Record of the Day: Wendy & Lisa, “Fruit at the Bottom”
Wendy & Lisa
“Fruit at the Bottom” (Cd Virgin CDV 2580)
One of the strong points in the Prince & The Revolution group were Wendy and Lisa, two very spicy girls who, in addition to being very cute, showed off first-rate determination on stage, unleashing themselves on the keyboards and guitar with results so funky that they challenged even the ‘hyperactiveleader.
Behind a polite and witty appearance, the two damsels hid claws of considerable power, bringing a sound to the band
to dynamite, strongly linked to the free-range and frenetic groups of James Brown and George Clinton.
After the early dissolution of the Revolution due to the usual whims of the Prince, Wendy and Lisa collaborated in the studio with various artists (including Joni Mitchell and Me’Shell Ndegéocello) as well as began a varied career that includes several albums and many film soundtracks and television. “Fruit at the Bottom”, from 1989, is the second album under their name and
Of the ones I’ve heard, it seems to me to be the best.
Short, incisive songs like uppercuts to the chin, full of funky pulsations, excellent for stretching your legs on the track but also beautiful to listen to thanks to fresh and dynamic arrangements. It’s difficult to get the riff of “Are You My Baby” or the slow funk pace of “Lolly Lolly” out of your head, but the whole album maintains more than good compositional levels. Groove reigns supreme, the two have fun paying homage to various icons of black music from Sly Stone to Etta James, Smokey Robinson and Stevie Wonder without forgetting their former boss (the trio of “Always in My Dreams” seems to come straight out of his pen).
Excellent multi-instrumentalists, they play practically everything on the album (Wendy proves to be a killer drummer in the title track) getting a hand in the backing vocals from her sisters and hosting another defector from the world of Prince, Jesse Johnson on guitar, who as always is unbeatable in syncopations funk of “Satisfaction” (nothing to do with the Rolling Stones, here we are more in the area of the early Commodores).
The album was not particularly successful with the public when it came out (perhaps because the market had been saturated by all the solo albums that the various musicians fired by Prince had put on the market) but listening to it again today it is difficult to find fault with it; if you turn the volume up to maximum the fun will certainly be guaranteed.
Carlo Boccadoro, composer and conductor, was born in Macerata in 1963. He lives and works in Milan. He collaborates with soloists and orchestras in different parts of the world. He is the author of numerous books on musical topics.
This text is taken from “Lunario della musica: A record for every day of the year” published by Einaudi, courtesy of the author and the publisher.
