

 

LS: We always felt like it was a blessing and still do to this day. Every time she puts it on an album, it's like, "Wow!" I always told Curt that God woke me up that morning. I woke up out of the blue, went straight to the keyboard, and started playing the chord changes . I believe it's blessed a lot of people.

 

The song hit #1 in the clubs, crossed over to the R&B chart; and made top-20 pop. It was also #1 in the UK on several occasions; not to mention hitting big in countries such as Belgium, Italy, France, and Australia. What changed in your career and life as a result of this success?

 

LS: When we wrote "Holiday," we were living in a rooming house. We didn't have a whole lot of money in our pockets. When the royalties started falling in, it helped a lot! We moved out of the rooming house.

 

CH: A lot of songwriters that I admire say to me, "I haven't written a 'Holiday'!" I was told even Babyface made that comment. Some songs are just magic. It just happens and they touch everyone.

 

CH: The song still generates money. Can you live off of one hit? Yes, you can if you get the right hit. It can last you a lifetime. We've been living proof of that. If we did nothing else, the royalties from "Holiday" could support us.

 

LS: But not for lack of trying and some great songs that we wrote after that. You know the saying: "You're only as good as your last hit." We had a hard time getting anything else played. The music business can be so dog-eat-dog. We wouldn't sign certain contracts, because people wanted your blood. They wanted a certain percentage of your songs when they didn't write one iota of them.

 

CH: I love the music, but I hate the business. That's why we didn't continue to more success. It got to a point where we didn't want to deal with certain issues. Integrity is really important to me as a musician. If you write something, then you should get credit for it. I found that many people in the industry are willing to put their names down on something which they didn't have any part in creating. Why would you want to do that?

 

In my heart, I never did agree with the decision [to not further pursue] getting a production credit on "Holiday"-because I contributed so much to the song. When I hear it on the radio, I hear all of my ideas on it, yet I don't get the written credit for it.

 

That would have made a difference in my career, had my name been down as co-producer or producer in addition to the writing credit.

 

I'm not taking anything away from Jellybean. He sat in the production seat, and he did a great job with overseeing the production. I love the way he mixed the song. It sounds new to me every time I hear it on the radio. But the creative stuff that went into the song is 90% mine.

 

After the success of "Holiday," did you make attempts to present other songs to Madonna?

 

CH: I went to Madonna's place in the Village when "Holiday" was still climbing the charts. We'd present ideas to her. She was pretty open. But I think once the song really took off and took her to the next level, she was focused on the next production. After that, I think she tied in with people with whom she had prior relationships and felt comfortable working with. We lost contact, and she went into a whole different direction when she did "Like a Virgin." A lot of people said that's the way she was at the time: she just moved on to the next thing.

 

LS: Onward and upward.

 

Continued in Part Two...

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Interview: Curtis Hudson & Lisa Stevens, Songwriters of Madonna’s “Holiday†(Part 2)

Posted by: Justin Kantor February 3, 2012

http://blogcritics.org/interview-curtis-hudson-lisa-stevens-songwriters1/

 

Continued from Part One…

 

Madonna’s pop classic, “Holiday,†is an institution. It’s a worldwide anthem bearing a message that resonates with people of all ages, cultural backgrounds, and faiths. The song, penned by Curtis Hudson and Lisa Stevens, is responsible for jump-starting a massive, 30-years-strong career of proportions which few artists experience. Upon the single’s 1983 release, Madonna was a struggling New York performer who had created some buzz in the club world with the dancefloor hits “Everybody†and “Burning Up.†In Part Two, the duo shares with Justin Kantor their thoughts on the Queen of Pop’s cultural impact; reflections on their recording career as Pure Energy; and how their son, Eric Hudson, came to be an in-demand producer.

 

Curt, you were involved in writing another song for Madonna—â€Spotlight,†which came out as a new tune on her 1987 You Can Danceremix album.

 

CH: During the time right after “Holiday,†when we’d go to her place and write, I presented “Spotlight.†I gave her a complete song, “Spotlight.†I had actually written it in case Warner Bros. asked her for another “Holiday.†She said she loved it and felt spiritual about it. But she didn’t use it or contact me again about it. It sort of popped up out of nowhere when she was getting ready to do You Can Dance. Her lawyer contacted our manager and said we needed to talk. We went over and met with him. She and Stephen Bray had already done the song; but I hadn’t even heard the version they had done.They took the demo I had given her and worked it into a different song. They gave me credit since I had the original song copyrighted. I would’ve collaborated and made changes. But I was told, “Well, she’s too busy. She’s overseas doing a movie.†I was okay with it, though, because they gave me credit. But the original song had a certain magic, and the changes took that essence away. The original “Spotlight†was another “Holidayâ€â€”the rhythm, the basic groove. I think they were trying to get away from that sound. Sometimes artists don’t want their sound to be identified with specific writers.

 

What memories do you have of working with Madonna? Any thoughts on her impact on the music industry?

 

CH: She definitely knows what she wants—what works for her, what doesn’t work for her. I’ve heard a lot of people criticize her vocals; but she knows what works for her range and how to get the best out of her sound.

 

LS: You know it’s Madonna when you hear her. She’s got her own sound, her own look. She’s a great businesswoman and very talented individually.

