I swear I want to say his "Just My Imagination" solo is his best ever, but I cant. It's my fav though.

I think his "While My Guitar Gentley Weeps' solo is kind of overrated to be honest.

"Just My Imagination" had more soul into it, he seemed more focused.

yes.

Absolutely!

Either way it's all subjective. In my opinion he has done solos better than both that have been listed, while the Just My Imagination solo is very high up there.

I love his "Just My Imagination"

yes

TylerHippie said:

I think his "While My Guitar Gentley Weeps' solo is kind of overrated to be honest.

This. It was a big event and has been widely seen but Prince has lots of solos more impressive than that.

It wasn't overrated because it was a one time deal for the Rock Hall and it was an Eric Clapton guitar solo. He did it better than Clapton did live. He was playing sideman on that song anyway. If Clapton had been there, HE would've let Prince take it over.

There is a huge difference between a solo and soloing. Prince very rarely produces a solo (Kiss is very good), for the most part he just widdles away with no structure.

Gently Weeps is a bit boring to be honest. Every man and his dog has wailed away to that one. It's like having a bad pooh.

Imagination is great due to the ambience of the song. It's still just widdling though.

Although small club is mostly good (IMO) this is definately the stand out, i'd read on here for years about this song then one day i though fuck it, i downloaded and was just like fuck this is good!

It's Just My Imagination for me too.

In a similar vein, his live rendition of Noon Rendezvous on the 7th June 84 birthday show boot has a lovely solo.

More restrained than Just My Imagination but I keep listening to Noon Rendezvous and thinking it's such a similar vibe to 88, lovely chunky funky guitar licks on the intro, delicate falsetto vocals, beautiful melody and a lovely solo.

Wonderful.

i'm just gonna throw 'motherless child' from the septimo TV performance in the mix as well. This for me is THE greatest solo he has done, it has soul, structure and is not just 'widdling' - the man was inspired on the axe that night.

yes

Yes, it is - and for reasons I won't go into here. Let's just say they're deeply personal.

Yes, it's better!

No

the jmy solo is a santana riff from one of his earlier albums. prince does not do original guitar solos at all.

funkyhead said:

i'm just gonna throw 'motherless child' from the septimo TV performance in the mix as well. This for me is THE greatest solo he has done, it has soul, structure and is not just 'widdling' - the man was inspired on the axe that night.

I agree with Motherless Child. I love it!

iloveannie said:

There is a huge difference between a solo and soloing. Prince very rarely produces a solo (Kiss is very good), for the most part he just widdles away with no structure.

Gently Weeps is a bit boring to be honest. Every man and his dog has wailed away to that one. It's like having a bad pooh.

Imagination is great due to the ambience of the song. It's still just widdling though.

ILOVEUANIE you are one of my favorite orgers because we have some heated discussions and i remember you in the sea of orgers

Anyway lets go one more time.

Kiss is great song but that little solo part isn't really a solo,

it's more like funky rhytmic break in dmajor 7 before he kicks in

A major as the main chord of the song.

I wouldn't call Prince's solos (especially in studio)

without having structure.

Prince is melodic player and many of his solos are based on melodies.

I can say that on record Prince hold of,plays more simplier then live.

When i analize Prince's solos i can say that

first thing we can

notice is killer timing of the solos.

His timing is so precise i can say he is one of the best guitar

soloist when it comes to perfect timing and execution.

Second thing we can notice is that Prince's solos

are based on melodic lines ,i can say that Prince often sacrefise his chance to shredd on his solos in favour of melody.

But as always i like to base what i say on facts not only on presumtion.

so hear i will name a few very nice memorable solos going from the early days until now:

My love is Forever (1978)

Why You Wanna Treat me so Bad (1979)

Bambi(1979)

Gotta Broken Hear Again (1980)

Ronnie Talk to Russia(1981) silly song ,great guitar solo

Free (1982)

1984 -killer guitar solos on every song very memorable

1985-i agree that on Around the World his solos are less structure based but that was an intention

1986-Alexa De Paris-very memorable

1987-I Could Never Take the Place of your Man -great great melodic memorable solo

i can go on and on

but point is Prince do write memorable solos and kids on youtube try to play them,you have tons of kids trying to play Prince's guitar solos on youtube,why would they play the solos if it's not fun and memorable.

The only reason Prince wasn't favored as a guitar hero

in the past is because he always released singles and videos

where he danced and didn't play.

New generations came and forgot how good Prince is on guitar.

But from 2004 something happened and everybody namechecks Prince when they talk guitar and everybody praise him.

What suprise me when it comes to Prince's guitar playing is the fact he always had the SOUND in his fingers.in his early 20's he had sound like a much older and experianced player.

Just My imagination have anathemic guitar solo.

While My Guitar solo is great for what it represents

He didn't show off as many people like to say,

he could have played much faster ,more complex but instead he relied

on perfect bends and his guitar was really weeping that night.

Just My Imagination is waaay better.

As I have said in here before I think it is a very similiar solo to the one he plays on Crimson and Clover which is another of my favourite Prince geetar solos.

Glaringly better.

Composition, breadth, multiplicity, ghost notes galore, his trademark tone before it vanished, tasteful effects -- staggeringly good.

Way better than "... Weeps."

[Edited 7/17/11 0:49am]

Banished, I knew you'd turn up when the words "Prince" and "Solos" came up

I still feel that a good solo is one that I can remember and hum.

Good point about precise timing. Except when he gets sloppy and goes "...blah, blah, blah". Then my ears turn to mush and my brain switches off.

Indeed, it's one of his best solo, it's really deep and played with passion..but he's got so much solos beside and am sure still some high moments to give

[Edited 7/22/11 4:33am]

I think it's hard to compare the two to the extent that you can say one is better than the other. I love both of them, but I love each for different reasons. "Just My Imagination" is awesome because he's playing as you would expect Prince to play...playing it like it's him singing through the guitar, eliciting all kinds of emotion out of his guitar that really accentuates the emotion of the song.

"While My Guitar Gently Weeps" is different in that it's also an awesome solo, but Prince plays it withough out sounding like what we expect his playing to sound like. I think that's the mark of a great guitar player...being able to have a signature sound/phrasing etc., but also being able to pull off a classic like he did, sounding like a virtuoso, not over playing it. I dont think you'd be able to pin down who it was if you didn't see who was playing it or know it was him!

[Edited 7/22/11 16:11pm]