The Family
L-R: Susannah, St. Paul, Jerome, Jellybean and Eric.
The Family was a band based out Minneapolis, Minnesota. Formed by Prince, utilizing former members of The Time, Jellybean Johnson, Jerome Benton, St. Paul Peterson and adding saxophonist Eric Leeds and Susannah Melvoin, twin sister to Prince And The Revolution guitarist Wendy Melvoin. Susannah was romantically involved with Prince at the time. Much like his other protégé acts, the band would serve as an outlet for Prince to release more music. Prince wrote, produced and performed most of the album himself. The track “River Run Dry” was written by Bobby Z. from The Revolution. Wendy added guitar to the track “Yes”. As St. Paul takes front stage in The Family, singing lead vocals, Susannah provided co-lead vocals. Eric would contribute saxophone pieces. They released their first and only album as the Family in August 1985, becoming the first Prince act to release music on the new Paisley Park Records. The album has a sophisticated air to it, with a mixture of funk, pop, jazz and orchestral overdubs by Clare Fischer added, resulting in funky as well as elegant.
The Family played only one show at the time of the album’s release, on August 13, 1985 at downtown club First Avenue in Minneapolis. They were joined by Miko Weaver, who came from Sheila E.’s band on guitar, Allen Flowers on bass, Bill Carrothers and another Melvoin sibling Jonathan on keyboards and former bodyguards Wally Safford and Greg Brooks as dancers and background vocalists.
The Family project was short lived. Prince took girlfriend Susannah and Jerome to France to shoot the motion picture Under The Cherry Moon. The rest of the Family members were just left hanging. The Family publicly disbanded when St. Paul quit to pursue a solo career. St. Paul was approached by a other record labels to lure him from Prince which resulted in a bidding war to break out and he eventually signed with MCA Records. Prince was not happy. Prince would call him out on stage and have the audience chant "St. Paul, Punk of the Month." St. Paul was present at the First Avenue nightclub to hear this personally.
The band reformed as fDeluxe in 2011, releasing new music and performing, with the exception of Jerome.














