“The fact that this song [“Do Yourself A Favor”] was never previously released is testament to just how much of a roll Prince was on in the ’80s. The sweetest of soul-pop kiss-offs, this is irresistible bliss.” – Billboard Magazine

“I mean “Do Yourself A Favor” is probably the most interesting song for me [from the 1999 super deluxe reissue] because that goes back to before my entrance onto the scene when [Prince] played with 94 East.” – Dez Dickerson

A little more than 37 years after its debut, Prince’s landmark double album “1999” has received the “super deluxe” treatment from his estate and Warner Bros. Records. Now available as a five-CD or 10-LP set (each of which contains a live DVD of Prince’s December 29, 1982 concert from Houston), there are a total of 65 tracks from the era, including the original remastered album, B-sides, outtakes, remixes, edits, a November 1982 concert from Detroit’s Masonic Hall, and two-dozen previously unreleased gems from Prince’s fabled vault.

Among those titles in the vault are classics that have circulated on the black market for years, such as “Turn it Up,” “Purple Music,” and “No Call U.” Yet, one of the most bootlegged tracks in the collection happens to be the only song that Prince didn’t write himself: Pepé Willie’s composition “If You See Me” (later rechristened by Prince as “Do Yourself a Favor”).

A fan favorite—denoted by its inclusion on this “1999” reissue—“Do Yourself a Favor” has storied and rather ironic history that also happens to represent Prince’s first experience in a professional recording studio. 

Pepé Willie spoke to the MSR recently and shared the colorful backstory to that song and more.

The Backstory

For the better part of the 1960s, Pepé Willie worked as a teenage valet for Little
Anthony and The Imperials, the group that his Uncle Clarence Collins founded in 1957 (as The Chesters). And, it was during the famed Rock and Roll Revues that took place at the Paramount and Fox theatres in his native Brooklyn where he studied and absorbed the business first-hand at the feet of musical icons like Jackie Wilson, Dionne Warwick, Chubby Checker, The Ronnettes, Dusty Springfield, Dion, The Belmonts, Teddy Randazzo, and a Who’s Who of Motown Records.

In July of 1969, 21-year-old Willie, now an aspiring musician and songwriter in his own right, was with Little Anthony and The Imperials during their two-week stand at the legendary Copacabana nightclub in New York City. That’s when a member of the group, future two-time Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Sammy Strain walked into the dressing room and asked, “Who’s the girl out there with the green eyes?” Without hesitation, Willie blurted out, “She’s with me!”

As it so happened, Willie had absolutely no idea who the girl was nor had he so much as seen her before. But since he “knew Sammy had good taste,” he was determined to meet her. The girl, Shauntel Manderville, was in town from Minneapolis to visit her Aunt Kahlua, who, by a strange twist of fate, was dating Willie’s Uncle Clarence.

Almost instantly, Willie and Manderville became inseparable, eventually marrying and settling down in Brooklyn. After a protracted separation, the couple ultimately reconciled, and this time around, Willie chose to join Manderville in her hometown. This was not Willie’s first time in Minneapolis.

He’d been to visit Manderville and her family back in December of 1970, where for the very first time he met her younger cousin Prince. “I was into grown folks stuff, so I didn’t pay him that much attention,” Willie explained. “He was wrestling around on the floor with his cousin Charles. Charles would have been 14 and Prince was 12. But Prince was just so little. He looked more like eight to me.”

While he might not have noticed Prince then, that would certainly change when he relocated to Minneapolis four years later. “The very moment I arrived in town, I was off to a ski party that was being thrown by Shauntel’s father Eddie,” recalled Willie. The musical entertainment that evening was Grand Central, which at the time consisted of Prince on guitar, André Anderson on bass, Andre’s sister Linda on keyboards, Morris Day on drums, and William “Hollywood” Doughty on percussion.

“I didn’t realize it at first, but Shauntel had led them to believe I was some sort of big-
time producer out of New York” laughed Willie. “Of course, I wasn’t, but I figured since I was here, I might as well try to play the part.” So, after a brief discussion with Day’s mother LaVonne, who was managing the group at the time, Willie agreed to work with Grand Central.

It was during the second or third rehearsal in Day’s attic, that Willie realized there was something special about Prince. “He could play everybody’s part, everybody’s
instrument. And brilliantly at that,” lauded Willie. “I’d never seen anything like it. I mean, the kid was only 16. Wow!”

After about a year or so working with Grand Central, Willie was in the process of putting his own band together and booked some time at Cookhouse Studios on Nicollet Avenue South. Willie remembered, “I asked Prince if he’d ever been in a recording studio. He said, ‘No.’ So I asked him to come along to play guitar with my band.”

