The remaining songs on 'Pre-Madonna' - 'Ain't No Big Deal', 'Everybody', 'Don't You Know', and 'Stay' - appeared on Madonna's four-track demo tape that secured her record deal with Sire Records. The first track on the tape, 'Ain't No Big Deal', featured an excessively long party section tagged on to the end, which features Madonna's Vocoder sounding vocals. Madonna wasn't lucky enough to have Mirwais on stand by in those days twiddling the knobs a la 'Nobody's Perfect' from 2000's 'Music' album, nor did she and Bray have the money to buy the right equipment. The lack of technology didn't get in Madonna's way though and she simply pinched her nose to get the desired vocal effect. Stephen Bray says a 24-track studio demo of 'Ain't No Big Deal', which is different than the version released on 'Pre-Madonna', is lost.§

The next track on the demo tape was 'Everybody', which would eventually become Madonna's first US release. Bray comments in the 'Pre-Madonna' sleeve notes, "The first Sire single was based on this recording, with a few structural changes. Note the rampant experimentation with tape speed and flangers for the various vocal sounds and effects.
Is it my imagination or is there just a hint of a British accent on the verse vocal?" This was followed by 'Don't You Know', which interestingly features lyrics that would later be interpolated into 'Stay', which would appear on Madonna's sophomore release 'Like A Virgin'. A different version of 'Stay' however appeared as the final cut on the demo. Bray was "trying to make the track sound like a dream". The track appears on 'Pre-Madonna' virtually untouched as the vocals were premixed with the track, "preventing our surgical staff from going in for reconstructive surgery, but the ethereal choir still rings true" claims Bray.

Stephen Bray has revealed to Bruce Baron that the 'Pre-Madonna' material was recorded on dissolving Ampex analog tape before he had heat-treated the masters to stabilize them.

Alarmingly, if Bray had not taken it upon himself to do preserve this material, then a vital piece of Madonna's musical history would have been lost forever. During the 1980s many artists recorded onto defective Ampex tape. A chemical flaw in the formulation of analog tape has rendered some tapes largely unplayable today. The tape eventually dissolves if not heat-treated. Although heat-treating does not fix the tape permanently, it allows the transfer of material from the defective tape on to a different medium, for example DAT.

Imagine the demo of a song, for example 'Crimes Of Passion' or even 'Stay' recorded onto this defective tape. The tape would have eventually dissolved, destroying the recorded material and we simply would not have ever heard these songs. This would have been a travesty and an incredible loss of a vital piece of the history of popular music. There are many other unreleased songs that Madonna has recorded with Stephen Bray. Bray is unable to release these because they were recorded after Madonna signed her deal with Sire Records. These demos, including alternative versions of hit singles such as 'Angel' and unheard songs like 'Working My Fingers To The Bone', would have also been lost forever if Bray wasn't concerned with their preservation. Because Bray has also preserved these, there is a chance we may hear these songs in the future. This is why I stress the importance for Madonna's record label to sit up and take notice.
If Warner Bros don't attempt to preserve and catalogue these recordings then we could lose important recordings from the most successful female artist of all time. The fact that Bray owns copies of unreleased demos recorded with Madonna makes me question exactly how much other material of Madonna's may have been destroyed by the defective Ampex tape.
As we have already witnessed with Dan Gilmore's Breakfast Club tapes stored in a dingy basement, Madonna's musical legacy could be much better preserved. Surely Warner Brothers have the legal and financial clout to do something about this.

'Pre-Madonna's' importance lies in the fact that the sound pioneered on the release defined Madonna artistically for the most part of the 1980s.
Madonna would eventually conquer the world with the dance pop sound heard on 'Pre-Madonna'. This dance-pop sound would carve out a career for Madonna that would have more longevity than initially perceived. Bray had planned to follow up the release of 'Pre-Madonna' with another release featuring his collaborations with Madonna throughout the 1980s but for legal reasons hasn't been able to follow this through.

The web site Soultone.com who sell the 'Pre-Madonna' CD, updated their site in December 2002 with the following message, "From the outset the intention has been to provide the first pages of a musical diary which details a journey of artistic achievement and cultural impact that continues to captivate and entertain millions of fans worldwide. Please continue to visit this page for updates on this collection and possibly, given a change of heart, more early recordings from the vault." The site hadn't been updated for some considerable time so it makes me question whether this unexpected update and, "change of heart", is a sign of more to come from Madonna's collaborations with Stephen Bray. I hope so.

SHAM 79

Madonna's work with The Breakfast Club, Emmy and Stephen Bray are commonly thought to be her earliest recordings. This was until the recent discovery of a 1/4inch reel-to-reel demo tape that came to light at a Sotheby's auction in May 2000. The tape, which eventually sold for approximately $7,700 (US) was given to Karen Bihari by Madonna in the late 1970s early 1980s. Madonna-expert Michael Musto from Village Voice magazine interviewed Karen Bihari for 'After Dark' magazine back in 1978, revealing that Karen was a performer in the New York area around the time Madonna was performing with Emmy.
The tape comes housed in a box bearing a shamrock logo and the inscription "Shamrock Records". The reel in the battered box is historically significant as it could very well be Madonna's first recorded music.

The track listing includes the tracks, 'I Got Trouble (Roll Over It)', 'I'm A Hothouse Flower', 'Oh, Oh, The Sky Is Blue', 'Once I Thought It Was Good (Nobody Wants To Be Alone)', 'Simon Says', 'Tell The Truth To Me' and 'Well Well'. The tracks 'Simon Says' and 'I'm A Hothouse Flower' share their titles with tracks recorded by Emmy, though this tape seems to pre-date the Emmy-era. The song's titles also have the abundant use of (brackets) which was a trademark of Madonna's early song writing. The reel is a master tape, which has yet to be duplicated and features Madonna talking over rehearsals and some false starts to some of the songs. Until the lucky owner of the demo decides to share the recordings with the world I guess we will never know the content of this tape.

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