Susan Rogers on Prince’s "Sign "O" Times"

From: Daddy Rock Star Blog

In 1987 Prince released the double album Sign O’ The Times.  It covered a wide range of musical and lyrical styles, and some music critics, historians and fans consider the album as one of Prince’s greatest releases.  Sign O’ The Times is included on several “Best Album” lists, including the 2003 Rolling Stone Magazine’s “500 Greatest Albums of All Time” and VH1’s 100 Greatest Albums.  The album made it to number four on the U.S. Billboard R&B Album chart and number six on the U.S. Billboard 200 chart, with the support of songs such as “U Got The Look,” “If I Was Your Girlfriend” and the title track, “Sign O’ 

The Times,” which topped the Billboard R&B chart and made it to number three on the pop chart.  The album also contained hidden gems such as the jazzy tune “The Ballad of Dorothy Parker” and the classic ballad “Adore.  

At the helm was Prince’s audio engineer Susan Rogers, currently an associate professor in the Department Of Music Production & Engineering at Boston’s esteemed Berklee College of Music.  She recently took some time to talk with Daddy Rock Star about the recording of the Prince classic.

Susan Rogers

  Before we get into Sign O’ The Times, tell me a little bit about your background, how you got into audio engineering and how you came to work for Prince.

Susan Rogers:  I started in 1978 when there weren't a lot of women engineers, and there still aren't, but I wanted to be in the music business, I wanted to make records.  I started as a maintenance technician to get my foot in the door.  I was the person who repaired consoles and tape machines and I didn't go to school but I was self taught in electronics. I bought the books and read them.  So I began as a maintenance tech and my first job was as a trainee for a company called Audio Industries in Hollywood.  After three years there I was a service tech for a company called MCI Console and Tape Machines.  From there I went to work for Crosby, Stills and Nash at their studio in Hollywood as their studio maintenance tech.  Prince hired me in 1983 because he needed a technician and it turns out that he didn't really understand – and he didn't need to understand–the distinction between a maintenance tech and a recording engineer. He figured if you knew the equipment you could use the equipment, which is a really safe assumption, so I became his engineer really out of convenience for him.  It worked out great for me of course because that was my first big break.  I was his engineer from 1983 until late 1987 /early 1988 when I left; that was through Sign O’ The Times and The Black Album, so I started with Purple Rain and the last unofficial record would have been The Black Album.  From 1988 until 2000 I was an independent engineer and producer, and after 2000 I left the music industry to earn my PhD in Cognitive Psychology.  I specialize in Music Perception and Cognition.  Now I’m at Berklee, where I've been since 2008, teaching engineering and production and the audio sciences.

Q)  A lot of music critics and Prince fans often call Sign O The Times “Princes greatest post-Purple Rain album.”  How would you respond to that statement?

SR: Frankly I think all three–Around The World In A Day, Under The Cherry Moon, and Sign O’ The Times–are equivalent artistically…they’re all different.  Sign O’ The Times represented the third record after Purple Rain.  As an artist, the first record you ever make is just a point and anything after that is a direction, so follow up records build on what came before. But the interesting thing is when you have a massive hit record you get to start over.  This is what artists do. So when you have a record that totally says you've arrived, after you arrive, you get to start a new journey.  You can think of Purple Rain as being a singular point, the apex of where Prince was. So now that he’s shown the depth of what he can do, that he’s hugely talented and very creative, now he has to show the breadth of it and how far he can go stylistically.  So he did Around The World In A Day, which was heavily influenced by rock music, and Under The Cherry Moon, which was very heavily influenced by pop music–a new kind of pop music.  It was probably his least R&B/funk-oriented record.  Other than Controversy, I think “Sign O’ The Times” was one of his most socially conscious records.  Sign O’ The Times represented a departure for him lyrically; he was growing and trying new things lyrically.  He had some new textures and new sounds there as well, but definitely the single “Sign O’ The Times” was social commentary, and it was a serious social commentary more so than, for example, “Ronnie Talk To Russia.”  It was a serious attempt at social commentary and it was timely, so he was expressing “here’s where I’m going, everybody.”

Q) When the album came out, I bought it and a group of friends came over and we all listened to it.  One of the songs that sparked the most conversation was “If I Was Your Girlfriend.”  I've heard that you were instrumental in the release of that song as a single, is that true?

