The Family

My name is Paul Peterson.

Back 40 years ago this year, Prince dubbed me St. Paul as he put me in a band called The Family.

And we're going to be celebrating that all year long, go out and play some concerts and having some fun.

But this is my podcast called Music on the Run, and I've been so lucky to interview my current guest last year as well because we have a lot to talk about.

Not trying to do it in spite of or instead of the time, but we felt like improving ourselves was only going to make the whole better.

And so I would have loved that.

If you could imagine all of us, if you imagine the family and Sheila E and all of these grew and the time still existing and all of these things under one roof, but then the SOS band and all the other things, the Sherelle Alexander O'Neill back in that day and all of those records we were doing, all under one roof, all coming out of Minneapolis as like a united front, almost the way Motown was with Detroit.

That would have been wonderful to me.

Nothing Compares to You was written, like I said, by African musician Prince, who recorded a demo in 1984.

Apparently in 1985, Prince's funk band, The Family, released their sole studio album, The Family, including Nothing Compares to You.

It was not released as a single and received little recognition, and Prince's demo was released in 2018.

The interesting thing is years later, Prince did do the song with Rosie Gaines, which I always do at karaoke, and people love it 'cause I do both parts, and it's hard to do, but it's worth it, and it's so beautiful, too.