Madonna's gutsy 'True Blue' album turned her into a 'serious' star, says producer Patrick Leonard

At only 27 years old, Madonna released one of the world’s biggest-selling albums of 1986.

The nine songs on “True Blue,” which celebrates its 35th anniversary June 30, signified her musical maturity, from the somber balladry of “Live to Tell” to the Latin syncopation embedded in “La Isla Bonita.”

Produced by Madonna, Patrick Leonard and Stephen Bray, the album spawned five hit singles and sold more than seven million copies in the U.S. and an estimated 25 million worldwide.

The pressure of following the hit parade of “Lucky Star,” “Like a Virgin,” “Material Girl” and other fizzy dancefloor dazzlers might have daunted some artists as they embarked on their third release. But, true to her nature, Madonna zigged when most would have zagged. Madonna was also creatively inspired by then-husband Sean Penn (she dedicated the album to him), and the album’s first single, “Live to Tell,” landed in his 1986 crime drama, “At Close Range.”

“The music got more serious, so I think she got taken more seriously,” Leonard, who also co-wrote five of the album’s songs, told USA TODAY. “It was different, and to her credit, she took some chances that I don’t know most people would have. There were things in there that weren’t normal in pop music at the time.”

Leonard was 30 at the time “True Blue” was recorded, and previously served as the music director for Madonna’s “The Virgin Tour” in 1985. But their collaboration at a backyard barbecue on “Love Makes the World Go Round,” which would debut later that year at Live Aid before landing on “True Blue,” marked their first songwriting pairing.

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Two of the album’s five singles – the string-laden teen pregnancy drama “Papa Don’t Preach” and sweet “True Blue” – were produced by Bray, who also co-wrote “Where’s The Party,” “Jimmy Jimmy” and the title track. Leonard said he and Bray would assist each other, but the two producers primarily “kept to our own little worlds.”

But even with different captains, the songs shared a common throughline.

“There’s a chemical thing that contributes to that ‘thing’ and why those records are what they are,” Leonard said. “They were relatively spontaneous for the most part. As legend has it, most of those vocals are the only time Madonna sang (the songs in the studio) and I can attest to that. It helped that neither she nor I are second guessers. Period.”

Calling from his home studio in Connecticut, Leonard shared memories of making the iconic work.

The first single, “Live to Tell,” was Madonna’s second ballad and followed the spirited hits “Into the Groove” and “Dress You Up”: “I know that there were some concerned parties, such as management, who thought it was a bit of a mistake as a first single. At that point in my career I wasn’t thinking about singles. I never really did think about singles. And there were other agendas in there, like Sean’s movie coming out, that conspired at the time. But it was a (gutsy) move for a first single coming off (dance hits).

(The longer story) is that I was trying to score a movie and my then-managers set me up with a director for his first movie and the music I had was ‘Live to Tell.’ I asked Madonna as a favor if she could write the lyrics because I figured it would give me a leg up (to get the job). As she was on her way to my house, my manager called and said they hired someone else. When she got there, I told her and she said, ‘Oh, well, Sean just made a movie so maybe it can be used in his movie.’ She sat on the floor with a legal pad, wrote the lyrics and we recorded it on an 8-track in my house… Sean Penn’s director, James Foley, loved the song. Madonna said, ‘Who is going to sing it?’ and we said, ‘You are!’ We just transferred the demo (and that’s the version on the record). Madonna also said, ‘And you can score the movie.’”

“Open Your Heart” was the fourth single from “True Blue” and became Madonna’s fifth No. 1 hit: “The demo of that song couldn’t be more different than how it ended up. It wasn’t aggressive 16th note synths. I don’t remember what it was, but I remember Madonna gave me the demo and I worked on it and she said “No, no, no.” So I redid the sequencing on the bass line because she wanted something aggressive. It was much better than where I was going with it.”

“La Isla Bonita” – the fifth and final single from the album - marked a stylistic shift for Madonna: “Quincy (Jones) called me and said, ‘I want to do something like Sade for Michael Jackson.’ He didn’t like (the song) so I showed it to Madonna and she liked it. I know that we sat around talking on the phone to a Hispanic housekeeper to get the translations correct. It wouldn’t have occurred to me to do anything like that with her. But she liked it. My take on this stuff is it’s a more visceral response than an intellectual one. In this moment, this feels good, let’s put a vocal on it, and you get this thing that works so well.”

“Where’s the Party” wasn’t an official single, but the fan favorite garnered plenty of radio play: “We probably could have kept going (with singles). There were four of us who made that record – Michael Verdick recorded and mixed it and he had great instincts about how it should sound – and it was so unified. If people bought the sound of the record and where she was going (musically), you were going to like (all of it). We wrote (‘Party’) while making the record. I think at that point we were all having fun.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Madonna producer Patrick Leonard talks 'True Blue' 35 years later