SR: Prince asked me what I thought–and that’s not something that he normally did–but he was on the fence as to whether or not it should be a single.  I think the record label was saying, “No, don’t do it,” but he wanted to so he asked me what I thought and I offered the opinion which tipped the scales.  I told him, “I think you should do it. I've never heard a man sing from this perspective before and as a woman I enjoy hearing that.  It’s a unique message, it makes you interesting, it’s intriguing. I would do it.”  And I think it was a bad call. (laughing) I think ultimately looking back on it, it wasn't a good choice as a single. It’s a brilliant song but I think with Sign O’ The Times Prince was aware–and he said this often, so I’m not reading into things–that his black audience was drifting away from him. After Around The World In A Day and Under The Cherry Moon, the music was less rooted in R&B and less rooted in funk and even pop styles that Sly Stone had familiarized us with, it had less of that, so Prince was making a conscious effort with Sign O’ The Times to win back some of his original audience.  “If I Was Your Girlfriend,” musically and lyrically, may not have been the right choice for winning back that audience.  It wouldn't have been the right choice for winning back a rock and roll audience or pop audience, either.  Where it would have been a good choice would have been for winning back the art fans, the music critics and scholars and the art lovers that could recognize that this is a new message.  The risk takers musically would be the ones who would respond to that and I didn't recognize that at the time.

Q)  I remember when that song first came out, that lyrically, the women I knew really dug it and understood where Prince was coming from, but initially, a lot of guys I knew didn't get it.

SR: I could see where it might turn men off. I could see where they would say, “No guy talks like that,” but it’s what women want to hear.  And a woman would look at a man saying that and say, “Yes, thank you for recognizing that I think differently from you and wouldn't it be nice if just for brief periods of time we could be on the same page and you could be my friend and not my adversary and we could think the same way.” That’s what he’s trying to say.  Kate Bush said it–Prince was a big fan of Kate Bush–and she said it in her song with that famous line “come on angel, come on darling, let’s exchange the experience.” It has multiple meanings but what she’s saying is “come on let me be you for a minute and you be me, let’s exchange this.”

Q)  That’s the song “Running Up That Hill” right?

SR:  Right, he played that record to death!  He loved that record.

Q)  I've also read that Prince’s vocal on that song was accidentally distorted during the recording, how did that happen?

SR: That was a blunder.  He would record his vocals by himself in the control room. I would set him up and then I would leave him alone and he would work entirely by himself.  It was the only way he could get the performance he needed; he needed that privacy.  But I made a mistake and I’d inadvertently set the preamp 10db hotter than normal so it was distorted.  When he was done he would call me back into the room and have me do a rough mix or set up for something else.  So he left the room and I came back in and I’m doing a rough mix and I realize the entire vocal performance is distorted and I thought, ‘oh no, I bet he hasn't listened back to this in the speakers. He’s probably just listening in the headphones…he’s gonna come back into this room and have me killed!’ (laughing) But he didn't mind at all and of course he heard it–he’s as sharp as they come. There's nothing that slips past him, he heard it but he didn't mind.                                                                         

People have assumed that because these records were successful that we took the same degree and care with the technique as we did with the art and that’s completely false. I mean, technically, sonically these records aren't great.  Many, many, many others in which care was actually put into the technique and the craft sound better.  Our records sounded alright, their form served the function, but what was great about it and what people were buying was not the sonic qualities.  People were buying the art, the musical attributes. In that sense, Prince didn't care; and any of those old records, if you listen to Sly Stone or James Brown, you’ll hear distortion all over the place but it doesn't affect the music at all.

Q) Speaking of recording techniques, when I listen to a lot of music these days, it seems really loud.  It’s not just a matter of ‘things have progressed in technology,’ but it just seems like the music is just louder for the sake of being loud.  Maybe it’s just another sign I’m getting older (laughing).  Am I off base with that?  As an engineer who’s been around for years, what do you think?

