Prince dead @ 57

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/s...=2016-04-21-13-21-56

 

CHANHASSEN, Minn. (AP) -- Pop superstar Prince, who was widely acclaimed as one of the most inventive musicians of his era with hits including "Little Red Corvette," ''Let's Go Crazy" and "When Doves Cry," was found dead at his home on Thursday in suburban Minneapolis, according to his publicist.

His publicist, Yvette Noel-Schure, told The Associated Press that the music icon died at his home in Chanhassen. No details were immediately released.

 

Shi t!!

No words.

IMO along with Stevie Wonder the most prodigiously talented musician of our time. Greatest performer as well. RIP Prince Rogers Nelson.

If the NFL demands a Super Bowl halftime show, can they just play the show Prince put on in Miami for the rest of forever?

Huge loss. Innovative (except for the silly sign instead of his name). Not afraid to take chances. Doves cry.  

Fandame posted:

.... (except for the silly sign instead of his name)....  

True, but the guitar was cool!

2016 can go an Eff the hell off. 

Our generation's James Brown.  57?  Man.

Agreed CAPF95

Just the ones I can recall: 

David Bowie
Dale Griffin (Mott the Hoople)
Glenn Fry (Eagles)
Maurice White (Earth, Wind, & Fire)
Keith Emerson (ELP, The Nice)
Merle Haggard
Prince

The riff he put on in the Lynne/Petty clip is ridiculous. Tom Petty just shaking his head in appreciation with all of it. 

Got damn he could play guitar.  

@StigAbell: 

Eric Clapton was asked about how it felt to be the world's best guitarist.

His response: "I don't know. Ask Prince".

The year the music died.

I remember catching him at Summerfest tear the place apart with Purple Rain like it the first time he ever performed it live. Good lord he was something else to watch live. 

Finding his music free or just streaming on sites like Pandora, Slacker, etc are a huge pain in the ass. And good for him. He did an outstanding job protecting his music.

He also gave a HUGE FU** YOU to Ticketmaster as well and kept his ticket prices low and cut out those a-holes more often than not. IIRC he played Madison Square Garden like 10 years ago and his avg ticket price was 25.00

Never been anyone that could drift in and out of pop, disco, retro funk, rock, jazz, classical like he could and leave you thinking he'd mastered all of them. 

Remember seeing Purple Rain at the Tosa Theater, now called the Rosebud, just before high school freshman year started with a group of friends.  4 of us spent the day drinking at a friends house.  And, by drinking I mean, we had like 8 ounces of pulling the "take a little from every bottle" move between 4 of us.  Probably heavy on Creme De Menthe, Kahlua, and Schnaaps.  Then followed it up with Bartles and Jaymes Wine Coolers.  WE WERE GODS MAN.  Probably ended up by buying some Swisher Sweets at the Fruit Ranch...

Ended up sitting next to a girl in the theater that eventually dated until I moved between Jr/Sr year.  Oh Carrie...

Bunch of white suburban kids singing and dancing to Jungle Love for the next month.  Probably jerking it to Apollonia's huge tracts of land as well...

God suburban kids are the worst.  But, good memory this AM...

I saw him once in concert in the Twin Cities. We road tripped from LaCrosse and were truly amazed at how easily he could switch gears on a dime and do all kinds of cover drops in the middle of songs so seamlessly. 

I remember a time I was tending bar in LaCrosse and a Jazz Sax player from the cities came in and we were talking music. He was friends with Dez Dickerson and spoke fondly of when they were first playing, Dez brought this younger, tiny, freaky-looking, huge-afro-wearing guy to a gig and said he was going to jam with them. The sax player said he was thinking "What, this little weird guy?". He was put in his place when that strange, little fellow took a turn playing every instrument on stage better than the guys in the band. 

Great story CA.

7th grade. St. John's in Greenfield. One of us brought in Purple Rain to play in class. And we blared Darling Nikki to the horror of our Principal, Sr. Geraldine. She let us play the whole album as we had a "free day" of sorts and could bring in music while we screwed around doing art, talking etc. Collars popped, we thought we were THE schit back then.

Keep in mind in the 80's, playing that kind of music in a suburban strict catholic school was a big deal back then.

I also kissed one of my first boys to When Doves Cry. He tasted like Grape Bubble Gum. Sort of fitting...

Our baseball team was going to see Purple Rain the weekend it came out. Saturday morning 7 of us got together for practice after getting our asses kicked the weekend before. So we're taking infield practice and we hatch an agreement that before the ball is hit to you you had to recite let's go crazy in order. 1st baseman, "Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to get to this thing called life". He takes a grounder. The deal was the guy that blew a line was playing RF the next game. And so it went until it got back to second. "so when you call up that shrink in Beverley Hills, you know the one, everything'll be all right" all of us blew up he ****ing missed Doctor. He was crushed. 

Can't believe that was 32 years ago. Just thinking about it it's hard to comprehend what a thing Prince was in 1984. And he just kept ratcheting the talent up after that for 3 more decades. 

He was one sexy MF.

Good story boi... 

I also attended a St Johns.  But Lutheran, in Tosa.  Sorry about you going to hell and all...

That said, Prince and Violent Femmes were the two artists that people used in grade school to get our teachers/pastors/etc at school to freak the hell out.  Well, until Shout At The Devil, which made everything tame by comparison.  

Still Alive.

Just listened to an interview with a Warner Bros. exec that was given a demo tape by Prince in the 70's. He said the demo tape was really a perfectly produced album. It was finished. They'd never seen that before. So they asked Prince who he wanted to credit on instrumentals.

"Me" 

"Um, there's probably 25 instruments here". 

"26." (electric guitar, acoustic guitar, Orr bass, bass synth, singing bass, Fuzz bass, Fender Rhodes electric piano, acoustic piano, Mini-Moog, Poly-Moog, Arp String Ensemble, Arp Pro Soloist, Oberheim 4-voice, clavinet, drums, syndrums, water drums, slapsticks, bongos, congas, finger cymbals, wind chimes, orchestral bells, woodblocks, brush trap, tree bell. Hand claps, finger snaps. Looked this up on credits for For You)

The exec went on to say that as the years went by everyone at Warner was terrified when Prince would call and ask someone to listen to something and give him some feedback. He heard things on a different level than everyone else. He said they listened to When Doves Cry and everyone at Warners said there's no basseline. "Who wants to tell him?" Dead silence. 

As the story goes. The people in charge of the Super Bowl halftime show in Miami in 2007 called Prince Sunday morning and asked him if he knew it was raining and wanted to know if he was ok with performing. 

"I know it's raining. Can you make it rain harder?" 

I love Minneapolis today. Never thought I'd say that.

Halftime of Super Bowl XLI....Yuuuuge hands for a little guy.

......and TMZ reporting opiate usage.

That didn't take long.

Having lived in the TWC for many years I heard all the stories about the guy - and how the locals embraced him in all their provincial glory.   

He stayed away from the spotlight and just focused on his craft.   His earlier music was visionary and he refused to be categorized - he wasn't pop or rock or funk - he did it all. 

Sure he was eccletic and quirky but all brilliant people are - RIP Prince 

An appropriate link

Good Lord Boss where did you find that? That is uneffing believable. 

 

Innernets, it's a beautiful thing

Hungry5 posted:

Agreed CAPF95

Just the ones I can recall: 

David Bowie
Dale Griffin (Mott the Hoople)
Glenn Fry (Eagles)
Maurice White (Earth, Wind, & Fire)
Keith Emerson (ELP, The Nice)
Merle Haggard
Prince

Lemmy Kilmister (Motorhead)

The one guy most people thought could outlive Keith Richards...