IMO the hall of fame performance wasn't that great!

PeteSilas said:

homesquid said:

Hendrix. Prince was great but he never matched Hendrix. I'm not even a Hendrix fan but his creativity with the guitar is undeniable. Prince is a bit overrated on this forum but that's expected.

he was the greater pioneer but i think Prince surpassed him by the time of the Hall of fame performance. In the eighties, i'm not really even sure the comparisons to hendrix were really even that justified, he wasn't even the best guitarist in minneapolis at that time I do think Jesse was damned good.,

[Edited 1/12/18 16:33pm]

JIMI by a country mile and further...

it is also my opinion that if you're not a musician and especially not a guitarist, you should ignore this blog because your tastes and feelings are based on your utter hero worship and obsession with all things Prince, and not based on actual fact and knowledge, just sayin'...

having said that I am a superfan of both, not obsessed, and I own every record released by both artists barring a few of the recent boots of Prince material which I seriously doubt will effect my judgment here and the upcoming Jimi release Both Sides Of The Sky.

Firstly, we need to look at the Orger's original question, which is who was better at age 27?

Jimi died at that age so his entire opus was completed, not released, because when you're dead you can no longer create music.

In 1970 Jimi had mastered blues, rock in all its forms at the time, RnB, had begun adding funk into his repertoire and was dabbling in jazz (the so-called Hendrix chord is one found often in jazz). Had he lived, no doubt he would have embraced the entire funk genre and would have recorded jazz with Miles and Mcloughlin among others, he was already heading that way musically.

when Jimi died he was actively recording and performing live on a regular basis, there were no proper tours in his day, just scheduled shows whenever and wherever.

Prince at 27 was not touring, was recording actively and filming a movie. With 7 released albums at this point, I don't care about the side projects, not one of them was a pure Rock 'n' Roll record, not even Purple Rain. Prince was mainly a funk guitarist, who dabbled in rock occasionally, but his version of Rock is very different from Jimi's and other Classic Rock artists.

Secondly, Rock is largely, though not always, based on riffs, and Prince is not a good riff composer, maybe in funk, but one chord repetition is hardly skillful. I dislike laying funk because it hardly ever goes anywhere, it's just monotonous groovin'. Prince is a marvelous composer overall, no disagreement there, but we're talking guitar skills and every thing that goes with it

how can you compete with Jimi when every single song the man ever played had guitars in them as the main instrument and Prince's composition's do not? Prince clearly doesn't write on the guitar much (by the way, I'm a guitarist) and the vast majority of his songs are written on and for piano and keyboards, like a POP artist, not a ROCK one. Prince doesn't play like a rock guitarist no think like one at 27, it's merely an embellishment to songs.

At 27, Prince rarely played the blues, and even when he did it's sort of a vamp, because he grew up influenced by Funk. So all I hear on Prince records up to the age of 27 is 80 percent funk, 20 percent rock, so he cant even be compared to Jimi.

At 27, Jimi was already lauded as the best guitarist of his generation by virtually everybody in music, while nobody thought of Prince as such in the summer of '85 when he turned 27. Instead he was a POP star and talented multi-instrumentalist. And I'm fairly certain Prince never thought he could play like Hendrix, besides copying his clothes, facial expressions, psychedelic imagery etc, and I do hear the Santana influence in playing as he admits.

Thirdly, based on hat Jimi achieved from the release of hist first album to his untimely death and/or murder, (yes, I went there) with only 3 released albums, one of them a double LP, his legend was already enshrined I the music world, so God only knows what directions he would have gone in, impossible to know.

But one factor that puts this trivial argument to bed is the fat that every year there is an event called the Experience Hendrix Tour which features numerous guitarists from any and every genre of music who tour for a couple or three months around the country and world playing Jimi's timeless music. You will never see or hear of an Experience Prince tour featuring only his rock songs because there aren't that many compared to the rest of his ouvre, because he was a op artist and not a guitar god.

I've never read anywhere or met any guitarist who said his influence was Prince. And that's because he wasn't an innovator, few are, but guess what? Jimi was one of them, not Prince. He was an innovator in the field of Pop music and composition, but we're not talking that point, we're talking guitar. I can detect the non-musician fans on this blog by them constantly bringing up Prince's other instruments, or the number of albums he recorded, or that Clapton or Vai said this or that because you cannot argue about an instrument you do not play, you can only speak as a fan, or by the emotion it gives you personally.

But guess what, the rest of the world does not agree with you. You cannot even fathom the number of guitar clinics, documentaries and fan tutorials dedicated to Jimi on YouTube, its virtually infinite with more added yearly as new and young guitarists discover his music for the first time. Having Lenny Kravitz and Bruno Mars as the artists honoring you at an awards show is bloody sad. That's who stepped up, or were chosen to honor Prince, pretty lame in my book. No world famous classic rock ions were asking to lay Purple Rain or Let's Go Crazy, the same 2 songs played ad nauseum by most people because they're among the few solid guitar songs that were known by Prince.

Here there's a Hendrix tribute, the line is down the street and then some by guitarists itching to show off their chops. Learning Jimi's grooves and phrasing is difficult and requires years of laying, whereas Prince's licks are quite simple and easy to emulate. Just a natural fact, like the man himself sings in It.

In closing, there's no debate about the age of 27 here. Of course many will disagree, you're beyond fans, you're disciples, whereas I choose not to worship humans, especially dead ones.

