Prince died

April 21, 2016 • 1:30 pm

Yes, the singer Prince, who was only 57. The cause of death is unknown, though he was reportedly suffering from flu-like symptoms a few days ago. But he’d done a concert, and looked fine, after that. This is the year when rock stars die. I’m dreading when the last Beatle dies (it will be Ringo).

I was never a big fan, but I thought the song “When Doves Cry” was a masterpiece. (I can’t post it because due to copyright reasons it’s not on YouTube or Vimeo).

61 thoughts on “Prince died”

    1. Beautiful performance, my favorite Prince video available on YT. So many people were never aware of his amazing guitar skills; his charismatic performances could overshadow his raw talents. The man was a genius, both musically and intellectually.

      1. Yes, what an amazing guitarist he was. Around 1985, he released a VHS of his Purple Rain concert that seems lost to history. It was never released on DVD as far as I know, and Ive never found it on youtube. But it has a version of the song purple rain that must be at least 20 minutes long and had some of the most beautiful guitar playing ever. I made a cassette copy from my dad’s VCR and wore that tape out.

          1. I saw Purple Rain as a midnight movie at the local (historic) theater near my college campus, back when it came out. So I was excited at the thought of watching it, again, online! Thank you for posting, but the site says the video is private, so I can’t watch it. Darn.

    2. Thanks fo that. I was really into Prince for a while.
      A great talent and I had not seen that before. I love guitar and new he was good but that shows the highest level talent.

    3. In the You Tube video you link to, Prince’s work starts at about 3:26. I’ve seen and listened to this many times over the last 12 years, and it never fails to move me. Obviously, here was a man who loved music in a profound way, and was fortunate enough to be one of the few possessing the talent to express it his love through his compositions, his recordings, his astounding performances, and in a couple of interesting films.

  3. RIP.

    Jerry before you say you aren’t a fan, consider that in addition to his own well known songs, he also wrote:

    Nothing Compares 2 U (Sinead O’Connor)

    Stand Back (Stevie Nicks)

    Manic Monday (Bangles)

    As well as probably a bunch of others I don’t know about. The songs he chose to perform and make part of his ‘image’ were not the full extent of his talent (which, to be fair, can also be said about a number of other prolific songwriters).

    1. And “Raspberry Beret” as performed by the Hindu Love Gods (R.E.M. minus Michael Stipe with Warren Zevon as front man). Great stuff.

  5. I’m shocked. Only 57 years old. I think it was his Diamond & Pearls tour that was my first big concert.

    He had a lot of great songs. Raspberry Beret being one of my favourites. And the more obscure “Starfish & Coffee”.

    He was very strict about his music and rights that is why it was very difficult to find his songs on youtube, at least some time ago (I guess the above listed clip is an exception, or maybe now more have popped/will pop up).

    1. “He was very strict about his music and rights that is why it was very difficult to find his songs on youtube, at least some time ago”

      He was more than merely very strict, he even went to the trouble of making multiple music videos that he never released. Kevin Smith has a fascinating tale of being invited to create a documentary with Prince. The experience was very Jesus infused and surreal.

      https://youtu.be/8LhcParuzpc

      2. Kevin Smith, a.k.a. “Silent Bob”, lights that clip up with natural story telling talent. That was impressively enlightening and entertaining. I didn’t catch the very last word he said, though. Did anyone else catch it?

        1. “Kevin Smith, a.k.a. “Silent Bob”, lights that clip up with natural story telling talent. ”

          I agree. I think his story telling ability is better than his movie making skills have shown us so far. I haven’t seen Dogma, though.

          I also like Charlie Murphy’s stories about Prince. Prince himself seems more interesting that his music, as in Murphy’s recollection of playing hoops with Prince and his crew.

  7. I have very eclectic taste in music so quite a lot of Prince’s stuff appealed to me even though I wouldn’t exactly say that I was a fan. The guitar work on ‘Lets go Crazy’ is pretty amazing.

    I am a big fan of Prog dinosaurs ELP so I was very much saddened by the death of Keith Emerson.

      1. Absolutely brilliant. Better than Clapton on the original Beatles track. Isn’t it quite unusual for black artists to play extended solos on electric guitar? Can’t think of too many since Hendrix.

  8. I actually gasped when I read the headline on CNN, I think I was more shocked by this than any other dead musician in the past few years.

    When Doves Cry has no bass part. I think I listened to the song for 10 years before that was pointed out to me. Who has a pop/funk hit with no bass???? F’n brilliant production.