 

CH: We felt she was going to be a big artist. I remember when she came into the studio: her style of dress was so different. She had these rags and pieces of material attached to her clothes. There was something about her. I remember telling her, “I think you’re going to be a big star next year at this time,†and she said, “You really think so?†At the time, it seemed like she was going through a whole lot of stuff with her management and career.

 

She knew how the business worked early on. Some people complained that she uses you up; but I never felt that way. I felt that she, being a woman in the industry, knew how difficult it would be. And she wasn’t in a group; she was by herself. She knew the games people play; so she said, “I’m gonna play this game for me to come out on top.†I respected that about her. She wasn’t going in like some artists, who let people take total control of them—what to do, when to do it, how to do it. They don’t know anything about the business; and once their time is up, they’re thrown aside for another artist.

 

She’s a very hands-on person. I remember when I was cutting the guitar track for “Holiday,†there was a little something I do in the rhythm where she was, like, “Do you have to do that?†I told her that it was part of the funk in the rhythm. She said, “Are you sure you have to do that?†She picked up just that little part in the guitar rhythm and really wanted me to play it another way. I assured her that it was best the way I was doing it. But I was impressed; a lot of times singers don’t notice stuff like that.

 

Nowadays, we’re missing that element of everybody going in there and doing it. Many times, artists don’t do anything but go in and learn the song from the songwriter’s demo. They then cut it phrase by phrase to the track. That’s in. They have no input. It’s whatever the writer hears. That’s why most writers now are very good singers. Most of the top ones are artists who didn’t get signed. But the artists don’t have any real work to do. They just copy everything, even the ad-libs.

 

LS: Being a songwriter and producer, she handles things. She was there from beginning to end of the recording session. She’s an on-point performer. A lot of singers can’t get up there and dance and sing at the same time—they go flat. But she stays strong.

 

CH: A lot of people compare Lady Gaga to her. But there was no Madonna before Madonna. She had no blueprint to go by when she came out. So you really can’t compare the two. Madonna created so many different things that young people can draw from now.

 

Prior to the success of “Holiday,†as you mentioned, the two of you, along with Curt’s brother, Raymond Hudson, recorded for Prism Records as Pure Energy. Let’s talk about the group’s beginnings.

 

LS: When I met Curt and the guys, they had been playing in a band called The Professionals. One of my girlfriends knew the drummer. She had heard me sing around the house. I was about 17 at this time. She took me to a club called The Time and Place in Orange, New Jersey, to see them play, and they asked if I could sing. I got up and sang—mostly to the wall!

 

CH: She sang “Keep Your Head to the Sky†by Earth, Wind & Fire, and hit all the notes. I said, “Wow!†At that point, we were a cover band. I had just met the guys a few days before Lisa came down. My brother told me they needed a guitarist. So, I took my guitar down and just started playing. Lisa came in, and from there we evolved into Pure Energy.

 

LS: We played the chitlin circuit. We got really tight, and one year were voted the best band in New Jersey.

 

CH: We went through so many stages. Most of the members didn’t continue to do music.

 

At what point did you guys decide to look for a record deal? How did you make that transition?

 

CH: We all wanted to record. But when you’re in a band, you’ve got so many heads to deal with—so many directions everybody wants to go in. Sometimes it’s hard to focus on that collective goal. We went through a lot of years trying to figure that out.

 

LS: We were writing songs together, knocking around, trying to get something that we thought people would buy. In trying to get that record that would interest a label, we bumped heads a lot. That’s how it ended up being just the three of us.

 

CH: A few people came to hear us. We ended up going with an independent label that was just starting out. We figured we had a good shot without a lot of internal competition. So, we went with Prism. Lenny Fisherberg was the president.

 

Tell me about the experience.

 

CH: We went along with the program in a lot of ways. We did most of the album as far as producing, writing, and arrangements. A lot of time other people got credit because they had the credentials. We had a full orchestra on our album [1980’s Pure Energy]. It was done in a big way at RCA Studios. Prism had a lot of faith in the group initially and invested a lot. But they weren’t big enough to break us. We were an R&B group at heart, but we ended up being a dance group. That was the only level they could break us on. They couldn’t break us nationally.

 

LS: We were really a funky band. But when it came down to the production of our records, it would always end up being more disco-ish. That would happen in the mixing process all the time at the end of a project. A lot of that didn’t capture the true Pure Energy.

 

CH: Club DJ’s were very popular at that time. They had the control because they could get your song played. A lot of them not only worked in the club circuit, but also at the major radio stations. That’s how we became affiliated with Jellybean. He was at The Funhouse. He pretty much ran it. So, if you wanted a song played there, you had to get his approval. Labels would bring in different DJ’s to mix songs, and they would flavor them the way they thought they would work in different regions. So, you could end up with a New York-sounding record when it was intended to be a national-sounding record.

 

LS: After all this, we got disillusioned with Prism Records. Lenny was a great guy; but he was new to the business. We weren’t getting exactly what we wanted as far as our sound. We got kind of lost in the shuffle, as far as the distribution and all that. For instance, after we had written “Holiday†and recorded it ourselves, Prism told us that it wasn’t a hit. A lot of songs we had, they wouldn’t go along with, ’cause it didn’t have that disco sound. But that’s why “Holiday†crossed over for Madonna, because it had that funk—that mixture.