I loved Prince's music, from 1999 to the 90's when it got quite iffy for me, still I listened to it all at least once. Jimi dies the year I was born, so like a lot of kids my age we got into him in our teens when we formed garage bands. Eventually you go to the source so you start listening to Jimi, Zeppelin and The Who for ideas even though we had the 80's hard rock scene as ours. I never recall referencing my Prince collection for ideas in that regard, it was just good Pop music with strains of rock 'n' roll peppered in it, but course, that's what made Purple Rain unique at the time, but it could never displace my Maiden, Priest, Kinks, Van Halen, and ZZ Top records for genre purity, come on.

P.S. Jimi was not a drug addict, never did heroin, though he was most likely addicted to sleep meds at the end (sound like someone you Orgers know?). We know no for a fat that his gangster manager Michael Jeffries fed him acid to keep him complacent and dependent because he was robbing Jimi blind. The sloppy playing mentioned here mes mainly from his last year when Jeffries booked him in ludicrous gigs that might be one day in Miami, the next day Chicago, then the following day in LA.

I'm not playing the he was an angel card for Jimi, but he wasn't constantly high like people claim. The night he died his stomach and lungs were filled with red wine, and the only meds present were sleeping pills. We now know that basically Jimi was waterboarded with a a gallon of wine, either by Jeffries or others, who immediately claimed the insurance policy on Jimi to pay off his underworld debts. This subject is both fascinating and sad as many ex-girlfriends of Jimi also died within years of him under mysterious circumstances. Jeffries died in a plane crash in '73, so good riddance to the man who ended a legends career thinking him worth more dead than alive.

Gear wise, all Jimi used was a wah pedal, a fuzz face, a uni-vibe w/expession pedal and an Octavio pedal, and that's it. An overdriven Marshall stack, a coiled wire with a Strat or Flying V and loads of imagination. He basically used the fuzz as a boost, but not always. A simple rig if there ever was one.

However in the studio, he was known to use a Fender Twin Reverb and a Bassman amp.

Prince's rig to me seems like combining every BOSS pedal known too man at once, including the cheater's special, Compression.

Alright you haters, let it rip...

Musician9 said:

JIMI by a country mile and further...

it is also my opinion that if you're not a musician and especially not a guitarist, you should ignore this blog because your tastes and feelings are based on your utter hero worship and obsession with all things Prince, and not based on actual fact and knowledge, just sayin'...

having said that I am a superfan of both, not obsessed, and I own every record released by both artists barring a few of the recent boots of Prince material which I seriously doubt will effect my judgment here and the upcoming Jimi release Both Sides Of The Sky.

Firstly, we need to look at the Orger's original question, which is who was better at age 27?

Jimi died at that age so his entire opus was completed, not released, because when you're dead you can no longer create music.

In 1970 Jimi had mastered blues, rock in all its forms at the time, RnB, had begun adding funk into his repertoire and was dabbling in jazz (the so-called Hendrix chord is one found often in jazz). Had he lived, no doubt he would have embraced the entire funk genre and would have recorded jazz with Miles and Mcloughlin among others, he was already heading that way musically.

when Jimi died he was actively recording and performing live on a regular basis, there were no proper tours in his day, just scheduled shows whenever and wherever.

Prince at 27 was not touring, was recording actively and filming a movie. With 7 released albums at this point, I don't care about the side projects, not one of them was a pure Rock 'n' Roll record, not even Purple Rain. Prince was mainly a funk guitarist, who dabbled in rock occasionally, but his version of Rock is very different from Jimi's and other Classic Rock artists.

Secondly, Rock is largely, though not always, based on riffs, and Prince is not a good riff composer, maybe in funk, but one chord repetition is hardly skillful. I dislike laying funk because it hardly ever goes anywhere, it's just monotonous groovin'. Prince is a marvelous composer overall, no disagreement there, but we're talking guitar skills and every thing that goes with it

how can you compete with Jimi when every single song the man ever played had guitars in them as the main instrument and Prince's composition's do not? Prince clearly doesn't write on the guitar much (by the way, I'm a guitarist) and the vast majority of his songs are written on and for piano and keyboards, like a POP artist, not a ROCK one. Prince doesn't play like a rock guitarist no think like one at 27, it's merely an embellishment to songs.

At 27, Prince rarely played the blues, and even when he did it's sort of a vamp, because he grew up influenced by Funk. So all I hear on Prince records up to the age of 27 is 80 percent funk, 20 percent rock, so he cant even be compared to Jimi.

At 27, Jimi was already lauded as the best guitarist of his generation by virtually everybody in music, while nobody thought of Prince as such in the summer of '85 when he turned 27. Instead he was a POP star and talented multi-instrumentalist. And I'm fairly certain Prince never thought he could play like Hendrix, besides copying his clothes, facial expressions, psychedelic imagery etc, and I do hear the Santana influence in playing as he admits.

Thirdly, based on hat Jimi achieved from the release of hist first album to his untimely death and/or murder, (yes, I went there) with only 3 released albums, one of them a double LP, his legend was already enshrined I the music world, so God only knows what directions he would have gone in, impossible to know.

But one factor that puts this trivial argument to bed is the fat that every year there is an event called the Experience Hendrix Tour which features numerous guitarists from any and every genre of music who tour for a couple or three months around the country and world playing Jimi's timeless music. You will never see or hear of an Experience Prince tour featuring only his rock songs because there aren't that many compared to the rest of his ouvre, because he was a op artist and not a guitar god.

I've never read anywhere or met any guitarist who said his influence was Prince. And that's because he wasn't an innovator, few are, but guess what? Jimi was one of them, not Prince. He was an innovator in the field of Pop music and composition, but we're not talking that point, we're talking guitar. I can detect the non-musician fans on this blog by them constantly bringing up Prince's other instruments, or the number of albums he recorded, or that Clapton or Vai said this or that because you cannot argue about an instrument you do not play, you can only speak as a fan, or by the emotion it gives you personally.