Prince and Pepé

Pepé Willie’ (left) with Prince and members of 94 East/ Photo courtesy of Twitter/@94 East

Of the songs cut on December 4, 1975 — which history has come to know as “The Cookhouse 5” — was a five-minute 47-second midtempo number titled “If You See Me,” the chorus of which declares:

​So if you see me, walk on by girl
Don’t say nothin’, walk on by girl
Do yourself a favor, walk on by girl
Don’t say nothin’, just walk on by
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

The irony of this particular song is that, by this time, Willie and Manderville had split for good. And this was, in essence, his break-up song to her. “I never told Prince that,” confessed Willie. “Not sure if he had a sense of what or who it was about. Of course, Prince was really close to Shauntel. After all, their mothers, Mattie Del and Edna Mae were twins.”

With “If You See Me,” and four other tracks now in hand, Willie, along with his bassist Wendell Thomas, returned to his old stomping grounds in New York in search of a recording contract. After being rejected by several labels, he landed a deal with Polydor, which tapped original Motown Funk Brother and songwriting legend Hank Cosby to work with Willie’s band, which, at that moment was still without a name.

 After consulting with bandmates Kristie Lazenberry and Marcy Ingvoldstad, who would also become his business partners in the newly formed Pepé Music Inc. (PMI), Willie settled on a name — 94 East. And, in short order, 94 East recorded a pair of songs for Polydor, Willie’s “10:15” and the Hank Cosby penned “Fortune Teller, both featuring Prince on guitar.

Following a change in leadership at the company, Cosby was relieved of his duties and soon thereafter, 94 East was dropped from Polydor as well. Nonetheless, Prince would record with 94 East again. All told, in addition to The Cookhouse 5, late ’70s sessions at Sound 80 in Minneapolis, New York City’s Sound Palace (which also included the contributions of André Cymone), and Prince’s first home studio on France Avenue South, yielded a total of 14 songs Prince recorded with Willie. Not just on guitar, either.

Prince added his talents on bass, drums, keyboards, synthesizers, and even clavinet to several of those tracks, which included “If You Feel Like Dancin’,” “Lovin’ Cup,” “Dance to the Music of the World,” “One Man Jam,” and the Prince/Pepé co-written song “Just Another Sucker.”

In the meantime, Prince, now signed to Warner Bros., was doing his own thing. And, since Willie was without a deal himself, he decided to dedicate all his time to help Prince. This included promotional tours to cities like Chicago and Charlotte.

Then, when Prince’s rehearsal space was robbed in 1978, his band (the initial incarnation of The Revolution) spent the next six months rehearsing 12 hours a day in Willie’s basement studio prior to his first professional gigs at the Northside’s Capri Theater, which, were in turn, produced by PMI.

After Prince broke from his first manager Owen Husney, Willie took the role on in the interim before helping Prince secure the services of Bob Marley’s manager Don Taylor, who was the bridge between Prince’s famed management team of Bob Cavallo, Joseph Ruffalo, and Steven Fargnoli.   

The Song

Although Willie continued to serve as a confidant to his friend, he knew that Prince was in good hands at Warner Bros. Thus, around the time Prince released his third album “Dirty Mind” in the fall of 1980, Willie began to extricate himself from Prince’s camp in order to focus on the day to day at PMI and other projects.

One day, in the spring of 1982, Willie was hanging out with Day in downtown Minneapolis. Willie reminisced, “We were just sitting there in Morris’ Mustang, when out of the blue, Prince approaches the car and hands Morris a cassette.” Morris proceeded to pop it into his tape deck. “Pepé, Pepé!That’s your song,” shouted Day.       

It took a few seconds for Willie to recognize it, but there it was, “If You See Me” completely reworked. “Prince told me right there that he was going to put it on one of his albums,” said Willie. “I was like, ‘that’s really cool. I really appreciate it.’ After some small talk, he walked away.”

Prince’s version—forever to be known as “Do Yourself a Favor—while remaining somewhat true to the spirit of Willie’s original composition, added Prince’s own sense of humor and trademark panache.

