Inside the groove: The surprise music connection between ‘The Color Purple’ and Madonna

nypost.com:

Oprah Winfrey, was even the Queen of Talk.And the very same year, Stephen Bray — executive music producer of the new “Color Purple” movie musical that opens on Christmas Day — scored his first hits with the future Queen of Pop, Madonna, as co-writer of both “Into the Groove” and “Angel.”But Bray and Madonna shared a different kind of rhythmic history even before that — when they were both living in Ann Arbor, Michigan.“I used to play percussion in some of the dance classes that she was in,” Bray told The Post. “And then she moved to New York and was playing drums for [the band] Breakfast Club in ’79.

And I followed out, so I actually took her place as Breakfast Club’s drummer.”And Bray was also behind the skins in Emmy & the Emmys, another early Madonna band in which she sang lead before finding solo stardom after her 1983 self-titled debut album was released 40 years ago.Bray was actually supposed to have a song that he’d written, “Ain’t No Big Deal,” on Madge’s debut LP that would change pop forever.

But because he couldn’t also produce the track, he refused to close the deal.“I was too proud — I wanted to be a producer like Quincy Jones,” he said, referring to the music legend who scored the 1985 “Color Purple” movie and also served as a producer for both films. “I didn’t understand that having written the song was equally important in the sort of, you know, stratosphere of making albums.

And so that song was kept off the album. So she went on quite successfully without me. And I learned one of the toughest lessons of my music career.”But Madonna didn’t forget their beats bond when she had more juice to call the shots for her second LP, 1984’s smash “Like a Virgin” — even with Chic czar Nile Rodgers as the sole.