But guess what, the rest of the world does not agree with you. You cannot even fathom the number of guitar clinics, documentaries and fan tutorials dedicated to Jimi on YouTube, its virtually infinite with more added yearly as new and young guitarists discover his music for the first time. Having Lenny Kravitz and Bruno Mars as the artists honoring you at an awards show is bloody sad. That's who stepped up, or were chosen to honor Prince, pretty lame in my book. No world famous classic rock ions were asking to lay Purple Rain or Let's Go Crazy, the same 2 songs played ad nauseum by most people because they're among the few solid guitar songs that were known by Prince.

Here there's a Hendrix tribute, the line is down the street and then some by guitarists itching to show off their chops. Learning Jimi's grooves and phrasing is difficult and requires years of laying, whereas Prince's licks are quite simple and easy to emulate. Just a natural fact, like the man himself sings in It.

In closing, there's no debate about the age of 27 here. Of course many will disagree, you're beyond fans, you're disciples, whereas I choose not to worship humans, especially dead ones.

I loved Prince's music, from 1999 to the 90's when it got quite iffy for me, still I listened to it all at least once. Jimi dies the year I was born, so like a lot of kids my age we got into him in our teens when we formed garage bands. Eventually you go to the source so you start listening to Jimi, Zeppelin and The Who for ideas even though we had the 80's hard rock scene as ours. I never recall referencing my Prince collection for ideas in that regard, it was just good Pop music with strains of rock 'n' roll peppered in it, but course, that's what made Purple Rain unique at the time, but it could never displace my Maiden, Priest, Kinks, Van Halen, and ZZ Top records for genre purity, come on.

P.S. Jimi was not a drug addict, never did heroin, though he was most likely addicted to sleep meds at the end (sound like someone you Orgers know?). We know no for a fat that his gangster manager Michael Jeffries fed him acid to keep him complacent and dependent because he was robbing Jimi blind. The sloppy playing mentioned here mes mainly from his last year when Jeffries booked him in ludicrous gigs that might be one day in Miami, the next day Chicago, then the following day in LA.

I'm not playing the he was an angel card for Jimi, but he wasn't constantly high like people claim. The night he died his stomach and lungs were filled with red wine, and the only meds present were sleeping pills. We now know that basically Jimi was waterboarded with a a gallon of wine, either by Jeffries or others, who immediately claimed the insurance policy on Jimi to pay off his underworld debts. This subject is both fascinating and sad as many ex-girlfriends of Jimi also died within years of him under mysterious circumstances. Jeffries died in a plane crash in '73, so good riddance to the man who ended a legends career thinking him worth more dead than alive.

Gear wise, all Jimi used was a wah pedal, a fuzz face, a uni-vibe w/expession pedal and an Octavio pedal, and that's it. An overdriven Marshall stack, a coiled wire with a Strat or Flying V and loads of imagination. He basically used the fuzz as a boost, but not always. A simple rig if there ever was one.

However in the studio, he was known to use a Fender Twin Reverb and a Bassman amp.

Prince's rig to me seems like combining every BOSS pedal known too man at once, including the cheater's special, Compression.

Alright you haters, let it rip...

Nice share Im pretty sure he was an addict though I mean he had a fat joint hanging from his mouth at woodstock. I remember seeing him on dick cavett the second apperance he looks in so much pain mentally. Also im an alcholic and can see addicts a mile off.

lonelyalien said:

Musician9 said:

JIMI by a country mile and further...

it is also my opinion that if you're not a musician and especially not a guitarist, you should ignore this blog because your tastes and feelings are based on your utter hero worship and obsession with all things Prince, and not based on actual fact and knowledge, just sayin'...

having said that I am a superfan of both, not obsessed, and I own every record released by both artists barring a few of the recent boots of Prince material which I seriously doubt will effect my judgment here and the upcoming Jimi release Both Sides Of The Sky.

Firstly, we need to look at the Orger's original question, which is who was better at age 27?

Jimi died at that age so his entire opus was completed, not released, because when you're dead you can no longer create music.

In 1970 Jimi had mastered blues, rock in all its forms at the time, RnB, had begun adding funk into his repertoire and was dabbling in jazz (the so-called Hendrix chord is one found often in jazz). Had he lived, no doubt he would have embraced the entire funk genre and would have recorded jazz with Miles and Mcloughlin among others, he was already heading that way musically.

when Jimi died he was actively recording and performing live on a regular basis, there were no proper tours in his day, just scheduled shows whenever and wherever.

Prince at 27 was not touring, was recording actively and filming a movie. With 7 released albums at this point, I don't care about the side projects, not one of them was a pure Rock 'n' Roll record, not even Purple Rain. Prince was mainly a funk guitarist, who dabbled in rock occasionally, but his version of Rock is very different from Jimi's and other Classic Rock artists.

Secondly, Rock is largely, though not always, based on riffs, and Prince is not a good riff composer, maybe in funk, but one chord repetition is hardly skillful. I dislike laying funk because it hardly ever goes anywhere, it's just monotonous groovin'. Prince is a marvelous composer overall, no disagreement there, but we're talking guitar skills and every thing that goes with it

how can you compete with Jimi when every single song the man ever played had guitars in them as the main instrument and Prince's composition's do not? Prince clearly doesn't write on the guitar much (by the way, I'm a guitarist) and the vast majority of his songs are written on and for piano and keyboards, like a POP artist, not a ROCK one. Prince doesn't play like a rock guitarist no think like one at 27, it's merely an embellishment to songs.