“Prince increased the tempo quite a bit and he led in with this really catchy, pulsating drum pattern,” Willie noted. “Then, at the end, he adds this hilarious soliloquy, I guess you’d call it. You could tell he had a lot of fun recording it.” In that soliloquy, which helps extend the song to nine minutes in length (a full three-plus minutes longer than the original), Prince testifies:

​Look, don’t… don’t try 2 talk 2 me now baby
I’m doin’ okay,
I’m makin’ it on my own, baby, look here
You know… honey, you know I ain’t rich or nothin’
I ain’t claimin’ no miracles, but uh…
I’m a bachelor now baby, you know what I’m sayin’? Whoo!
So just do yourself a favor baby
and just walk on down the street
I ain’t got a damn thing to say to you now baby
Look out! Whoo!
When we was together did you try to understand me? No!
Just do yourself a favor and get the hell down the road.

In the spring of 1983, PMI threw Prince a big homecoming bash for Prince during the 1999 Tour. Late that same year, Willie spent the better part of a month on the set of Purple Rain working as a day player. In between, there were other parties, conversations, and time simply spent hanging out, but no further mention of “Do Yourself a Favor.”

In conclusion

With the release of 1985’s “Around the World in a Day,” Prince had now put out three studio albums since he’d recorded Willie’s song. For his part, he hadn’t thought too much more about it, until he heard from Jesse Johnson, who along with Morris, left The Time as soon as the filming of “Purple Rain” wrapped up.

“I was in the studio back in New York with Tony Sylvester (of The Main Ingredient fame), putting the finishing touches on 94 East’s ‘Minneapolis Genius,’” Willie mused, “when I get a call from Jesse. He wanted permission to use my song.” And since Willie presumed Prince was never going to release it, he told Jesse, “Sure. Go ahead.”

As Jesse would later recount to Donnie Simpson on BET’s long-running music program “Video Soul,” he’d heard Prince’s version of the track and thought it would be perfect for inclusion on his second solo record. When imagining how the song would go over live, Johnson told Simpson, “Yeah… I’m gonna have some fun with that one.” But when Prince later found out about it, he certainly wasn’t laughing.

Early sometime in 1986, Willie was with some friends at First Avenue when Prince arrived. The first thing he wanted to know was exactly why Willie hadn’t told him about the upcoming release of 94 East’s “Minneapolis Genius,” which heavily featured both Prince and Cymone.

By now, Prince was so big it was often hard to get a direct line of communication with him. Willie explained that he’d called Cavallo, to get word to him, but Cavallo told Willie that he didn’t think Prince would want to know about it. “So that’s not on me. That’s on your people,” added Willie.

Prince then turned the conversation to “Do Yourself A Favor.” “Why’d you give Jesse the song?” asked Prince, “I told you I was going to release that.” Willie’s responded with, “When were you going to put it out? 1999?” Those within earshot of the dialogue began to laugh, which naturally, irritated Prince even more and he walked away, according to Willie.

“After all those years,” lamented Willie, “that was the first serious argument, you know, like a real blow-up, we’d ever had.” Instantly, Wilie began to regret the exchange. The next day, Willie’s attorney called from New York to say, “I heard you got into it with Prince at some nightclub.” Astonished, Willie wondered aloud, “How on earth could you possibly know that?”

“What can I say? Word travels fast,” replied his lawyer.

A few months later, Willie was a guest at a party being hosted by Bobby Z, who, before becoming Prince’s long-time drummer, held the same position with 94 East. As he mingled with other guests, Willie noticed that Prince, while fashionably late, had entered the room.

Willie, although a bit apprehensive, maneuvered his way closer, smiled at his friend, and asked, “Are we good?” Prince smiled back, and said, “Yeah. We’re good.”

And that’s the story of “Do Yourself A Favor” (aka “If You See Me”). Although Jesse’s recording of the song came last, it was the first to be released, showing up on the 1986 A&M album “Shockadelica” and later as the B-side to his 1988 single “Lovestruck.”

Willie’s original 1975 version finally received its official release in 1995 on 94 East’s two-disc set “Symbolic Beginnings” (on the UK’s Charly Groove label). It appeared again in 2010 when the band celebrated the 35th anniversary of “The Cookhouse 5” on Willie’s own record label, Reo Deo.

And then, once more, when it was featured as a single and as part of the 2013 Numero Group compilation “Purple Snow: Forecasting The Minneapolis Sound,” which also included classic early tracks by the likes of André Cymone, Sue Ann Carwell, Flyte Tyme, The Lewis Connection, The Girls, Rockie Robbins, Mind & Matter, The Stylle Band, and Alexander O’Neal.

And finally, we have Prince’s version of this 44-year-old classic song. Not a third or fourth generation bootleg recording that has been around for decades, but Prince’s original master, straight from the vault, for all to enjoy, many for the first time ever.

Reach the MSR staff at msrnewsonline@spokesman-recorder.com.