 

Did the success of “Holiday†change how you were perceived as artists at Prism Records?

 

CH: I think it had the opposite effect. Once they realized how big this song was that they had refused, it seemed like they got angry at us, like, “Why didn’t you make us record it?†Well, “We can’t make you.†From that point on, we didn’t put a lot of efforts into our projects. We felt like we had proven ourselves capable of making major hits, but they still always brought in someone from outside to change things about our records. We might present them with 10 or 15 songs to choose from. Still, it was always, “We don’t like this. Give us something like that.â€

 

LS: Too many cooks spoil the soup. Lenny was a nice guy, but he was hearing from too many people. We were the last people that he trusted. So we were really frustrated at the end—especially me as a vocalist. I’m all over the place. I’m truly a soul singer, but that never came across. We’d get to the mixing stage and I’d get lost. My voice always sounded thinned out.

 

What about the single “Too Hot,†which you released in 1982?

 

That was one instance in which Prism said, “Go ahead.†We told them we needed an R&B song. People who heard us perform loved the group; but the records up to that point didn’t reflect our energy on stage. Aretha had that problem when she started recording. They put her through all different kinds of stages, but could never capture her real essence. When they finally decided to put her at the piano and let her do her thing, that’s when she came to be the Aretha that we know.

 

Your son, Eric Hudson, has become an in-demand songwriter and producer, working on hit records with the likes of Mary J. Blige. Trey Songz, and Jamie Foxx. Based on your experiences in the business, were you hesitant about him getting involved?

 

LS He started playing drums at two years of age. At six months old, when he was still in a walker, I remember him walking up to his dad playing the guitar. He started strumming it in perfect 4/4 time. So, he came out musically inclined. God blessed him with a tremendous talent.

 

CH: I never tried to hide anything about the business from him. I always knew he was going to be a musician. So, I talked to him about the business—told him the good and bad experiences; that it’s a business first. No one really cares about you as a person. You have to understand that first if you’re going to get into it. When he graduated from high school and was ready to do his music, he said, “Give me a shot. If I don’t do it within a year, I’ll go right into college.†I said, “If you’re gonna do it right, set your companies up and make sure you line up your lawyers.†So, he was able to benefit from the knowledge I had and the mistakes we made over the years. I was not going to allow anybody to come in and take over his publishing.

You have to be a part of the whole mechanism and decide what you want out of your career—what you’re willing to do and not do. If you practice and develop your career as a musician, there’s a certain amount of integrity that comes with that. How much do you want to sell out to make money? Once you get those boundaries set, you can deal with it without all that other stress that’s gonna come up on top of that. A lot of artists, once they get out there and get the fame, find out that it’s not really the world they thought it was, and they can’t deal with that pressure.

 

LS: There was a time when Polydor Records wanted to sign me as a solo artist, but they weren’t interested in the whole group. I didn’t feel comfortable with that. It was a major label, but Pure Energy was a package. I wanted the group to have that level of success. We had come a long way, if we could only get the right promotion and the creative control to present our true sound.

 

CH: There are more options in one sense. But in another sense, it is more difficult because of the way the industry is structured. With only three major labels now and no independent radio stations, there’s just one big market, and you get the same sound coming out on so many artists. Everybody has to go through the same mechanism, no matter who you’re signed to—you’re pretty much working for the same people. If you don’t fall into a certain sound, you don’t get signed. If you don’t write a particular type of song, you don’t get work as a writers. There are more opportunities, but it breaks down to be less when looking at the big picture.

 

How do you think the Internet has affected the quality of music?

 

CH: Well, the music we’re directed to these days is still the music that the record labels are putting commercials out on. But a few years down the line, companies will come up with a slicker way of marketing songs on the Internet, instead of just putting them up there. That’s going to change the face of everything. Right now, you don’t know who’s who.

 

File sharing has hurt the industry as a whole. In an era when you could buy the whole album, you knew you were getting a full album of material you could put on and listen to. Now it’s, “Just give me that one record.†But it’s hard for a group to develop an identity off of a single alone. You can put a commercial thought or idea out there to give you a sample; but you have to get into the depth of a group on a full CD. It’s never going to be the same again; but when someone comes up with a way to do what we were able to do back in the day—marketing with full long-play digital—that’s going to bring people back to music.

 

Music is something special. It’s more than a commercial vehicle. It’s meant for us to be able to communicate and relate to each other. There’s a deeper meaning behind it. The Internet is trivializing the artist and writer with the “Let me download this†mentality. Everyone’s a critic. When we had records out, we wanted and appreciated getting responsible reviews. We knew the writers studied what they were doing on a professional level. They weren’t just saying something to be negative. The reviews would help you to make sure the next is better.

 

Pure Energy also wrote and produced records for several other artists. In particular, you guys scored big New York dance hits with sides for Hot Streak, Lauriece Hudson and Maxine Singleton.

 

LS: Yes, I wrote “You Can’t Run from Love†for Maxine. We also did one on her called “Don’t You Love It.†The radio stations got hold of it and put it in regular rotation; but the record company wasn’t behind it.

 

CH: A lot goes into making an actual single happen. You’ve got to have money behind it. Frankie Crocker of WBLS was a big fan of the group. He played that song out of the box.