At 27, Prince rarely played the blues, and even when he did it's sort of a vamp, because he grew up influenced by Funk. So all I hear on Prince records up to the age of 27 is 80 percent funk, 20 percent rock, so he cant even be compared to Jimi.

At 27, Jimi was already lauded as the best guitarist of his generation by virtually everybody in music, while nobody thought of Prince as such in the summer of '85 when he turned 27. Instead he was a POP star and talented multi-instrumentalist. And I'm fairly certain Prince never thought he could play like Hendrix, besides copying his clothes, facial expressions, psychedelic imagery etc, and I do hear the Santana influence in playing as he admits.

Thirdly, based on hat Jimi achieved from the release of hist first album to his untimely death and/or murder, (yes, I went there) with only 3 released albums, one of them a double LP, his legend was already enshrined I the music world, so God only knows what directions he would have gone in, impossible to know.

But one factor that puts this trivial argument to bed is the fat that every year there is an event called the Experience Hendrix Tour which features numerous guitarists from any and every genre of music who tour for a couple or three months around the country and world playing Jimi's timeless music. You will never see or hear of an Experience Prince tour featuring only his rock songs because there aren't that many compared to the rest of his ouvre, because he was a op artist and not a guitar god.

I've never read anywhere or met any guitarist who said his influence was Prince. And that's because he wasn't an innovator, few are, but guess what? Jimi was one of them, not Prince. He was an innovator in the field of Pop music and composition, but we're not talking that point, we're talking guitar. I can detect the non-musician fans on this blog by them constantly bringing up Prince's other instruments, or the number of albums he recorded, or that Clapton or Vai said this or that because you cannot argue about an instrument you do not play, you can only speak as a fan, or by the emotion it gives you personally.

But guess what, the rest of the world does not agree with you. You cannot even fathom the number of guitar clinics, documentaries and fan tutorials dedicated to Jimi on YouTube, its virtually infinite with more added yearly as new and young guitarists discover his music for the first time. Having Lenny Kravitz and Bruno Mars as the artists honoring you at an awards show is bloody sad. That's who stepped up, or were chosen to honor Prince, pretty lame in my book. No world famous classic rock ions were asking to lay Purple Rain or Let's Go Crazy, the same 2 songs played ad nauseum by most people because they're among the few solid guitar songs that were known by Prince.

Here there's a Hendrix tribute, the line is down the street and then some by guitarists itching to show off their chops. Learning Jimi's grooves and phrasing is difficult and requires years of laying, whereas Prince's licks are quite simple and easy to emulate. Just a natural fact, like the man himself sings in It.

In closing, there's no debate about the age of 27 here. Of course many will disagree, you're beyond fans, you're disciples, whereas I choose not to worship humans, especially dead ones.

I loved Prince's music, from 1999 to the 90's when it got quite iffy for me, still I listened to it all at least once. Jimi dies the year I was born, so like a lot of kids my age we got into him in our teens when we formed garage bands. Eventually you go to the source so you start listening to Jimi, Zeppelin and The Who for ideas even though we had the 80's hard rock scene as ours. I never recall referencing my Prince collection for ideas in that regard, it was just good Pop music with strains of rock 'n' roll peppered in it, but course, that's what made Purple Rain unique at the time, but it could never displace my Maiden, Priest, Kinks, Van Halen, and ZZ Top records for genre purity, come on.

P.S. Jimi was not a drug addict, never did heroin, though he was most likely addicted to sleep meds at the end (sound like someone you Orgers know?). We know no for a fat that his gangster manager Michael Jeffries fed him acid to keep him complacent and dependent because he was robbing Jimi blind. The sloppy playing mentioned here mes mainly from his last year when Jeffries booked him in ludicrous gigs that might be one day in Miami, the next day Chicago, then the following day in LA.

I'm not playing the he was an angel card for Jimi, but he wasn't constantly high like people claim. The night he died his stomach and lungs were filled with red wine, and the only meds present were sleeping pills. We now know that basically Jimi was waterboarded with a a gallon of wine, either by Jeffries or others, who immediately claimed the insurance policy on Jimi to pay off his underworld debts. This subject is both fascinating and sad as many ex-girlfriends of Jimi also died within years of him under mysterious circumstances. Jeffries died in a plane crash in '73, so good riddance to the man who ended a legends career thinking him worth more dead than alive.

Gear wise, all Jimi used was a wah pedal, a fuzz face, a uni-vibe w/expession pedal and an Octavio pedal, and that's it. An overdriven Marshall stack, a coiled wire with a Strat or Flying V and loads of imagination. He basically used the fuzz as a boost, but not always. A simple rig if there ever was one.

However in the studio, he was known to use a Fender Twin Reverb and a Bassman amp.

Prince's rig to me seems like combining every BOSS pedal known too man at once, including the cheater's special, Compression.

Alright you haters, let it rip...

Nice share Im pretty sure he was an addict though I mean he had a fat joint hanging from his mouth at woodstock. I remember seeing him on dick cavett the second apperance he looks in so much pain mentally. Also im an alcholic and can see addicts a mile off.

i'm a musician but not a guitarist, you can pull that card if you want and you have a point but I still have faith in what my ears tell me. Jimi was bad, he would have gotten badder had he more time. I don't think he was murdered, I don't think Prince was murdered either. both should have left the pills and alcohol alone.

I've always hated the Hendrix/Prince comparisons.....They're two totally different guitar players from two totally different eras with two totally different styles....It's like comparing Clapton to EVH.

lonelyalien said:

Musician9 said:

JIMI by a country mile and further...

it is also my opinion that if you're not a musician and especially not a guitarist, you should ignore this blog because your tastes and feelings are based on your utter hero worship and obsession with all things Prince, and not based on actual fact and knowledge, just sayin'...

having said that I am a superfan of both, not obsessed, and I own every record released by both artists barring a few of the recent boots of Prince material which I seriously doubt will effect my judgment here and the upcoming Jimi release Both Sides Of The Sky.

