Unbelievable - 30 Years Ago - Stay '81

The other day as I was blogging the Peter Cunningham photographs of Madonna, I put 1982 in the tags. 1982 - as I've done a gazillion times before - ! - But it's 2011! Wow, in one year Madonna has professionally been with music for 30 years! Those pics are older than most of her fans! It's unbelievable. She's unbelievable.

For Madonna, she's been at it since 1980. And this gem was on the demo tape that got her signed to Sire Records in 1982. Its the early version of Stay (the Virgin version produced by Nile Rodgers is a mixture of this and Don't You Know?) and it was recorded in 1981.

It was mentioned in both Rolling Stone (Madonna Goes All the Way - November 1984) and in Michael McKenzie's Lucky Star book.

Ever since I knew there were early versions, I was dying to hear them. I didn't get to hear them until 1996 when Stephen Bray released them, but it was well worth the wait and one of my all-time favorite Madonna recordings.

Hard

One of my favorite images of Madonna. From the Lucky Star Book. xo

Madonna, Martin Burgoyne, Erica Bell and Bags at Haoui Montaug's No Entiendes Cabaret Performing 'Everybody' for the very first time - 1982.

In early 1985, fans got their first proper Madonna Book - like Culture Club's When Cameras Go Crazy only better because it was Madonna, Lucky Star.

The Lucky Star Book, as my friends and I referred to it, was written by Michael Mckenzie and designed by Martin Burgoyne - it was our Bible. It was the first time we saw Island Magazine!

Full of never before seen pictures taken not only by the books author but Laura Levine, Beth Baptiste, Dan Gilroy, Stephen Jon Lewicki (Bruna!), Marcus Leatherdale, Patrick McMullan, Debroah Feingold, Edo Bertoglio (Maripol's boyfriend) and heaps others. It was the first time fans had read about about Madonna's debut performance of Everybody in detail. It had taken place at the Danceteria at Haoui Montaug's Caberet Show, No Entiendes.

Like reading about the 4 track demo that got her signed to Sire Records, I thought it would never see the light of day. However, a few years ago, Everybody hit the internet.

To make a long story longer, I remember the day I bought my first computer. I got it at Best Buy and it was that very day at that very store that I saw Stephen Bray's Pre-Madonna, the cd that not only had the songs from the 4 track demo but some new ones that I had only read about in Entertainment Weekly. I was more excited about the cd than my computer.

Anyway, here it is. Madonna's very first performance of Everybody at the Danceteria plus scans of details from The Lucky Star Book.