For the first time ever, recording duo -- and former Prince and the Revolution members -- Wendy & Lisa come out publicly and reveal how their sexuality affected their relationship with the music industry -- and the Purple One himself.
By Barry Walters
Keyboardist Lisa Coleman was 19 when she started working with Prince on his 1980 album Dirty Mind. Her childhood friend, guitarist Wendy Melvoin, was also 19 when she joined Prince in 1983 for Purple Rain.
Known from that point on as Wendy & Lisa, Melvoin and Coleman became key members of the Revolution, Prince’s band at the peak of his musical powers and multi-platinum popularity. After they left the group in ‘86, the pair continued as a recording duo and as composers for such hit TV shows as Heroes. Shimmering with bright surfaces that compliment its complex depths, their latest album, White Flags of Winter Chimneys, showcases sophisticated strains of rock and jazz that definitively assert their serious chops. To celebrate that achievement, Melvoin and Coleman cast aside their usual privacy and gave Out their most candid interview ever.
Out: People who know about you as players in Prince’s band may not know about the music you’ve composed for film and TV, or all the records you’ve appeared on, like k.d. lang’s Invincible Summer, or last year’s incredible Grace Jones comeback album, Hurricane.
Wendy: We had an amazing month with [Jones] in our home writing “Williams’ Blood,” becoming friends, and being bizarre divas. We had to pick her up when she woke up in the morning, and the morning to her was like 6 PM. Lisa: She gets in the back seat of the car and of course we have to stop to buy bottles of champagne. She wanted to play the bass. She kind of couldn’t, but she could groove like nobody’s business on one note. She started to sing and I wish I could’ve seen my own face. I was like -- Wendy and Lisa in near unison: Oh my God, it’s Nightclubbing! [Jones’s classic 1981 disco-punk album with the hit “Pull Up to the Bumper”
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