Firstly, we need to look at the Orger's original question, which is who was better at age 27?

Jimi died at that age so his entire opus was completed, not released, because when you're dead you can no longer create music.

In 1970 Jimi had mastered blues, rock in all its forms at the time, RnB, had begun adding funk into his repertoire and was dabbling in jazz (the so-called Hendrix chord is one found often in jazz). Had he lived, no doubt he would have embraced the entire funk genre and would have recorded jazz with Miles and Mcloughlin among others, he was already heading that way musically.

when Jimi died he was actively recording and performing live on a regular basis, there were no proper tours in his day, just scheduled shows whenever and wherever.

Prince at 27 was not touring, was recording actively and filming a movie. With 7 released albums at this point, I don't care about the side projects, not one of them was a pure Rock 'n' Roll record, not even Purple Rain. Prince was mainly a funk guitarist, who dabbled in rock occasionally, but his version of Rock is very different from Jimi's and other Classic Rock artists.

Secondly, Rock is largely, though not always, based on riffs, and Prince is not a good riff composer, maybe in funk, but one chord repetition is hardly skillful. I dislike laying funk because it hardly ever goes anywhere, it's just monotonous groovin'. Prince is a marvelous composer overall, no disagreement there, but we're talking guitar skills and every thing that goes with it

how can you compete with Jimi when every single song the man ever played had guitars in them as the main instrument and Prince's composition's do not? Prince clearly doesn't write on the guitar much (by the way, I'm a guitarist) and the vast majority of his songs are written on and for piano and keyboards, like a POP artist, not a ROCK one. Prince doesn't play like a rock guitarist no think like one at 27, it's merely an embellishment to songs.

At 27, Prince rarely played the blues, and even when he did it's sort of a vamp, because he grew up influenced by Funk. So all I hear on Prince records up to the age of 27 is 80 percent funk, 20 percent rock, so he cant even be compared to Jimi.

At 27, Jimi was already lauded as the best guitarist of his generation by virtually everybody in music, while nobody thought of Prince as such in the summer of '85 when he turned 27. Instead he was a POP star and talented multi-instrumentalist. And I'm fairly certain Prince never thought he could play like Hendrix, besides copying his clothes, facial expressions, psychedelic imagery etc, and I do hear the Santana influence in playing as he admits.

Thirdly, based on hat Jimi achieved from the release of hist first album to his untimely death and/or murder, (yes, I went there) with only 3 released albums, one of them a double LP, his legend was already enshrined I the music world, so God only knows what directions he would have gone in, impossible to know.

But one factor that puts this trivial argument to bed is the fat that every year there is an event called the Experience Hendrix Tour which features numerous guitarists from any and every genre of music who tour for a couple or three months around the country and world playing Jimi's timeless music. You will never see or hear of an Experience Prince tour featuring only his rock songs because there aren't that many compared to the rest of his ouvre, because he was a op artist and not a guitar god.

I've never read anywhere or met any guitarist who said his influence was Prince. And that's because he wasn't an innovator, few are, but guess what? Jimi was one of them, not Prince. He was an innovator in the field of Pop music and composition, but we're not talking that point, we're talking guitar. I can detect the non-musician fans on this blog by them constantly bringing up Prince's other instruments, or the number of albums he recorded, or that Clapton or Vai said this or that because you cannot argue about an instrument you do not play, you can only speak as a fan, or by the emotion it gives you personally.

But guess what, the rest of the world does not agree with you. You cannot even fathom the number of guitar clinics, documentaries and fan tutorials dedicated to Jimi on YouTube, its virtually infinite with more added yearly as new and young guitarists discover his music for the first time. Having Lenny Kravitz and Bruno Mars as the artists honoring you at an awards show is bloody sad. That's who stepped up, or were chosen to honor Prince, pretty lame in my book. No world famous classic rock ions were asking to lay Purple Rain or Let's Go Crazy, the same 2 songs played ad nauseum by most people because they're among the few solid guitar songs that were known by Prince.

Here there's a Hendrix tribute, the line is down the street and then some by guitarists itching to show off their chops. Learning Jimi's grooves and phrasing is difficult and requires years of laying, whereas Prince's licks are quite simple and easy to emulate. Just a natural fact, like the man himself sings in It.

In closing, there's no debate about the age of 27 here. Of course many will disagree, you're beyond fans, you're disciples, whereas I choose not to worship humans, especially dead ones.

I loved Prince's music, from 1999 to the 90's when it got quite iffy for me, still I listened to it all at least once. Jimi dies the year I was born, so like a lot of kids my age we got into him in our teens when we formed garage bands. Eventually you go to the source so you start listening to Jimi, Zeppelin and The Who for ideas even though we had the 80's hard rock scene as ours. I never recall referencing my Prince collection for ideas in that regard, it was just good Pop music with strains of rock 'n' roll peppered in it, but course, that's what made Purple Rain unique at the time, but it could never displace my Maiden, Priest, Kinks, Van Halen, and ZZ Top records for genre purity, come on.

P.S. Jimi was not a drug addict, never did heroin, though he was most likely addicted to sleep meds at the end (sound like someone you Orgers know?). We know no for a fat that his gangster manager Michael Jeffries fed him acid to keep him complacent and dependent because he was robbing Jimi blind. The sloppy playing mentioned here mes mainly from his last year when Jeffries booked him in ludicrous gigs that might be one day in Miami, the next day Chicago, then the following day in LA.