 

LS: Then KISS picked it up and told us they were behind the record, but that people were calling and asking for the song and there was no product in the stores. They can’t play something if there’s nothing behind it. So, he got off the record after a couple of weeks.

 

CH: The major labels like Warner Bros. and Columbia had a whole network in which they’d work on building up songs in clubs for months before taking it to radio.

 

LS: Some of the independent labels, on the other hand, would give money to promoters to push the records in another state. But we’d hear from people we knew around the country that the promoters were taking that money to go on vacation. There was a lot of that craziness.

 

CH: With the Hot Streak record, “Body Work,†we had some extra time in the studio and decided to put up a track. I programmed the drum machine, put a bassline down, and did some vocals with Lisa, my sister Lauriece, and Raymond. Bashiri Johnson, who also played on “Holiday,†did percussion. Our manager took the song to Easy Street Records and got a 12″ single deal; but we were still signed to Prism Records and didn’t have a group behind it. So, we found a group in New Jersey to front the song. Derek Dupree was the lead singer of the group, so he added some ad-libs to the song. Jellybean mixed it and Fred Zarr added a synth solo.

 

LS: The song ended up on the Breakin’ soundtrack album, which sold 10 million copies worldwide. But we never got a dime from it.

 

CH: Missy Elliott sampled the song in “Lose Control,†so we got paid from that. It was nominated for a Grammy. Because of the sample, they sent me a notification, but I couldn’t get an actual Grammy. At that point, they weren’t identifying the writers of sampled parts as actual writers.

 

Any chance the public we’ll ever hear the original Pure Energy recording of “Holiday�

 

CH: I’ve been trying to find it. I had a copy on cassette, which got destroyed.

 

LS: We cut it at Mix-O-Lydian Studios in New Jersey. A lot of our two-track masters were stored there.

 

CH: I contacted [the owner] a few months ago to get a copy, but he hasn’t gotten back to me yet.

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Commercial & Critical Reception

 

Madonna [The First Album] took its time to bloom into a major hit, debuting at a lowly #190 on the Billboard 200 on September 3, 1983, but later clawed its way into the Top 40 and, over a year later, into the Top 10. In fact, Madonna had such a slow start in a Europe that it was repackaged with a new cover and title in 1985 as Madonna: The First Album.

 

The album would go on to sell over 10 million copies worldwide. Not bad for a first-timer some male critics were openly branding a slut. (If chastity affected musical credibility, few of the greats, male or female, would have secured record deals.)

 

There are many firsts related to Madonna's first LP, among them her first Top 40 single ("Holiday"), her first Top 10 ("Borderline") and her first Top 5 ("Lucky Star"). So many hits led to a months-long delay in the release of Like a Virgin. In the end, Madonna spent 168 weeks on the Billboard 200, longer than any of her future albums ever would.

 

Madonna was one of the most auspicious debuts at the time. Why? Because it is a seamlessly sweet, lyrically coy, infectiously kinetic dance album that was released just a few years after some jack-offs decided "DISCO SUCKS." Moreover, Madonna is an unfashionably emo album for its era, filled with not just great grooves but loads of heart. It was always going to be devoured by teenagers and dismissed by critics.

 

If critics were unkind at first, they've now mostly forgotten their initial impressions, or outright changed their minds. Madonna is now regarded as a must-have for any pop collection. In 2013, Entertainment Weekly put only one Madonna album on its list of 100 Greatest Albums Ever - Madonna, at #43, right after AC/DC's Back in Black (1980) and just before Michael Jackson's Off the Wall (1979).

 

Source: Encyclopedia Madonnica 2.0

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The 'Vicious Competition for Credit' Over Launching Madonna's Career

 

Reggie Lucas worked in the studio with Madonna as she recorded her self-titled album, which turns 30 this week. But he says he hasn't gotten his full due.

 

* CHRIS WILLIAMS

* JUL 27, 2013 CULTURE

 

https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/07/the-vicious-competition-for-credit-over-launching-madonnas-career/277974/

 

Sire Records

 

On July 27, 1983, the world would be introduced to a budding superstar from the streets of New York City (by way of Bay City, Michigan) named Madonna. On that date 30 years ago, Sire Records released her debut, Madonna. The record would go on to sell more than 10 million copies worldwide and spawn five singles, including the hits "Holiday," "Lucky Star," and "Borderline."

 

Behind the boards during recording was producer Reggie Lucas, who had seen success working with Lou Rawls, Stephanie Mills, Phyllis Hyman, and Roberta Flack, among other artists. Later in the process, Madonna brought in DJ John "Jellybean" Benitez to assist.

 

In the years since the album's release, Madonna's become a household name, one of music's most influential artists ever, and a source of controversy--including among her collaborators. I spoke with Lucas about recording Madonna, about what made its singer so novel, and about who he think really deserves credit for the album that served as a launchpad for one of the greatest pop acts in history.

 

Your background was primarily as an R&B and jazz artist. How did that influence you creating the songs for Madonna? Because she was a different kind of artist.

 

Well, she was a white artist wasn't she? [laughs] It was the main thing that made her different. When I came to the Madonna record, I came with two things. The first thing was I brought a lot of success and a solid background as a hit producer and songwriter within the R&B world, but it was also with the skill as a composer and rock and roll guitarist. Madonna was simply the first opportunity that I had to play around with other musical interests that I had. You couldn't make the first Madonna record for Phyllis Hyman. I couldn't make Miles Davis music for Roberta Flack. Miles was the one place where I got it all out of my system, and that was the beauty of Miles.

