Prince RIP

Kind of quietly impressed with the number of folks I know who wore purple today without any kind of dumb groupthink mobfule organizing.

oh man that 20+ minute i would die 4 u

― tylerw, Friday, April 22, 2016 2:38 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

with friends like these who needs Space Ritual?

Back in 1997, my friend was playing in a cover band in Alabama. Prince and his band happened to be in the audience and joined them on stage to play Raspberry Beret. A huge star doesn't have to get on stage with a cheesy cover band, but Prince did. My buddy described him as very gracious and generous.

Here's a pic from that night with my friend standing next to him:

https://scontent-sjc2-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xtf1/t31.0-8/13041408_10209433808020794_4206524429507391042_o.jpg

best copy i could find -- beautiful acoustic version of "Reflection"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dz9sUt8V_yA

1997 was a terrible time for sideburns

another local Minneapolis legend (at least to the Takoma crowd), Peter Lang posted this:

My late friend and producer Jim (James Hauck) was a friend of Chris Moon, who was Princes first manager and recorder/engineer/producer. I met young Mr. Nelson at Moon's studio when Moon had teamed up with a gent whose name was Chase Walker, and together they started a booking/ production company called Moon Walker Productions with the idea of making others as well as me famous.

Prince was there almost every time I went over. He was a nice quiet respectable kid. I met him several times over the ensuing years, and he was incredibly stand-offish if he didn't know you, but he warmed up quickly when he figured out that he did know you.

My spin on Prince is that he could have gone coastal and left us all behind. But he didn't. He built here (Minneapolis). He lived here. He worked here. He recorded here, and he did his videos here. He broke a lot of Minnesota artists into the big time, and invested a huge amount of time and money in our local talent, and our service industries. I met him on a number of occasions in Video Post houses working on his stuff when I was producing animation. Although I am not a great fan of his genre, I respect it, and I respected him a great deal more for remaining both humble, and loyal to his friends, family, and community. He was a big shot who did not behave like a big shot. He has always had my great respect for that. It is a tragedy to be loosing so many luminaries in such a short amount of time. If you love their music, go see it,. Life is short, and death is but a breath away for us all.

“To die, to sleep -
To sleep, perchance to dream - ay, there's the rub,
For in this sleep of death what dreams may come...”
― William Shakespeare,

I'm a little surprised to not hear sly stone as a reference. I associate the two for some reason

Prince's debt to Sly is blazingly clear, in the bands he formed to back him up, his vocal delivery, his keyboard playing, his general formal assimilation of multiple styles. I would think most fans are aware of this.

― Οὖτις, Friday, April 22, 2016

Because Hendrix is still more a figure in rock mag mythos, Sly gets mentioned less as an influence. Besides, to my ears Santana was a bigger influence on Prince than Hendrix.

this won't probably mean much to the non-Minnesotans (if you don't know Sid Hartman*) but anyway this is fucking priceless

"Hey Prince! Prince! Hey Prince!"

"...Hello Mr. Hartman...how are you?"

http://espn.go.com/blog/minnesota-vikings/post/_/id/18664/that-day-when-prince-met-sid-hartman

*in short, legendarily cranky Minnesota sport columnist, still writing at age 96, literally covered the first Super Bowl, etc, actually has worked for the paper for 84 years because he was a newsie when he was a kid

The Muppets Tonight clip, before he goes into Starfish & Coffee, shows him
doing some Hee Haw schtick in a country-fried voice that is so funny, and he's obv having a ball

― Flamenco Drop (VegemiteGrrl), Friday, April 22, 2016 12:57 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I think it's safe to say this was the only time in his life when Prince wore overalls.

matos piece is up on mtv.com

Jesse Johnson recorded a song called "Crazaay" with Sly in like 85 or something. That's the closest association as such I know of.

ha -- I just mentioned "Crazay" on Facebook.

really love hearing all these minnesotan anecdotes but they're making me homesick

Big time

I hear Sly's influence all over "Lovesexy".