I'm not playing the he was an angel card for Jimi, but he wasn't constantly high like people claim. The night he died his stomach and lungs were filled with red wine, and the only meds present were sleeping pills. We now know that basically Jimi was waterboarded with a a gallon of wine, either by Jeffries or others, who immediately claimed the insurance policy on Jimi to pay off his underworld debts. This subject is both fascinating and sad as many ex-girlfriends of Jimi also died within years of him under mysterious circumstances. Jeffries died in a plane crash in '73, so good riddance to the man who ended a legends career thinking him worth more dead than alive.

Gear wise, all Jimi used was a wah pedal, a fuzz face, a uni-vibe w/expession pedal and an Octavio pedal, and that's it. An overdriven Marshall stack, a coiled wire with a Strat or Flying V and loads of imagination. He basically used the fuzz as a boost, but not always. A simple rig if there ever was one.

However in the studio, he was known to use a Fender Twin Reverb and a Bassman amp.

Prince's rig to me seems like combining every BOSS pedal known too man at once, including the cheater's special, Compression.

Alright you haters, let it rip...

Nice share Im pretty sure he was an addict though I mean he had a fat joint hanging from his mouth at woodstock. I remember seeing him on dick cavett the second apperance he looks in so much pain mentally. Also im an alcholic and can see addicts a mile off.

well, smoking weed and snorting coke are two very different animals, but what I meant to convey is that he wasn't drugged out constantly like the false narrative has been until the last several years or so. I once read a comment on a YouTube page by someone claiming to have been a roadie or some other person in the Jimi organization, anyway, he claimed to have witnessed firsthand how Jeffries would spike anything Jimi drank with uppers, downers, ludes, whatever was there to keep Jimi placid and open to influence.

I feel that's why he couldn't get his fourth album releeased, we know he had more than enough material, it's that Jeffries kept him on the road because of course that's guaranteed money in hand, paid after every show. It's a shame, the whole end of the 60's vibe was dark and negative, of course culminating with the events at the Stones free concert at Altamont. Seemed like a dark cloud was over every popular music act. But different era and we can only imagine what those artists were truly experiencing then when most were in their twenties an dthe music business as we know it was in its infancy. Hell, there weren't even proper tours then, just one-off shows...

Musician9 said:

lonelyalien said:

Nice share Im pretty sure he was an addict though I mean he had a fat joint hanging from his mouth at woodstock. I remember seeing him on dick cavett the second apperance he looks in so much pain mentally. Also im an alcholic and can see addicts a mile off.

well, smoking weed and snorting coke are two very different animals, but what I meant to convey is that he wasn't drugged out constantly like the false narrative has been until the last several years or so. I once read a comment on a YouTube page by someone claiming to have been a roadie or some other person in the Jimi organization, anyway, he claimed to have witnessed firsthand how Jeffries would spike anything Jimi drank with uppers, downers, ludes, whatever was there to keep Jimi placid and open to influence.

I feel that's why he couldn't get his fourth album releeased, we know he had more than enough material, it's that Jeffries kept him on the road because of course that's guaranteed money in hand, paid after every show. It's a shame, the whole end of the 60's vibe was dark and negative, of course culminating with the events at the Stones free concert at Altamont. Seemed like a dark cloud was over every popular music act. But different era and we can only imagine what those artists were truly experiencing then when most were in their twenties an dthe music business as we know it was in its infancy. Hell, there weren't even proper tours then, just one-off shows...

In a jimi dvd ive got with various interviews clapton jagger little richard etc the lady who was his girlfriend before he was famous cant remember her name said something like jimi had to take double what anyone else did he was abnormal to begin with and it would just bring him back round to being normal. I wish I could remember her name black lady ah hang on I think it was fey something.

lonelyalien said:

Musician9 said:

well, smoking weed and snorting coke are two very different animals, but what I meant to convey is that he wasn't drugged out constantly like the false narrative has been until the last several years or so. I once read a comment on a YouTube page by someone claiming to have been a roadie or some other person in the Jimi organization, anyway, he claimed to have witnessed firsthand how Jeffries would spike anything Jimi drank with uppers, downers, ludes, whatever was there to keep Jimi placid and open to influence.

I feel that's why he couldn't get his fourth album releeased, we know he had more than enough material, it's that Jeffries kept him on the road because of course that's guaranteed money in hand, paid after every show. It's a shame, the whole end of the 60's vibe was dark and negative, of course culminating with the events at the Stones free concert at Altamont. Seemed like a dark cloud was over every popular music act. But different era and we can only imagine what those artists were truly experiencing then when most were in their twenties an dthe music business as we know it was in its infancy. Hell, there weren't even proper tours then, just one-off shows...

In a jimi dvd ive got with various interviews clapton jagger little richard etc the lady who was his girlfriend before he was famous cant remember her name said something like jimi had to take double what anyone else did he was abnormal to begin with and it would just bring him back round to being normal. I wish I could remember her name black lady ah hang on I think it was fey something.

It's Monika Danneman, who conveniently committed suicide in '96 after being held in contempt of court, she was the one with him that night, and possibly helped Jeffrries or whoever put the wine in him. It's impossible to drink that much wine and of course he vomited it up, but he did not choke on the vomit, he drowned because thecwine filled his lungs, think about it, you could not do that drugged out or sober. he as essentially waterboarded. If you're interested there are dozens if not hundreds of podcasts and docs online dealing with newerevidence about that night.

Musician9 said:

lonelyalien said:

In a jimi dvd ive got with various interviews clapton jagger little richard etc the lady who was his girlfriend before he was famous cant remember her name said something like jimi had to take double what anyone else did he was abnormal to begin with and it would just bring him back round to being normal. I wish I could remember her name black lady ah hang on I think it was fey something.

