Thoughts on Prince

Like many other people, I've been watching and listening to a lot of Prince music since he died a few days ago.  This clip from a tribute to George Harrison at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame stands out for several reasons.  I knew Prince was a good guitar player and all around great musician and songwriter.  But I didn't realize how absolutely phenomenal he was on guitar.  To start with, this happened in a room full of great musicians.  Tough crowd.  Then we don't even see Prince until halfway through the song.  When we do see him, he's wailing away, making his guitar sing, scream, and weep.  He's dressed pretty low key by his standards.  He doesn't say or sing a word.  There's no fancy dancing.  He just plays like few others are capable of doing.  As if that's not enough, he falls backwards-mid-solo-into the hands of a crew guy, and doesn't miss a single beat.  Then he concludes this amazing solo, throws his guitar up to God knows who, and struts off stage with the signature Prince smirk.  Amazing.

I was finishing up high school when Prince first broke big time, and I remember making fun of all the girls I knew who were going to his concert in Boise, Idaho.  The tickets actually said, "Where something purple," on them.  Most of us high school guys made fun of him initially.  But at the same time, we really liked "Little Red Corvette."  When we first heard the "pocket full of Trojans" line, we couldn't believe they could actually play that song on the radio.  Prince had an edge to his music that no one else did in 1984.  We were the first high school kids to have MTV, which actually played music videos then, as a soundtrack and visual influence to those years.  Prince's Purple Rain music was part of the soundtrack of my life then, and every song takes me back to those confusing and exciting days of youth.

My favorite Prince song is "Raspberry Beret."  In the summer of 1985, I was the manager of a tiny amusement park near downtown Boise, called the Boise Fun Spot.  With six rides, a food stand, and a miniature golf course, it attracted lots of moms with small kids, and bored and wandering junior high and high school kids.  "Raspberry Beret" had just gone into heavy rotation on the radio and MTV when a young woman walked into the park wearing a navy blue beret.  She was pretty good looking, and was wearing some very loose fitting shorts.  When I locked her into a Ferris wheel seat, she made it obvious she wasn't wearing any underwear.  We started talking as she got off the ride.  She took her little sister around to the various rides, and all of us guys working were intrigued.  I took a break from the Ferris wheel, and walked into the food stand singing "Blueberry Beret."  I was immediately hit by the reply of the high school girls working there, one of which was my ex-girlfriend, "That girl's a SKANK!"  they yelled.  I just smiled and kept singing "Blueberry Beret."  I never hooked up with Miss Blue Beret, but I did take have lunch with her for a couple of days, which totally irked the girls I worked with.  "Raspberry Beret" always takes me back to that summer a year out of high school.

I paid less attention to Prince's music after that.  I never saw him perform live, and now I wish I would have.  He kept producing new music, always creating new sounds and looks, something very few musicians are able to do.  He stayed in Minneapolis, his home area, instead of moving to Hollywood, New York City, Nashville, or some other music industry hot spot.  Then, in 2001, I wound up out of work.  I started talking to a panhandler near my house one day, and learned he usually made $10 or $20 in less than an hour before the cops showed up to run him off.  Times were tight, and I started panhandling on the weekends to scrape up cash to buy food while I looked for work.  One day, after standing on the off ramp with my sign for over an hour, I only had a couple dollars, not even enough to buy lunch.  In one group of cars, a red Corvette pulled up right beside me.  The driver handed me a $20 bill and said something like, "Good luck, man."  He drove off, and I started singing Prince's "Little Red Corvette" as a headed off to McDonald's to get a McChicken.  From that point on, whenever I was having bad luck panhandling, I would start singing "Little Red Corvette."  Every single time I did that someone drove up and handed me a $5 or $10 or $20 bill.  That money kept me alive through some really tough times.  "Little Red Corvette" became my good luck song on the streets.

I saw Prince from time to time on TV and heard his songs on the radio.  He got a $100 million+ contract, and then fought for his creative freedom and to own his master tapes, breaking new ground for musicians everywhere.  He performed with "Slave" written on his cheek.  He changed his name to that now famous symbol, and became known as "symbol" and then "the Artist formerly known as Prince," and finally just "The Artist."  Think about that one for a minute.  Many musicians have been known by one name, but how many could be labeled "The Artist,"  as if they were the only artist out there, and have the name stick.  Then he changed his name back to Prince, making things a bit easier for fans and media talking about him.

One thing that hasn't been said much since his death is how many great female musicians Prince helped out over the years.  He pointed the spotlight at Appalonia, Sheila E., and many other women in music, and showed the world women could not only look pretty and sing, but they could PLAY.  He produced and starred in his own movie, Purple Rain, made on a tiny budget ($9 million), which is a huge undertaking.  He had Paisley Park built, a combo music and video studio, sound stage (where they could practice for live shows), and living space.  Again he broke new ground with that concept.

Of all the things I've heard about Prince in the last week, though, this is by far the funniest and weirdest:  Kevin Smith talking about working with Prince. It's obvious that Prince, as gifted as he was, was getting pretty damn weird in recent years.  Kevin's story brings thoughts of Howard Hughes to mind.  (Watch The Aviator if  you don't know).  Is this just how a super-creative genius musician acts?  Was Prince struggling to cope with his huge library of very erotic music conflicting with his spirituality in later years?  We don't know.  What we do know from Kevin Smith's story is that there are 50 or more finished music videos for songs we've never heard.  Some reports are now saying there are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of unreleased Prince songs hidden in his vault.

That brings me to the next thing.  In the last couple days it's been said that Prince, known control freak, didn't have a will.  So no one knows how his fortune, and more importantly, all his music and publishing rights, are going to be divided, and whether it will all get released.  The only thing I can say for sure is that the lawyers and accountants involved are going to make a fortune.

Prince was a never-ending mystery in life, and now the mystery continues... with a bigger audience than ever watching.  RIP Prince.

Check out my new blog on building creative scenes:
How to make your lame city better