SR: I know what you’re saying.  The technique these days involves hyper-compression where in mastering, and sometimes even before, you squash out all the dynamics.  You level the dynamics such that there’s no change in loudness going from the verse to the chorus and the climaxes of the song don’t get any louder than the quiet parts of the song.  The trend began in the ‘90s…it originated from radio broadcasters who wanted program levels to be uniformly loud.  They didn't want any quiet moments that might allow a listener to switch to a new station, so record makers started competing in the same way by flattening out the dynamics so that your record would be louder than the next guy’s…and it sounds great when you put your record on and it just comes in hotter than the next person’s.  We know, at least here in the Western world, consumers prefer whichever audio source is louder.  It can be a fraction of a DB hotter and the consumer will say “yeah, that one sounds better.”  But what has happened, by reducing these dynamics we’re actually changing the emotional impact, (I’m arguing this anyway) of musical material because dynamics are what gives a song tension and release…it gives it a payoff. To take away the dynamics, you can listen longer because there’s nothing changing so you can listen for a longer period of time but you’ll probably be less emotionally engaged than you would have been otherwise.  Dynamics contribute to emotion, but, that said, we are now writing and producing music such that you don’t need a lot of dynamics.  It’s changing the way composers and producers are working.  How we think of music nowadays we think of it as being kind of uni-dynamic.

Q)  Was there any particular recording experience that really stands out on the album?

SR: The song “Sign O’ The Times” and the song “The Cross.”  “The Cross” was one of what I used to call “Sunday songs.” Some of his deepest, most introspective and most important songs I noticed were recorded on Sundays.

Q)  I like every song on the album.  I think “Play In The Sunshine” was a cool song even though it wasn't released as a single.

SR:  That was one of those songs that we knocked off very quickly.  Prince did what most people do.  When he would conceive of an album there were core songs that were the heart and the skeleton of the album.  “Purple Rain” was a core song on the album Purple Rain, and of course “Sign O’ The Times” was one of the fundamental songs for that album. So when we would sequence a record sometimes we’d take our core songs and a few other tracks and we would sequence them together just to hear how the album was going to sound.  If there was something missing, if there needed to be a song that would transition between two of the core or the more important songs, Prince would actually write something specifically to serve in the sequence.  So in that sense there were the most important songs and then there were the album cuts–the things that were almost interludes on the record. So the songs were never intended to be singles or even have any important message.  That’s what “Play In The Sunshine” was; it was just a bridge to get us out of “Sign O’ The Times” and into the rest of the record.  “Slow Love” was another one of those…that was an old one from the vault.

Q) Was that the case with “It’s Gonna’ Be A Beautiful Night?”

SR: I think we considered “Beautiful Night” more important.  That was recorded live in France.  We were in the south of France and Prince was playing an outdoor event and we had a mobile truck there from Germany and that’s when we recorded the bed track, we overdubbed it later, I think right there in the mobile truck.

Prince commissioned engineer Frank De Medio to custom-build a recording console for his home studio–the same type of console that De Medio built for Sunset Sound in Los Angeles, where Prince normally recorded when he wasn't recording at home.  Long story short, De Medio was taking much longer than anticipated to complete the console and Prince, being extremely eager to record, finally issued an ultimatum that De Medio deliver the console that week.  The console was delivered and installed but Rogers hadn't gotten the opportunity to test it properly.  Tested or not, Prince was ready to record and did so, even though, as it turns out, the console wasn't working properly.  However, technical issues aside, Prince recorded the Sign O’ The Times fan favorite, “The Ballad of Dorothy Parker”.

Daddy Rock Star: So you’ve got this recording console that’s not working right.  You eventually got it fixed but not before Prince recorded “The Ballad Of Dorothy Parker?”

Susan Rogers: Right. I hadn't finished testing the audio wiring or anything; in other words I had just soldered the last connection and Prince said, “Let’s record.”  He had been asleep and had this dream about a woman and a bathtub and a waitress and all that, he scribbled down all those lyrics very quickly and called it “The Ballad of Dorothy Parker.” I don’t know how aware he was of who Dorothy Parker actually was, but he knew the name, so it wasn't the real historical Dorothy Parker; and it was inspired by Joni Mitchell, I remember him saying that.  Anyway, he came running downstairs, we put in fresh tape and started recording.  As always, he’s playing every instrument and I’m just panicking on the inside because something doesn't sound right–it’s really dull, there’s no high end and I can’t wait for this song to be finished because I've got to check it out and see what’s going on.  Of course the song is coming out really well and the whole time I’m thinking, ‘I wish he would just stop,’ (laughs) but that’s not going to happen.  The whole time he hasn't even said anything, hadn't even commented on it and I know he hears it but he’s really happy because he likes this song.  At the very end, he gave me my final instructions and he said, “There’s something about this console that doesn't sound like the one at Sunset Sound, it’s really dull,” and then he goes upstairs and goes to bed.  I’m thinking, ‘Hell yeah it’s dull, there’s no high end at all!’  (laughs)  So he goes upstairs and goes to bed and then I finally had a chance to test the board and it turns out that it was working on only half the power, and one side of the bipolar supply had gone out, so it was just drawing half the current.  But he conceived of the song in a dream so he didn't mind that at all because it gave it this dreamy-like quality.