 

As a producer, you understood that your first job was to support people to achieve that end. You challenged the artist just enough to bring out the best in them and introduce them to audiences that they normally wouldn't be introduced to. When I did "Physical Attraction," that was just it. She was a little different. Madonna was wilder in terms of her look and image; I don't know if her music was that much wilder than anyone else back then. I think her music was sexually freer and it predicted what was going to happen in the future. She was definitely an innovator when it became to being more suggestive, which was pretty cool. I thought it was great.

 

So--mixing that with my musical background, Madonna's first album was really a hybrid of her interests and mine. "Physical Attraction" was our starting point with that style. It did pretty well and she began to move forward with her career and sound.

 

How did that dynamic work in the studio?

 

She had a lot of material that she had written and collaborated with other people on in the course of being signed to a record label. When she met me, "Everybody" was about to come out and she had written "Lucky Star." My role had been as a creative songwriting record producer. [Musician James] Mtume and I typically wrote a good percentage of the material we produced for Stephanie Mills, Phyllis Hyman, and those artists. So that's what I ended up doing for Madonna. I would write songs and ask her, "What do you think of this?" "Physical Attraction" and "Borderline" were done specifically during the production process and for her. They weren't demo songs that I was shopping around.

 

Madonna and I had an enormous amount of freedom. They would tell us to make the record and we went and made the record. I think, in retrospect, we were happy to come up in an era where the record company played a very small role in creative supervision. Our creative process was very independent.

 

Did you guys have a set routine that you followed every day coming into the studio?

 

She was diligent, it was a pretty good experience. She wasn't the type of artist that you had to go and look for. She wanted to be successful. She was always there when she needed to be. I was used to being in charge of things so I was always there at the studio ready. I made sure everything moved smoothly for her so that the process surrounding being in the studio was fairly transparent to her. She had to come in focused on her music and performing as an artist and it helped my focus as well. The musicians I worked with were guys I had worked with for years. We worked out of Sigma Sound Studios, a studio I worked out of for years as well. She brought some very good people into the situation. It was very comfortable making the record.

 

We made usage of synthesizers and drum machines. That was the first record that I ever recorded where I used a drum machine. It was one of the big transitions for me. We used Moog and Arp synthesizers, and that was relatively new technology back then. It gave the music a new sound. Madonna was an artist that knew what she wanted, but she wasn't a record producer. So it was my responsibility to create a sound for her. She would be there interactively. If she didn't like something she heard, she would say so and I would change it. The funny thing that happened on this record is when we got into the studio together we established this mini-Moog bass sound for her as her key sound. And she stuck with it for a long time.

 

Were there any challenges in working with a low budget and trying to break a new artist on a new label, Sire Records?

 

It wasn't really difficult at all. Sire wasn't a new label. It was an independent record label that was acquired by Warner Brothers. It had an enormous amount of success with the English punk sound and dance music. Sometimes things just have a flow to them.

 

Madonna's record had a flow to it. Michael Rosenblatt was always there and I worked with him from the label. He was great, he was a real pro. He knew how to be an A&R person for a record. He didn't interfere, but he wasn't so distanced from it that he didn't have an idea of what was going on.

Michael is probably an unsung hero of launching Madonna's career. If you can believe it, Warner Brothers had very limited interest in Madonna when she was first signed. You know what they thought? They said that Madonna is this new white artist that wants to sing black--so what they did was send her to the black radio stations when her first record came out, and that's how they promoted her at first. They just treated her as a black artist. I guess they kind of envisioned her as Teena Marie. Madonna had an intense interest in black music, but she wasn't Teena Marie. She was something different. But she did it and she went to the black radio stations and held her own. Frankie Crocker was playing her records in New York.

 

When you bring up the fact that Madonna was pushed toward a black audience, it would explain why "Physical Attraction" and songs like that were at top of the Billboard Black Singles Charts.

 

You can't make this stuff up. Warner Brothers really didn't know what to do with her. See, there was a subtext to Madonna that had to do with her personality. She looked like a punk rocker to a lot of people. When people at record companies, law offices, and managerial places first saw Madonna before she became an established artist, a lot of people were put off by her. They thought she was too crazy and too weird. Being a music person and a human being, I don't operate that way. I thought she was cool and different. I didn't really know if she was going to become a big star, but I thought she had something valid to say and I could help her with it. Warner Brothers didn't get it right away, but Michael Rosenblatt did.

 

When she took off, there was an immediate, massive shift to move in and establish business relationships with her. In the beginning, she was just this little dance artist that Frankie Crocker gave a few spins to, and some DJs out in San Francisco, and she starts creating this buzz. Then, people at the record label started putting two and two together and got five. They immediately did a 360 and welcomed her with open arms.

 

Many people think other famous producers launched Madonna's career. What are your feelings about that?