    Along with the other songs he wrote for other artists, Sheena Easton’s Sugar Walls was written by Prince. Let’s just say that Tipper Gore isn’t a fan.

    I’m stealing this thought from a guitar forum I frequent:

    He crystallized nearly everything that had happened in Afro-American music over the past 50 years, from Jackie Wilson, through James Brown, Bootsy and Clinton, and beyond. Very much the Springsteen or Bowie of funk, in that he both created and echoed trends in a way that had both creativity directing the future and respect for the past.

    1. Sometimes it snows in April
      Sometimes I feel so bad, so bad
      Sometimes I wish life was never ending,
      And all good things, they say, never last

  11. Animals strike curious poses,
    They feel the heat,
    the heat between you and me.

    1. That lyric always frightened me a little as a kid – but Darling Nikki was the one that confused me most of all. I felt funny listening to it, long before any sexual awakening. Prince, Wonder Woman, Gloria Estefan, Cheetara – all made me feel confused in an enjoyable way.

      1. So many words have been written in song and poetry and prose trying to capture and express something about human emotion, especially love.
        This phrase really got to me.
        It also came at one of ‘those’ times.

    1. Agreed.

      Yesterday I googled for someone I had known at university, many years ago (and he was *old* – at least by my 23-yo standards – when I knew him), thinking he must be long-dead, and was surprised to find that he had died only in January of this year, at the fine old age of 97. A really nice chap: not in the least pretentious or superior, even though he was a distinguished mathematician & logician and I was a raw new post-grad.

      But at least 97 was a good innings, whereas 57 was far too short.

  15. The Purple Rain album was epic…but Little Red Corvette is still my favorite. Sorry to hear of his death.

  17. Damn. He was a rare talent, as a musician, a song writer and an entertainer. He was prolific and there is much of his music that doesn’t appeal to me, but there is quite a bit that does, some of it very much.

  18. Jay-sus. Some big hitters have died this year.

    I grew up with Prince playing in the house and Purple Rain and Around The World In A Day were probably the first examples of ‘grown-up’ music that I really took to. I still think Purple Rain is one of the most original albums a mainstream artist’s ever released. No wonder he always wanted to work with Kate Bush – similar sensibility, and similarly divisive.

    I’d have a hard job of defending his stuff from the late eighties onwards(although I remember being excited when my dad got me the Batman soundtrack) – I’m not sure he ever really understood why he was so good, and once he lost it it stayed lost, but at his best he was ahead of his time; in bolting neo-psych onto pop he paved the way for every vaguely psychedelic, experimental pop band from then on – I hear him in everything from Opal/Rain Parade/Mazzy Star, mid-80s Kate Bush, Foals, Grimes, TV On The Radio, Everything Everything, through to stuff like Kendrick Lamar and Kanye, and most definitely Pharrell Williams, who’s probably his closest contemporary. He was such a genre-hopper that you can hear him pretty much everywhere.

    And it can’t be said often enough – Nothing Compares 2 U is one of the most exquisite pieces of music ever recorded. Sinead O’Connor’s version is transcendent.

    1. Oh, I don’t know. Some of his post late 80s stuff is pretty darn good. One that pops right to mind, because it is a favorite of mine, is Sexy M.F. I can understand that the subject matter and or language in the song will put off many people, but damn, that is a good song. And very much Prince.

      I do have to agree that I favor his earlier stuff though. As you say, the album Purple Rain is outstanding.

      1. Sexy MF – yeah that’s a cool song. There are spotty patches of brilliance here and there that remind you who he is(Gett Off from Diamonds & Pearls is another one of those quality outliers) but they became vanishingly rare in the last few decades.

        Interesting point below about his Jehovah’s Witness beliefs maybe impacting on his health – even being behind his death. That would be extremely depressing – I’d like to think he didn’t die for reasons of pointless supernatural dogma.

  19. If I recall correctly he was a JW. I hope it doesn’t turn out that he died because he had been refusing a prescribed medical treatment. I don’t know all the details of what JWs will allow an what they won’t.

    1. The rumor I’ve read claimed it was known to some that Prince had contracted AIDs/HIV in the 90’s. He’d been taking his medicine up until 2 years ago, when some more fanatical JW friends convinced him not to take the medicine any more – that God will, or had, cured him. Hence, his decline. (And he does look distinctly more sickly over the past couple years, including his Grammy’s appearance).