Q) I've heard other artists, like Sheila E, mention that Prince isn't as concerned with everything being technically perfect in the studio; he’s more concerned with the music being right.

SR: He was a perfect example of an artist who didn't need to rely on any special kind of tool,  any special conditions, any special kind of situations; he didn't believe in any voodoo or magic associated with the work.  If you've got the goods you can show up at any studio with any console with any microphone – he didn't care if he used his expensive microphone or his cheap one, he didn't care – you can record under any circumstances if you’re the real deal and that’s how he was.  He wasn't going to let a little thing like no high end stop him from making music.

Q) Was there anything in particular that Prince preferred when it came to recording in regards to the studio set up?

SR:  Well, a couple of things.  One he wanted everything there and set up ahead of time because he wanted to be able to move from instrument to instrument.  Unlike most other people his ideas came extraordinarily fast; at lightening speed compared to how most people think so by the time he was done playing one part on one instrument he would already have in his head the second part on another instrument.  So you just had to have everything set up, plugged in, sound on it, ready to roll because if you don’t there won’t be time.  In fact I even have a handwritten note from him at home that I saved that says ‘the more you’ve got plugged in and ready for me to go the faster I’m going to be able to work’ and then it says ‘save my blood pressure.’ (laughing) So that was one thing, and the other was his privacy.  Unless his band was there he had to be completely alone.  We did NOT have visitors (with rare exceptions), we did not have visitors in but I was proud.

Q)  So when you recorded you mainly worked out of two studios?

SR:  We’d either be working out of his home in Minneapolis at his home studio or Sunset Sound.  Paisley Park was being built during that time so at the tail end of my tenure with him I did work at Paisley Park, but after it was built he could work a whole new way.  Now he could have a staff of engineers so our time was through.  So we either worked at Sunset Sound in L.A. or we worked at his home or we worked in the warehouse.  He had a warehouse space that he leased where he left all his gear set up.  That’s where his band rehearsed and his live sound set up was there so it was either at the warehouse, at home or at Sunset.  This was all pre-Paisley Park the studio.  He needed that privacy.  He needed his people around him, the people that he knew well and that he could feel comfortable with.  During that time I was one of them.  When we were at Sunset Sound, for a while it was Peggy McReary and then Coke Johnson, they were employees of Sunset Sound, so during that time if he was recording I was there.  I knew how he liked to work, I could be quiet, I was his facilitator of recording, I made that happen.  So whether we were on the road or it was live or working on movies, if he was working I was there and I was proud of that.  It was hard work.

Q)  As a musician I've done my fair share of recording and definitely understand the value of the engineer.  I don’t know if people actually realize the importance of an engineer in regards to the chemistry with an artist.  It’s really important to have someone you click with, as opposed to someone who’s just pushing buttons.

SR:  That’s true.  I knew we were going to click when I had only worked with Prince for about a week or two and he, Morris Day and Jesse Johnson were in the home studio having a conversation about music.  I was minding my own business, but it was a small control room.  So I was just being quiet, doing whatever it was that needed to be done, keeping my mouth shut, but I think it was Morris who mentioned a song that I loved by One Way featuring Al Hudson.  When he mentioned the song I just said ‘oh yeah!’ I couldn't help myself, it was automatic and I said it under my breath but again, it was a small control room.  So when I said that they just stopped and looked at me and I looked at them and it was like they all knew ‘okay, we've got the same frame of reference don’t we?’  It wasn't a planned moment but I was glad that Prince realized ‘yeah, your frame of reference is the same as mine.  We listen to the same music and I know what you’re talking about.  I value what you value.’  I think he was glad to have an engineer who shared his value system because that’s important.

