I made the mistake of reading through older posts today. Bummed...LOL>

Anyhow, all these folks on older threads stating that P would be nothing without so and so...etc--kind of bummed me out. . So then I decided to listen to the Piano and Microphone tour again to remind myself of at least P's live charisma and performance capabilities-- and then something occurred to me. Without all the flourishes and touches from his band mates, the melodies are still what stand out in many of these songs (and his own musical flourishes and touches on the piano are indeed his own and seperate from anything his associates came up with) I am not dissing on arrangements, groove, accompaniment, musical flourishes (provided by others) , they are important parts of the presentation of a song (creating a mood or vibe) , but the melody is what really lasts. Think about someone like Cole Porter, or Gershwin or Irving Berlin, when we sing "White Christmas" for example do we know the musical arrangments that say Nelson Riddle (or whoever) came up with in 1951 for that song? Nelson Riddle is a musical genius (his stuff with Sinatra and Nat King Cole is spectacular) but without a melodic hook what is there to work with? The arrangements can help make the songs really soar and a bad arrangement can mess a song up (at least when one has to listen to a crappy version of a song) but a bad melody can't be saved by good arrangement (not in the long run any way.)

Back to Prince, his bandmates shouldn't be under-estimated for their abilty to help him present his songs. I say "help" because ultimately his choice to include or not includes others ideas is part of what makes his music his own vision... But his vocal phrasing, his feel for melodic hook and even his quirky lyrics are examples of genius in their own right. Even if Prince couldn't construct a bassline or guitar solo and keyboard line (which we all know is not true--even his less enthusiastic fans know this), he would still be an unique talent. Even if Prince's instrumentation never got more sophisticated than what he was able to come up with in his first two albums, as long as his grasp of melody, lyrics, and vocal phrasing continued to develop, he would still have been something special.

For example, Raspberry Beret is a song in which there has recently been some dispute about who really wrote the song. Since Lisa came up with that background riff that run through out the song and Prince basically stated that that was "the whole song right there". I wonder why Prince [at the time] and some folks on here ignore the fact that there were melody and lyrics provided by PRN. In fact, one of the P and M performances I listened to didn't contain that Lisa composed part. He segwayed from another song to singing the Raspberry Beret melody without the Lisa part and with different accompaniment, and it still sounded great. (although I will admit that there was certainly something special about his collaboration with LIsa on that song)> I think he did the same thing during the Lovesexy piano medley as well with RB. Maybe one of the reasons I am such a fan of the Truth album is that musically it was the truth as well. His guitar playing is simple but his melodies are strong, his lyrics are a bit more personal and even funny and singing is strong.

[Edited 10/7/17 6:40am]

[Edited 10/7/17 6:45am]

I agree with all of this, but I do think he was a great arranger as well. You can hear that even in the Piano&Microphone tour, the way he voices his chords to change the mood of the songs, the way he weaves them together and so on.

[Edited 10/7/17 6:51am]

I think so as well.

paulludvig said:

I agreewith all of this, but I do think he was a great arranger as well. You can hear that even in the Piano&Microphone tour, the way he voices his chords to change the mood of the songs, the way i weaves them together and so on.

Big yes to all of that but I wanted to re-emphasize that Prince was an all rounder, very capable to create and arrange everything on his own. However, he was also a master at selecting the best out of everyone's work and use it for his own song creating purposes, which means that in a way, as you said, that was still part of his creative process and ultimately his vision.

A brilliant post, thank you!

[Edited 10/7/17 7:04am]

I can't talk for long (I am preparing a B-day for my son today), but another thing I wanted to bring up was the idea of P overproducing his work. That can be annoying factor of his work in later years and he seemed incapable of doing it during the Revolution (although I believe there are a few songs that are a little overdone even then). If you listen to Diamonds and Pearls the song, one could argue that it is overproduced with its D-I-A-M-O-N'D to the S stuff etc (and I don't know if there was any assistance from others in the writing of that melody [i do recall that Rosie stating not enough credit for stuff on that album] but its a lovely melody on its own) and when I heard a just Prince demo of that song, it really reminded me of what made that song so catchy--its melody. When P would do that song live on a just a keyboard, his voice hitting those lower notes in verse, the song had a delicacy I really enjoyed.

CherryMoon57 said:

Big yes to all of that but I wanted to re-emphasize that Prince was an all rounder, very capable to create and arrange everything on his own. However, he was also a master at selecting the best out of everyone's work and use it for his own song creating purposes, which means that in a way, as you said, that was still part of his creative process and ultimately his vision.

A brilliant post, thank you!

[Edited 10/7/17 7:04am]

CherryMoon57 said:

just this morning i was listening to a bootleg version of purple rain from the npg era, it had the vocals and everything but the piano and strings mixed out, I thought 'wow, who is playing on keys they are fantastic". It's true that Prince could get some talented folks around him but it's also true that he wrote a lot of my favorite songs pretty much on his own. John Bream was right when he called him "the most complete pop star of all time"