 

I've refrained over the years in addressing aspects of Madonna's career because I'm not a person who likes negative discussions. But what I will say is that in Madonna ascent to fame and fortune, there's been a pretty vicious competition for credit in being involved. In other words, someone will say, "I launched Madonna." If I talk to a lot of people today, I will say I was Madonna's first producer. I produced six of the eight tracks on her first record. I would say nine times out of 10, their response will be, "Oh yeah, I thought Jellybean did that." But Jellybean didn't do that. Jellybean was a remixer, and we didn't have time to remix records. It wasn't something that I was interested in doing. Somewhere in this process of publicists and personal relationships, somehow he came out as the guy.

 

I was a traditionalist and probably a little naive at the time, but I started out working for Billy Paul. Billy and his wife Blanche were like parents to me. They took me under their wing. I was a little kid. They took me on the road. They looked after me. They supported me. I joined Miles Davis's band. Miles introduced me to the world of big-time jazz success. I played at the greatest halls in the world and stayed at the finest hotels. Miles was like a surrogate father to the guys in the band. You got credit for the work you did. You were a member of Miles's band. When I worked for Roberta Flack, Stephanie Mills, and Phyllis Hyman, we made the records and people would say, "Oh, you produced that record." You produced one good record for Stephanie Mills and take her from selling no records to selling gold records; they would call you back and treat you better.

Sothis Madonna record was my first and worst introduction to the notion that you wouldn't have a linear continuation with someone who you've had success with. It totally blindsided me. I understand it a little bit better now, but not really. Just for the record, one tires in a lifetime of hearing someone taking credit for something that you've done. Jellybean produced "Holiday" and he remixed a couple of tracks, but remixing tracks for radio isn't the same thing as producing one of the major breakout pop stars of the 1980s. Now there's Wikipedia and you'll always find these distortions in Wikipedia. My kids find this stuff and they fix it for me. [laughs] I don't think there's really ever been someone to clear this up. Madonna certainly hasn't helped at all. I think if it were left up to Madonna, she wouldn't talk about anybody.

 

It was my first and worst introduction to the notion that you wouldn't continue with someone you've had success with. I understand it a little bit better now, but not really. Just for the record, one tires in a lifetime of hearing someone taking credit for something that you've done.

 

The bottom line is that, I think, the kind way that Madonna has always tried to refer to me is that I was just an R&B producer. There are two things that I dislike about that. First thing is, that it treats being an R&B producer as pejorative, as if it were something less than being a pop or rock producer. Second thing is, that I didn't make an R&B record for her. I made a crossover pop record of the highest order. So the notion that she similarly dismissed me because I was just an R&B producer is offensive on multiple levels to me.

 

It's hurtful because I didn't understand it. I did the same thing I always did. I came in and worked my ass off to support the artist and cast them in a good light.

 

Everybody but her reciprocated by saying they liked the record, and let's make another one. Between her and Jellybean, they try to pretend the records I did weren't any good. It's almost like I was fired or something. I wasn't fired. I finished the record I put it out and they took it and put it out and sold a bunch of records. And everybody else ran around trying to take credit for it because it was so big that they couldn't help themselves.

 

Talk me through the process of making some of the songs you were involved with on the album.

I'd write songs and put them on a little cassette player with me singing, and I can't sing. I'd ask Madonna if she liked them, and she said, "Yeah, it sounds cool. Let's do it." I did the demos for "Physical Attraction" and "Borderline" and she brought in her demos for her songs to the studio. And we did what we did to them. Probably the most interesting one was "Lucky Star." If you heard the original demo for "Lucky Star" and you heard what it came out like, they're the same song, but barely. We really put a lot of creative energy into that one and it came out beautifully.

 

 

I must say, Madonna was great to work with in the studio. She really put in the work. She was a creative person. And it was one of the many reasons why it was disappointing not to be involved in subsequent projects. It's just one of those things. Look, she picked one of my good buddies, Nile Rodgers, to do the next record. She couldn't have picked a better person.

 

I always had a pretty casual process of making songs, but with some formality. I kind of inherited how Miles Davis used to operate. So we would come in and the songs were simple they didn't require a lot in the way of charts. I would write out a little chord sheet, but the musicians were so good they would learn these things. They were really used as templates to try to find in the studio what we wanted to do with the songs. I'd make a lot of creative decisions and creative additions and subtractions to whatever was going on in the studio. We didn't spend a lot of time messing around either. I think that's the trick.

 

When you make a pop record, you don't want it to sound sterile. You want to bring some of the improvisational excitement of jazz, but without the actual 15-minute saxophone solo. You can't have a 15-minute saxophone solo on a Madonna record. You have to find a way to build in this excitement in a way that just works. Being a member of rhythm sections as a guitarist was always helpful to me in terms of understanding how music works from a production-quality standpoint. When you're a member of a rhythm section, you know when the music is a dud because you're right there as it happens. I always felt that I was always in tune to the level of energy, precision, and crispness of rhythm section performances. And I think that's the key to so many records.

 

As you look back 30 years later, how do you feel about the impact the album made on popular culture after it was released? It's regarded as one of the most important pop albums from the 1980s.

 

Well, I don't know. I think everybody involved in the arts has a tendency to take themselves a little bit too seriously. I made a great record, and I a lot of people liked it. It sold a lot of copies and launched careers and created opportunities for people. And that's what you want to do. That is supposed to be the outcome of your good work. I don't think it changed the nature of life in America or anything like that. [laughs] It was just a good record.