Q) A friend of mine told me that she didn’t become a Prince fan until she recently heard the song “Adore” on the old school station.  I always hear that song played on old school stations.  It’s an incredible ballad and still stands the test of time.  Was that one of those “core songs” you mentioned before?

SR: “Adore” represented Prince’s conscious effort to write for black radio in an attempt to counter criticism that he was primarily a pop writer and that his status was diminishing as an influential R&B artist.  I know this because he said so while we were tracking it.  The organ and vocal arrangements on “Adore” are purely gospel.  I am not sure I’d say he considered it one of the most critical songs on the record because it stands alone on Sign O’ The Times.   It’s interesting how easily he could adopt the gospel style in his arrangements but so rarely did.  I think his critics were accurate; Prince was a pop artist, and personally I think that’s high praise.  Pop in and of itself is not a style; the pop chart only reflects the condensed versions of more pure styles (e.g., hip-hop, dance, country, punk).  Prince wrote funk and R&B and arranged these songs in a popular style.

Q) In regards to a couple of fan favorites, “Housequake” and “U Got The Look,” is there anything that comes to mind about those songs as far as the concept or recording of them?

SR: “Housequake” was done at Sunset Sound during a period when Prince was re-examining dance music.  I believe his exploration of funk at this time was considering the influences of rap and hip-hop, now firmly established as more than just musical fads.

Q) And with “U Got The Look,” how was it recording with Sheena Easton?

SR: “U Got The Look” was also tracked at Sunset Sound.  We spent much longer on it than usual–several days rather than the typical 24 hours it took Prince to track, overdub and mix a song.  I recall that it was tracked over the Thanksgiving weekend.  We had planned to take Thanksgiving Day off but we were in the middle of the Sign O’ The Times album and stopping momentum was not easily done.  The thing I remember most about Sheena’s visit was that when Prince asked her if she’d like to take a minute and warm up vocally, she replied that she was always warm vocally.  For most singers this is a hollow boast, but it was true in her case.  She has an excellent voice and did the vocal very quickly.  I’m sure that Prince was aware of “U Got The Look”’s single potential.  He experimented with tempos; it started as a slower jam.  Once he bumped it up to dance tempo, much of the instrumentation changed.  The hook is really strong–perfect pop material. 

Q) This album was long time in the making…

SR:  Yeah, at one point it was going to be triple album called Crystal Ball and the record label argued against his releasing a triple album so he decided to make it a double album and he re-conceptualized it.  So the record was really a long time in the making because it was more than one record.  So many songs went on it and then came off; which is why I think The Black Album was a follow-up because unlike some of the other records, Sign O’ The Times’ final realization was not how it was conceived.

Q) Why do you think the Sign O’ The Times album still resonates with music listeners and is still so relevant 25 years later?

SR: I think the relevance of Sing O’ The Times must be rooted in the strength of the writing–lyrics, melodies, harmonies, and rhythm.  It is astonishing how well Prince’s music holds up over the decades.  Not only are the arrangements solid but the writing is pretty invincible.  Most of these titles can be stripped down to just their melodies or just their rhythm tracks and they would be compelling and interesting.  Lesser recorded works are only viable because of novelty in the arrangements or the cult of personality surrounding the vocalist him- or herself.  If you can imagine stripping down a lesser song to just its melody and lyrics and then learning its chord progression, you may find that it is pretty insubstantial without the arrangements and recording techniques that support it.  Prince understood the art of recording more than practically anyone I can name.  He understood how a record functions for the listener; it needs to work in multiple contexts and formats.  It is one thing to be a gifted writer or performer but quite another to be a recording artist.

Q) What kind of music did you listen to growing up?  

SR: When I was a kid growing up my favorite artists were Sly Stone, Al Green and James Brown.  Those were my favorites and that was the music of my childhood, that’s what I knew and that’s what I loved. 

Q)  Were you familiar with Prince’s music before you began working with him?

When I first heard Prince, I was young, I was in Los Angeles and I became an instant fan.  He was my favorite artist in the world.  If someone had asked me in early 1983, “What would be your dream, if you were to write down on a piece of paper your fondest wish and hope?,” I would have written down “to work for Prince.” And that actually happened…the dream literally came true.  So every single day I was in the studio, I’ll never forget the feeling with every new song I heard, nearly every time I would have the experience of thinking ‘this is the best song he’s done…this is my favorite Prince song.’ I was so lucky and I cherished every moment.