      He also, purportedly, refused to get his needed hip replacements done because it would not be a “bloodless” operation, as required by his religion.

      Again. Rumors. But, Prince was a JW and generally a flaky guy, so they aren’t implausible.

      1. Unfortunate about the hip replacements. For decades, now, it’s been standard to help JWs and such get through bloody elective surgeries by starting the case with removal of a pint or two of blood, keeping the removal line attached, and adding an IV fluid to replace the volume. Then, the loss is diluted and the removed blood returned, through the same still-connected tubing, to replace what actually was lost. There is some physiologic reserve in the bones and spleen, too, of course. Careful surgical technique also minimizes blood loss.

        In other words, not everyone who undergoes a hip replacement requires a transfusion, and surgical teams have especially tried to accommodate Jehovah’s Witnesses.

        I saw a JW dying from blood loss in a recovery room, once. His family came to stand around him. I don’t recall what surgery he’d had or whether it was emergency or elective — he wasn’t my team’s patient — but it struck me as a horrid waste that he lay there dying when he could have truly been “saved.”

  20. I loved much of his work but a good portion of it I guess was over my head. Still, one of the most talented and prolific musicians of the modern era. And apparently, he was a pretty good basketball player in his youth, despite being of short stature. I am genuinely sad about this and my condolences go out to his loved ones.

  21. I generally admired Prince’s music more than loved it. Though I loved some of his music. It’s hard to think of a greater pro on stage in terms of how slick he was. He played guitar with the type of ease you dream about when thinking of being a rock star.

    Years ago he did one of his suddenly announced little shows in our city. Some friends and I managed to get in with a couple hundred others. Prince played brilliantly for 3 hours or so. My back had gone out recently so standing was painful.

    I spied a plush looking sofa on some risers not far from the stage/floor and lay down in it, my head resting comfortably propped on a pillow. It was an absurdly luxurious moment, and I remember thinking “This is like having Prince perform a show for me in the comfort of my own home, while I’m lounging on my couch.” It was certainly the most comfortable concert I’ve ever attended.

  22. He was much more than a singer. He was a master musician who composed many great albums, including 8 over an 8 year span. He won an Oscar and many grammy nominations and awards. On his first album, he played all of the instruments. He was a major talent that changed music and the music industry. I saw him perform live at the peak of his performing career, unbelieveable talent.

  23. I am originally from Minneapolis, and was stunned to hear the news. Back in the day, I was fortunate enough to see him perform at a small venue before he became crazy famous. He was an astonishingly gifted instrumentalist… see the YouTube video of his guitar solo in the all-star tribute to George Harrison at the R&R Hall of Fame. 2016 is turning out to be sorrowful year for R&R fans, and it’s only April.

  24. To me he was the most talented musician I’ve ever seen. He had absolutely everything and no wonder the internet is red hot with the news of his death and celebrating his life and music, and even the BBC has put him before the Queen’s birthday (quite rightly in my view).

  25. Listening to Purple Rain right now. Not only was he an incredible artist, but he broke gender boundaries… *sighs* “I’m not a woman, I’m not a man, I’m something you will never understand”

  26. In the last hour+ Google changed its name to purple and if you click it, it animates rainfall ((4:50 pm PDT).

    In the late 1980s to early 1990s I heard a Prince album that was said to pay homage to his music’s R&B roots. I have looked for it periodically since then. Anyone know the album?

  27. Oh, no!!! Not Prince?!

    “When Doves Cry” truly was a masterpiece, and the movie it was in, “Purple Rain”, was amazing for its time and his age. His talent and perspective will be missed. I hope he didn’t suffer terribly, at the end. He was special.

  28. I had realized late last year that 1999 was as long ago as it was in the future when the song was released (yet I don’t feel 34 years older).

  29. I am afraid his music did nothing for me. Apart from for his core fans, I cannot think he was particularly prominent the last 20 years… Mid 80s when I was listening to The Sisters of Mercy, Flesh for Lulu, The Scientists, The Moodists etc, he was big. BIG. But not music I liked or enjoyed – it was just there. A musicians’ musician I would say.

  30. And just how does PCC know that Ringo will be the Last Beatle – is he planning to assassinate Paul? Pray tell!

  31. From what I can remember and see above, a talent which many people enjoyed. Somehow, despite never being into “popular music”, Prince was the kind of guy that even I have heard of. Might be because I was a kid in the 80s. 😉

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