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

*

 

* CHRIS WILLIAMS has written for EBONY, PopMatters, and The Huffington Post.

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MADONNA INTERVIEW : SOUNDS (MARCH 12 1983)

http://allaboutmadonna.com/madonna-library/madonna-interview-sounds-march-12-1983

 

1983-madonna-sounds.jpg

 

It’s not often that you find this rag covering an artist who wants to be the new Evelyn King and who numbers Michael Jackson as her idol. But then again, it’s not often you find that an artist like that who is white, on Sire and with a debut 45 remixed for UK release by Rusty ‘Motormouth’ Egan, is it?

 

Madonna (it’s her real name, result of a staunchly Catholic upbringing) has shifted 65,000 copies in the USA of ‘Everybody’, a mixture of pounding discofunk and peculiarly sleazoid vocal tendencies. A current fave rave of the pulsing Pouncey, the diminutive and punkily shorn blonde was in London recently and found time between shows to talk to yours …

 

Ensconced in a flat not a stone’s throw from my own North London gaff, Madonna took tea with honey and spoke of her Detroit origins.

 

“It’s real desolate, a factory town. Since Motown there hasn’t been any real cultural scene there. There’s a good jazz scene but that’s it. I studied dance at the University Of Michigan.â€

 

An eventual move to New York led her to a position with one of the leading artsy-fartsy dance companies in town. But touring, lack of new opportunities and the rarified atmosphere eventually became a grind.

 

“There’s so many dancers and not enough work. Plus there’s not much money for doing this hard, physical work every day, and it’s a very inaccessible art form. I wanted to use more of my assets, you might say, so I decided I wanted to audition for the musical theatre kind of stuff.â€

 

After a month of try, try, trying came what turned out to be both a boon and a burden. Patrick Hernandez, he of the international disco hit of monumental awfulness ‘Born To Be Alive’, was looking for dancers for a big tour.

Madonna auditioned despite her opinion of Mr Hernandez’s smash as “really horrible, right?†She was asked to return another day.

 

“Finally they took me in this room and said, ‘We don’t want you to do it! We want to make you a star!’ They were based in Paris, so they wanted me to go there and study with a vocal coach while they found material for me. It was to be a learning situation. So I went!â€

 

“I overdubbed vocals on already-recorded disco tracks, but basically it was pretty boring. As far as actual productive musical stuff I had nothing to show for the six months I spent there.

Eventually I just got fed up.â€

 

“They were taking me around on a leash, they wanted me to be like Edith Piaf or something. They were going around telling everybody that I was this little thing they’d found in the gutters of New York. And I didn’t speak French so I didn’t know half the shit they were saying to people, y’know? But I knew they were all trying to live out some fantasy of making me into somebody, y’know?â€

 

“I just was too smart for that, I was used to working hard, so I said ‘See ya later!’ I hadn’t signed any contracts.â€

 

Landing back penniless in NYC (I confess / wouldn’t have) Madonna searched out musos.

 

“They taught me chord progressions, so I could start writing songs straight away. I was full of energy and raring to go! I was also in some 16 millimeter art movies, no story, just images chopped up to make you think about things. I was doing all sorts of wacky things, screaming and running around changing costumes; having monologues with myself talking to the camera. There was another more narrative one, a love story. I was the lead girl, it was real stupid, I was this S and M girl, a dominatrix, and I had these slaves. It was really hilarious!â€

 

After a year and a half of futzing around with no-hope bands composed of teen players who wouldn’t show for rehearsal, Madonna wised-up and made a demo with a funk drummer Pal from Detroit who’d just arrived in New York. A DJ at the Danceteria Club tried out the tape on patrons, and reception was sufficiently impressive for him to tout the thing to record companies.

 

“All the places we went offered a deal, so I took the best, which was with Sire.â€

 

An album is in progress, as is a band, but in the meantime Madonna and her dancers perform to taped music.

 

“WEA have insisted that Rusty Egan remix the single before they put it out. I don’t see that it needed it but I think he did a good job.â€

 

The album will be sold R&B/funk, produced by Reggie Lucas of Roberta Flack and Stephanie Mills fame and featuring the kind of quality session cadets to be found on discs by Luther Vandross and Aretha Franklin.

 

“When people see me they’re real surprised that I’m white! They think someone like me should be punk or something! We have a real interesting style.â€

 

The Madonna album will emerge from its burrow for scrutiny this spring. I didn’t have the nerve to ask if it’ll be called ‘Catholic Girl’.

 

© Sounds

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  • 2 weeks later...

'Madonna' Turns 30: A Look Back at the Queen of Pop's Debut Album

http://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/chart-beat/4789697/madonna-turns-30-a-look-back-at-the-queen-of-pops-debut-album

 

'Madonna' Turns 30: A Look Back at the Queen of Pop's Debut Album

7/27/2013 by Keith Caulfield

*

Madonna - "Madonna"

 

30 years ago today, Madonna released her first album. Here's a look at the chart success of Madge's magnificent debut

 

July 27 is a "Holiday" for Madonna fans: Her self-titled debut album was released on this day in 1983.

 

"Madonna" debuted at No. 190 on the Billboard 200 chart dated Sept. 3, 1983, and eventually climbed all the way No. 8 the following year. The Sire/Warner Bros. Records release spent a staggering 168 weeks on the chart -- the longest run of any Madonna album.

