Vision, Work Ethic, Creativity — The best live performer I ever saw
I am not a Prince fan. I don’t have all of his records. The only Prince music I bought in the week of its release was the CD single (remember them?) of Diamonds and Pearls. I am disturbed by the number of content marketers who’ve jumped on the bandwagon to write about him in this social media numbers obsessed World. However, I am a self confessed music nut, and so I have to write about his passing as he is such a special, individual, giant of musician and composer, and without doubt the best live performer I have ever seen!
I’ve been watching the news coverage and the tributes over the last few days and although they’ve covered the facts and plaudits of his career extensively, the only thing that I’ve heard or read so far that gets under the skin of what the man stood for is a piece by my solo bass player friend Steve Lawson. Go read that please. But I do want to say something about the best, most memorable gig I ever went to — it was in 1988 when Prince’s Lovesexy tour hit Wembley Arena in London. Not sure which date I was at but I do remember being blown away.
I’ve seen an interview with Owen Husney, his first manager, saying he was played a demo tape which had this great singer, guitarist, bass player, keyboard player and drummer and he wanted to know who this new band was, only to be told that everything was being played by this 17 year old (and Husney had to sit down). I don’t know of a multi-instrumentalist on the same scale as Prince. As composer, he’s written many, fantastic songs, both for himself, as well as standout material he gave to the Bangles, Chaka Khan, Sinéad O’Connor that you might not realise (until this week in the tributes) were penned by him. When he recorded When Doves Cry, in the studio working on the mix, he had the vision to take away the bass track and create something completely different for the times. A perfect example for one of my favourite Antoine de Saint-Exupery quotations:
“A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”
The 1988 Lovesexy tour had an incredibly elaborate stage setting which was usually constructed in the round, although that varied for some venues. It included a Ford Thunderbird, a full size basketball hoop/end, picket fences and a garden swing — an amazing, surreal collection of images and the band’s costumes added to the spectacle. The concert had a dark half, with less well known (and dark) earlier material, an interval, and then a light half including numbers like 1999, Purple Rain, When Doves Cry, and Kiss. It included rock, soul, jazz, salsa, every style imaginable in an uncompromising but brilliant melange. It had Prince singing with just (brilliant) piano. It had Prince singing with just (brilliant) guitar. It had Prince singing sitting on the swing. It had tight, rhythmic horn sections, driving rock, and passages of quiet soul. It had (my beloved percussionist) Sheila Escovedo (known as Sheila E by then) playing an awesome drum solo. It had Prince dancing better than anyone, including Michael Jackson or James Brown. But there is one minor, inconsequential moment that, for me, completely changed the way I thought about the man. The stage set included that basketball hoop. At one point during a dance sequence he starts doing moves with a basketball. From around 10 yards away, with his back to the hoop he looks over his shoulder and shoots, seemingly contemptuously, and scores. In that moment I thought — he would look such a prat if he had missed, he does this every night, how much practice has he put in to that one small moment to get it right every night — so he’s made himself an awesome basketball player as well as a musician — whoah!
A visionary, a genius, and a work ethic and dedication to his many crafts that is almost unbelievable. Plenty to learn from this man and apply to our own lives. Thank heavens we have a chunk of his legacy captured for future generations.
