I understand now how the Camille voice came to be...can someone tell me how the name came about?

This was a sticky for a while. . .go there for some questions:
http://www.prince.org/msg/7/145050

5.2 Who is Camille?

Camille is an alter ego character of Prince. An "Evil" Prince, if you will. Prince originally created Camille as a side project in 1986, but after the release of SOTT, Camille became the dark side of Prince, and was blamed for creating the Black Album.

Despite what you read, Camille is not just Prince with a speeded up voice. Camille has surfaced with speeded up, standard and slowed down voice. The character seems to be a state of mind, rather than a sound. Camille has never resurfaced since Prince "killed" him off on the Lovesexy tour, although tracks from the Camille album have surfaced since then.



Also, Camille is the name of an intersex individual [hermaphrodite] from the 19th century. This is where the name is believed to have come from.

The hermaphrodite mentioned above was called Herculine Barbin.

In an interview in 96/97, Prince was asked (one of several 'fan' questions), if Camille was named after this dude/dudette, and some fans have taken his answer in the affirmative, whereas the answer was simply ambiguous, you can take it how you want.

I'm paraphrasing, since I don't have the interview committed to memory, maybe someone will be kind enough to post it


We can pontificate on Camille all day - it's a great little part of Prince history isn't it -- But Camille wasn't the 'evil side' of Prince, I'd say it's more that Camille WAS Prince, as Oscar Wilde famously said, give a man a mask and he will tell you the truth.

-- Spooky Electric was the evil side of Camille in the Lovesexy story - But the Camille name and idea went through so many changes, it's not so simple as to say the Camille of the Camille LP is the same as the Camille of the original Graffiti Bridge, or that either of those have the same qualities as the Camille that made and cancelled the Black album (in that mythology).

Again, this is like Prince, you can't say he's this, because he'll go and do that....

thanks for the sticky, I saved the link..

Here's another link for you:
Herculine Barbin

PS: The 'sticky' is actually the prince.org FAQ which is located at the top of the Prince: Music & More forum in the yellow bar...

It is always there for everybodys reference

floralelephants said:

man Prince is a mess...gotta love em' (if any of that is actually true)

Alexandernvrmind said:

What do you mean by 'a mess'? It's as true as far as the 'interview' goes - whether Prince really did know of Herculine however is debatable.

NouveauDance said:

I always thought Spooky Electric was the Devil. I also didn't think Camille was anything other than another vehicle for Prince to do another type of music.

Camille emerged from Erotic City and was nothing more than Princes answer for the characters that Parliment Funkadelic (I am sir Nose devoid of Funk!), Bootsy, & George Clinton came up with. The only POP or Rock record I remotely remember hearing Camille on was U Got the Look which was really an RB record built around distorted guitar riff

Not suprised that Prince's real meaning behind Camille would be lost on thes rock heavy fans in this forumn
]
[Edited 2/20/06 19:13pm]

BananaCologne said:

this part that is a mess if true

Camille is an alter ego character of Prince. An "Evil" Prince, if you will. after the release of SOTT, Camille became the dark side of Prince, and was blamed for creating the Black Album.

Despite what you read, Camille is not just Prince with a speeded up voice. Camille has surfaced with speeded up, standard and slowed down voice. The character seems to be a state of mind, rather than a sound.


Also, Camille is the name of an intersex individual [hermaphrodite] from the 19th century. This is where the name is believed to have come from.

All of that is a bit strange

Have you ever read the Lovesexy tour book?
[Edited 2/20/06 19:47pm]

PurpleRein said:

I doubt that... there's a lot of mis-information out there.
If you heard it came about by mistake when Susan Rogers was recording some of
Prince's vocals one day, then you've got it wrong. As this is not true.

Alexandernvrmind said:

That's a whole lotta 'WTF? ' going on there.

1) I agree with everything you said.
2) You mis construed everything I said.
3) Since when was I a "rock heavy fan" ???? - That's the part I took most issue with ! Prince is about as much 'rock' as I listen to!!

Alexandernvrmind said:

Strange maybe, but hermaphrodites, inter-sexed and transgendered people have feelings too y'know

BorisFishpaw said:

Yes, they propably got that mixed up with the mistake she made when recording the vocals to 'If I was your girlfriend' or 'Forever in my life'. Most likely the former.