"Hey Prince! Prince! Hey Prince!"

"...Hello Mr. Hartman...how are you?"

― rockpalast '82 (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, 22 April 2016 19:22 (12 minutes ago) Permalink

Prince was Sid's guy before he was your guy

Besides, to my ears Santana was a bigger influence on Prince than Hendrix.

nah, if we're talking about his electric guitar work, Prince's #1 ref point is Eddie Hazel

xp

Also I can't believe that when Prince & Sid met at the Super Bowl the whole thing didn't explode in a fiery cataclysm that wrote the word MINNEAPOLIS in a giant smoke cloud

for one moment prince was only the second biggest diva in the room

Candy Dulfer did "Purple Rain" last night at a show in Germany:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1Id0qmDYpg

/Besides, to my ears Santana was a bigger influence on Prince than Hendrix./

nah, if we're talking about his electric guitar work, Prince's #1 ref point is Eddie Hazel

xp

This thread is tl;dr until the weekend, so I want to ask if anyone posted that video interview of his friend talking about his charitable works upthread?

Eddie Hazel no doubt but that astringent tone is all Santana.

btw check out how fake Prince this is:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maHadudeqP4

whoah never even heard of this before

I wonder whether timing was a problem. Fall '86 was a bit late for floppy hats and colors and dance troupes (summer '85 nah). Also: it's just not very good fake Prince.

Paul Westerberg: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/paul-westerberg-remembers-prince-i-cant-think-of-anyone-better-20160422?page=2

I remember a little scuffle broke out in front of the stage one night and Prince said, "Stop fighting, you'll mess up your clothes."

lol see what I mean? comedy

I like Tuomas' word - "mischief" - that's the perfect word for the wicked little grin he'd give

ha yes

I just listened to half of Purple Rain with my 7 and 4 year old, full blast, all of us just bouncing the fuck around the room and pretending to play every instrument. and once it was over somehow it ended up in a 'jam session' with me on guitar, one kid on 'drums' and the other on a variety of harmonicas and other noisemakers and, you know, even if they don't feel that sucker punch to the gut that the song Purple Rain always gives me, even when Prince was ALIVE, the fact that we could all just spin out of this music recorded some 30 years ago into our own exhilarating rock noises basically until we got too tired to do it any more somehow makes me feel better.

aw that's beautiful <3

could ready for the world's "Oh sheila" be the most prominent soundalike exponent, other than the records he made for proteges and…"Sussudio?"

another thing that's unusual about him is that alone among his megawatt peers, he didn't use big time session guys on record or name sidemen live. After the Revolution, he used young, unknown cats he could mold…largely from the Mpls area, I think? does anyone know if he used musicians from other towns? yet it's not like John Robinson or Lee Sklar or Larry Carlton or the Toto guys would have said "no man, I'm not playing that." those guys played herculean shit that was asked of them, I'm sure session guys loved him like everyone else, and it's clear he wouldn't have thought of them as soulless corporate tools: he liked slick shit.. maybe they were too expensive? I think Maceo, Larry Graham and other old funkateers are a different matter, and I don't think its insulting to Candy Dulfer or him to say that she got the gig because he liked the way she looks. He liked pretty women onstage with him! Sheila E counts as a pretty much a fully accredited member of his stable.

Westerberg piece is great.

I can't think of anyone better – an all-around composer, musician, guitarist, star, showman, the whole package, anyone better. If Elvis wrote all of his songs and played guitar, it still wouldn't quite be there. He'd play Jimi Hendrix-style, between his legs and behind his back. And then he'd do the splits. He could put the guitar down, and Jimi would become James Brown. He could hold the crowd like Mick Jagger, but could Mick Jagger play the piano like that?

does anyone know if he used musicians from other towns?

i think he found the guitarist for 3rd eye girl on Youtube and she found the other two members. so assuming not from MN.

he's the last (only?) virtuoso guitarist pop star i can think of - hendrix being pretty firmly in the rock camp