 

It spun off three top 20 hit singles on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and four entries on Billboard's Dance/Club Play Songs tally.

 

Its first single, "Everybody," was actually released the previous year, in late 1982. The song became a hit in dance clubs, especially in Madonna's then-home of New York. The cut reached No. 3 on Dance/Club Play Songs in early 1983 and was initially embraced by the city's dance radio station, WKTU. The outlet was arguably the first American radio station to play the track. WKTU reported it as a new "Playlist Top Add On" in the Dec. 11, 1982, issue of Billboard magazine, reflecting their station's playlist for the week ending Nov. 30, 1982. (Fun fact: At the time, former Billboard associate publisher Michael Ellis was the music director of WKTU.)

 

Madonna told Rolling Stone in 2009 about hearing herself on WKTU for the first time: "I was living on the Upper West Side, 99th and Riverside, and at about 7 at night I had the radio on in my bedroom, on 'KTU, and I heard 'Everybody.' I said, 'Oh my God, that's me coming out of the that box.' It was an amazing feeling."

 

"Everybody" was followed by the double-sided single "Burning Up"/"Physical Attraction," a No. 3 hit on Dance/Club Play Songs in spring 1983. (It was common then for singles to be promoted as so-called "double-sided" singles, when a vinyl record would be sent to club DJs with a different song on each side.)

 

Next came another double-sided single: "Holiday"/"Lucky Star," which became her first No. 1 on Dance/Club Play Songs in late summer 1983, just as her album was starting to take off. It was the first chart-topper her storied career as the queen of Billboard's Dance/Club Play Songs survey. In her career, she's earned a whopping 43 No. 1s -- a record no other artist has neared. Her most recent No. 1 was 2012's "Turn Up the Radio," from her "MDNA" album.

 

"Holiday" eventually became Madonna's first major mainstream hit in America and her first single to chart on the Billboard Hot 100. It debuted at No. 88 on the Oct. 29, 1983, chart and peaked at No. 16 on Jan. 28, 1984.

 

The hits started to come fast and furious for Madonna after her breakthrough success with "Holiday." "Borderline" came next, and gave Madonna her first top 10 on the Hot 100. It reached No. 10 on the June 16, 1984, tally. "Borderline" was her first of a record 38 top 10 hits on the Hot 100. (In second-place on the all-time list: the Beatles, with 34 top 10s.)

 

While "Lucky Star" had been a club hit already, it was then time for it to be promoted to pop radio. It sailed to No. 4 on the Hot 100 the week of Oct. 20, 1984.

 

One month later, on Nov. 17, 1984, Madonna would debut her fourth hit on the Hot 100: "Like a Virgin," the title track and first single from her second album.

 

But, that's a chart story for another day . . .

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@@groovyguy interesting read but there are some Dates wrong here for sure and many missing ;)

 

- 1982.09 she appeared in the Konk Party Video

 

- 1982.10 she was on Dancing on Air doing Everybody! i think in Oct but not sure! This is said to be her first performance of everybody on TV

 

- 1983.05.13 - She performed Physical Attraction at the Funhouse

 

- 1983.07 - At the roxy

 

- 1983.09.24 - at uncle sams

 

- 1983.10.13 - camden Palace , London

 

- 1983.10.23 - TV in Italy Discoring & Di Gei

 

- 1983.11.22 - Making of Vision Quest

 

- 1984.01.14 - American Bandstand Holiday

 

- 1984.01.26 - TOTP UK Holiday

 

- 1984.01.27 - The Tube UK

 

- 1984.02.12 - Filming of Borderline

 

- 1984.02.12 - The Dance Show

 

- 1984.02.25 - Solid Gold

 

- 1984.02 - Appearing on Hot Trax NY

 

- 1984.03.01 - Klons in Germany performing Holiday

 

- 1984.03.13 - Formel Eins Germany perf Holiday

 

- 1984.04.29 - First Mayor interview with Molly Meldrum in NY

 

- 1984.05 - MTV Interview at the Limelight

 

- 1984.05 - MTV Walk on Interview with Marc Goodman

 

- 1984.06 - Performing Holiday in France for Hip Hop, Super Plataine, Les Enfants Du Rock

 

- 1984.07 - Interview for All Night Fuji Japan

 

- 1984.08.30 - Holiday at Passeporte pour la forme

 

 

just have seen you listed 1984 under Like A Virgin , so sorry for listing them again here but i think they belong more in the Madonna era ;)

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@@groovyguy do we know when exactly the Fame Audition was? it must be around Nov.82 i think as she speaks about her record on the Radio and doing trackdates! but i am not sure!

No idea on the exact date. It's probably November 1982 like you said. Could also be late October or even December.

 

In the 1982 FAME audition, she mentions 'Everybody' getting played on radio & Everybody was released on October 6, 1982. 

 

Note: In 1982 Madonna auditioned for a role on Fame. However, Valerie was cast as Doris in 1980 as the pilot shot in December of that year. As the first video shows Madonna was auditioning for a guest role in season 2 as a love interest for Danny. http://kidsfromfamemedia.blogspot.com/2012/04/madonna-auditions-for-fame-1982.html

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=111&v=3ePfBBawcP4

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