It's Monika Danneman, who conveniently committed suicide in '96 after being held in contempt of court, she was the one with him that night, and possibly helped Jeffrries or whoever put the wine in him. It's impossible to drink that much wine and of course he vomited it up, but he did not choke on the vomit, he drowned because thecwine filled his lungs, think about it, you could not do that drugged out or sober. he as essentially waterboarded. If you're interested there are dozens if not hundreds of podcasts and docs online dealing with newerevidence about that night.

No im not talking about her I know who you mean the lady im talking about was with jimi before he was famous ok ive just found out her name was Lithofayne Pridgon.

that lady's name was fayne Pridgon, probably one of the very few good people in jimi's life. She was saying that jokingly but yes, she told the story of how he brought acid back from england. I also read he did speed before he was famous, it wasn't just weed and alcohol like this other poster is saying. Also, the kinds of childhood traumas and scars that create addiction, jimi had plenty of them, a mother who died from alcoholism, an abusive alcoholic father, he was supposedly molested by a serviceman sometime in the early fifties, a lot of trauma and also he was just different so the kids at school bullied him, i've known several people here in the seatlle area who knew him before he was famous, my stepdad being one. they generally just say he was wierd or crazy, even when he came back to his HS the inner city black kids really didn't know who he was or understand him, he was always offbeat that's for sure. He tried to compensate for some of this "selling out" or playing white people's music as black people accused him of but it was never that convincing as far as I can tell, not because he wasn't truly a product of black culture but completely because he was a true eccentric, even moreso than our man Prince.

lonelyalien said:

Musician9 said:

well, smoking weed and snorting coke are two very different animals, but what I meant to convey is that he wasn't drugged out constantly like the false narrative has been until the last several years or so. I once read a comment on a YouTube page by someone claiming to have been a roadie or some other person in the Jimi organization, anyway, he claimed to have witnessed firsthand how Jeffries would spike anything Jimi drank with uppers, downers, ludes, whatever was there to keep Jimi placid and open to influence.

I feel that's why he couldn't get his fourth album releeased, we know he had more than enough material, it's that Jeffries kept him on the road because of course that's guaranteed money in hand, paid after every show. It's a shame, the whole end of the 60's vibe was dark and negative, of course culminating with the events at the Stones free concert at Altamont. Seemed like a dark cloud was over every popular music act. But different era and we can only imagine what those artists were truly experiencing then when most were in their twenties an dthe music business as we know it was in its infancy. Hell, there weren't even proper tours then, just one-off shows...

In a jimi dvd ive got with various interviews clapton jagger little richard etc the lady who was his girlfriend before he was famous cant remember her name said something like jimi had to take double what anyone else did he was abnormal to begin with and it would just bring him back round to being normal. I wish I could remember her name black lady ah hang on I think it was fey something.

Musician9 said:

lonelyalien said:

In a jimi dvd ive got with various interviews clapton jagger little richard etc the lady who was his girlfriend before he was famous cant remember her name said something like jimi had to take double what anyone else did he was abnormal to begin with and it would just bring him back round to being normal. I wish I could remember her name black lady ah hang on I think it was fey something.

It's Monika Danneman, who conveniently committed suicide in '96 after being held in contempt of court, she was the one with him that night, and possibly helped Jeffrries or whoever put the wine in him. It's impossible to drink that much wine and of course he vomited it up, but he did not choke on the vomit, he drowned because thecwine filled his lungs, think about it, you could not do that drugged out or sober. he as essentially waterboarded. If you're interested there are dozens if not hundreds of podcasts and docs online dealing with newerevidence about that night.

i don't believe that, one of my favorite seattle musicians and a Jimi disciple (you want to talk about someone who may have surpassed jimi? I sometimes think he may have, he's that good, name is Jabrille 'Jimi James' Williams) believes that story. I don't, I have heard that one of the docs around at the time has said that He thought jimi was murdered but this particular doctor was stripped of his license for some ethical misdeed or another, not a good source. I don't really believe Jimi, Prince, Kurt or Cornell were murdered. Addiction is a common factor here.

you can have an opinon without writing a condensending and insulting post to Prince fans. Yes, everyone is aware that Prince didn't write songs for the guitar necessarily and that Jimi was an innovator but there is no accounting for taste and shouldn't be. Also, your discussion of Prince's guitar playing is very much rooted in what he recorded in the studio rather than what he performed live. Guitar riffs are not a big part of his recordings, but he played beautifully live in extended and moving solos...those should at least be taken into consideration without just dismissing them as cheating due to his use of technology.

Musician9 said:

JIMI by a country mile and further...

it is also my opinion that if you're not a musician and especially not a guitarist, you should ignore this blog because your tastes and feelings are based on your utter hero worship and obsession with all things Prince, and not based on actual fact and knowledge, just sayin'...

having said that I am a superfan of both, not obsessed, and I own every record released by both artists barring a few of the recent boots of Prince material which I seriously doubt will effect my judgment here and the upcoming Jimi release Both Sides Of The Sky.

Firstly, we need to look at the Orger's original question, which is who was better at age 27?

Jimi died at that age so his entire opus was completed, not released, because when you're dead you can no longer create music.

In 1970 Jimi had mastered blues, rock in all its forms at the time, RnB, had begun adding funk into his repertoire and was dabbling in jazz (the so-called Hendrix chord is one found often in jazz). Had he lived, no doubt he would have embraced the entire funk genre and would have recorded jazz with Miles and Mcloughlin among others, he was already heading that way musically.

when Jimi died he was actively recording and performing live on a regular basis, there were no proper tours in his day, just scheduled shows whenever and wherever.

