Today is Part 3 (of 8) of our 6 Degrees game with The List. And, again, because we’re doing a bit of a Prince-theme, we’ll be picking out some fun Prince-connections below the set.

Okay, carrying on from where we left off last time…

6 Degrees of Separation: Led Zeppelin to Tagaq

Led Zeppelin – Untitled (or “Led Zeppelin IV“) (list number 780)
>> R.E.M.’s Automatic for the People was arranged by John Paul Jones, the bass player of Led Zeppelin. Led Zeppelin’s fourth album features guest vocals from Sandy Denny (on the track “The Battle of Evermore”), who was in…

Fairport Convention – Liege & Lief (485)
…Fairport Convention, whose Liege & Lief album was produced by Joe Boyd, who also produced a number of albums by Nico, who was in/on…

The Velvet Underground & Nico – The Velvet Underground & Nico (834)
…this album with The Velvet Underground. Lou Reed of The Velvet Underground would later become a close friend of Anohni of…

Anohni and The Johnsons – My Back Was A Bridge For You To Cross (969)
…Anohni and the Johnsons, and the song “Sliver of Ice” on this album was based on a conversation Anohni had with Reed during the final months before he left us. Anohni is also friends (and has collaborated with, e.g., here)…

Björk – Debut (760)
…Björk (see their amazing chat about My Back…, “Sliver of Ice”, and other topics here). Björk has also collaborated with (and produced the first album by)…

Tagaq – Auk / Blood (2)
Tanya Tagaq. <<

Prince 6

Here are some fun connections the above artists have to The Purple One:

• Prince was apparently a huge Led Zeppelin fan. Watch him absolutely shredding it while covering Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love” here.
• Like The Velvet Underground and their song “Jesus“, Prince had a straight-up gospel song (“The Cross“, among various other songs with religious lyrics) that stood out as being quite, umm, different from the content of his other songs.
• Lou Reed’s final Spotify playlist had Prince’s song “Kiss” on it (on Part 1; see also Part 2).
• Producer/engineer/musician Mark Plati worked with both Prince (Graffiti Bridge) and Lou Reed (as well as David Bowie – who was in Part 1 of our 6 Degrees series – on Earthling).
• In a 1997 Mojo interview, Prince mentioned that he dug some of Björk’s work: “I crave great musicianship, and I don’t care who provides it. I’ve got no problems saying I dig D’Angelo. Or some of the things that Bjork does, the Cocteau Twins. Musicians, we’re family.”
• The 2007 compilation A Tribute to Joni Mitchell features both Prince (covering “A Case of You”) and (covering “The Boho Dance”) (as well as Sufjan Stevens and k.d. lang, who are both also on The List, as is Joni).

Tune in on Monday for Part 4, to see how we get from Tagaq to Explosions in the Sky!

https://1001otheralbums.com/2024/04/13/6-degrees-of-separation-part-3/