I like Tuomas' word - "mischief" - that's the perfect word for the wicked little grin he'd give

this this this ..
so many clips/instances of that grin.
a case of arrogance, or just self awareness of his perfection ?
he knew he was the living embodiment of musical perfection, and loved making sure we all knew it.

he's the last (only?) virtuoso guitarist pop star i can think of - hendrix being pretty firmly in the rock camp

― illegal economic migration (Tracer Hand), Friday, April 22, 2016 3:34 PM (43 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

john mayer (if he counts as a pop star) seems to have a ton of cred in the guitar magazine world (and it was kinda news when he left fender for paul reed smith, meaning an end to his popular signature series stratocaster)

you guys should really listen to the audio of his last show if you haven't already. so good and he's so funny onstage. when he talks about how a little brother runs if he finds big shoes under a woman's bed so that he doesn't get beat up. haha! i loved that part.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMyjANk22os
a phantastic cover of a phantastic song which does not sound like the prince we all remember but shows what a versatile genius he was.

a couple of things which relate me to prince.

my first girl-friend was the same height as prince and she was one year older. she was full of power too.

my favourite female singer is the same as prince's, my fave album of hers is his second fave, hejira.

the first time heard prince must have been on the bavarian radio when i studied in munich and sign o the times was released. yesterday i listened to that bavarian station for the first in years at 7 pm and during the emission the news that prince had died broke.

i cried when i heard that he was dead. it was like a part of me, my youth, hat died there. i was so sure that prince was immortal. no idea why, i liked a lot of his music but i never was a great fan. but there was something so perfect and universal about him he was a great songwriter, a gifted musician, so creative and obsessed by music. a phantastic singer, an amazing performer and he still came over as a human being and not an arrogant aloof star. he gave lots of good vibes to planet earth.

hey I found the Raspberry Beret video
http://www.totallyfuzzy.net/ourtube/prince/raspberry-beret-w-the-revolution-video_e83f1c395.html

i always loved whale's cover of darling nikki. one of my fave covers of anyone!

http://blog.thefilmstage.com/post/143230318886/princes-purple-rain-is-returning-to-amc-theaters

It's been weird watching people struggle to articulate Prince's genius and so often it is being shorthanded through the appreciation of other musicians. P4k has a long feature on what Prince meant to Miles which doesn't really provide insight to either of him. He was almost unfathomably talented and he sits, for me, in much the same way that Shakespeare might for writers.

When I used to interview musicians regularly, if it was getting rote and you could hear the boredom, I would ask about Prince. And once you got past the platitudes it always turned to this beautiful celebration of something minor that just blew their minds, the way Questlove has talked about the drums in Lady Cab Driver or how When You Were Mine is so clever in its collapsing structure, or sparse use of guitar chords for The Cross or whatever the hell is happening in Irresistible Bitch. Prince was just an inexhaustible well of daunting inspiration. And, I think, that's been hard to get across in his eulogising.

In that spirit, I remember the first time I, and I suppose most of us, got a glimpse at what Daft Punk looked like behind the mask was a video from Busy P's birthday. And of course, they played Raspberry Beret.

https://youtu.be/-uG1vL3AZLQ

john mayer

yes, i should probably have added the adjective "tolerable" in there

wait, one of Daft Punk is named Busy P? i did not know that. i might never have known that if Prince hadn't died.

That's their manager and owner of Ed Banger

you guys were talking about him being funny… 1:42, where he, Jerome and the other singers are running some place…WHOOPS!

then 3:18…he and Jerome look like they are having a blast…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hv1RNLcVBRY

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CgqE56tUkAEVRuN.jpg:large

i always loved whale's cover of darling nikki. one of my fave covers of anyone!

― scott seward, Friday, April 22, 2016 5:45 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Whale covered "Darling Nikki"?! Holy crap, that's like a dream scenario type thing. Is it a b-side? It doesn't appear to be on either of their albums.

https://youtu.be/nA1SOBt1oLk?t=3m38s

I don't know if I've ever heard of Whale, but I felt compelled to check it out.