Prince at 27 was not touring, was recording actively and filming a movie. With 7 released albums at this point, I don't care about the side projects, not one of them was a pure Rock 'n' Roll record, not even Purple Rain. Prince was mainly a funk guitarist, who dabbled in rock occasionally, but his version of Rock is very different from Jimi's and other Classic Rock artists.

Secondly, Rock is largely, though not always, based on riffs, and Prince is not a good riff composer, maybe in funk, but one chord repetition is hardly skillful. I dislike laying funk because it hardly ever goes anywhere, it's just monotonous groovin'. Prince is a marvelous composer overall, no disagreement there, but we're talking guitar skills and every thing that goes with it

how can you compete with Jimi when every single song the man ever played had guitars in them as the main instrument and Prince's composition's do not? Prince clearly doesn't write on the guitar much (by the way, I'm a guitarist) and the vast majority of his songs are written on and for piano and keyboards, like a POP artist, not a ROCK one. Prince doesn't play like a rock guitarist no think like one at 27, it's merely an embellishment to songs.

At 27, Prince rarely played the blues, and even when he did it's sort of a vamp, because he grew up influenced by Funk. So all I hear on Prince records up to the age of 27 is 80 percent funk, 20 percent rock, so he cant even be compared to Jimi.

At 27, Jimi was already lauded as the best guitarist of his generation by virtually everybody in music, while nobody thought of Prince as such in the summer of '85 when he turned 27. Instead he was a POP star and talented multi-instrumentalist. And I'm fairly certain Prince never thought he could play like Hendrix, besides copying his clothes, facial expressions, psychedelic imagery etc, and I do hear the Santana influence in playing as he admits.

Thirdly, based on hat Jimi achieved from the release of hist first album to his untimely death and/or murder, (yes, I went there) with only 3 released albums, one of them a double LP, his legend was already enshrined I the music world, so God only knows what directions he would have gone in, impossible to know.

But one factor that puts this trivial argument to bed is the fat that every year there is an event called the Experience Hendrix Tour which features numerous guitarists from any and every genre of music who tour for a couple or three months around the country and world playing Jimi's timeless music. You will never see or hear of an Experience Prince tour featuring only his rock songs because there aren't that many compared to the rest of his ouvre, because he was a op artist and not a guitar god.

I've never read anywhere or met any guitarist who said his influence was Prince. And that's because he wasn't an innovator, few are, but guess what? Jimi was one of them, not Prince. He was an innovator in the field of Pop music and composition, but we're not talking that point, we're talking guitar. I can detect the non-musician fans on this blog by them constantly bringing up Prince's other instruments, or the number of albums he recorded, or that Clapton or Vai said this or that because you cannot argue about an instrument you do not play, you can only speak as a fan, or by the emotion it gives you personally.

But guess what, the rest of the world does not agree with you. You cannot even fathom the number of guitar clinics, documentaries and fan tutorials dedicated to Jimi on YouTube, its virtually infinite with more added yearly as new and young guitarists discover his music for the first time. Having Lenny Kravitz and Bruno Mars as the artists honoring you at an awards show is bloody sad. That's who stepped up, or were chosen to honor Prince, pretty lame in my book. No world famous classic rock ions were asking to lay Purple Rain or Let's Go Crazy, the same 2 songs played ad nauseum by most people because they're among the few solid guitar songs that were known by Prince.

Here there's a Hendrix tribute, the line is down the street and then some by guitarists itching to show off their chops. Learning Jimi's grooves and phrasing is difficult and requires years of laying, whereas Prince's licks are quite simple and easy to emulate. Just a natural fact, like the man himself sings in It.

In closing, there's no debate about the age of 27 here. Of course many will disagree, you're beyond fans, you're disciples, whereas I choose not to worship humans, especially dead ones.

I loved Prince's music, from 1999 to the 90's when it got quite iffy for me, still I listened to it all at least once. Jimi dies the year I was born, so like a lot of kids my age we got into him in our teens when we formed garage bands. Eventually you go to the source so you start listening to Jimi, Zeppelin and The Who for ideas even though we had the 80's hard rock scene as ours. I never recall referencing my Prince collection for ideas in that regard, it was just good Pop music with strains of rock 'n' roll peppered in it, but course, that's what made Purple Rain unique at the time, but it could never displace my Maiden, Priest, Kinks, Van Halen, and ZZ Top records for genre purity, come on.

P.S. Jimi was not a drug addict, never did heroin, though he was most likely addicted to sleep meds at the end (sound like someone you Orgers know?). We know no for a fat that his gangster manager Michael Jeffries fed him acid to keep him complacent and dependent because he was robbing Jimi blind. The sloppy playing mentioned here mes mainly from his last year when Jeffries booked him in ludicrous gigs that might be one day in Miami, the next day Chicago, then the following day in LA.

I'm not playing the he was an angel card for Jimi, but he wasn't constantly high like people claim. The night he died his stomach and lungs were filled with red wine, and the only meds present were sleeping pills. We now know that basically Jimi was waterboarded with a a gallon of wine, either by Jeffries or others, who immediately claimed the insurance policy on Jimi to pay off his underworld debts. This subject is both fascinating and sad as many ex-girlfriends of Jimi also died within years of him under mysterious circumstances. Jeffries died in a plane crash in '73, so good riddance to the man who ended a legends career thinking him worth more dead than alive.

Gear wise, all Jimi used was a wah pedal, a fuzz face, a uni-vibe w/expession pedal and an Octavio pedal, and that's it. An overdriven Marshall stack, a coiled wire with a Strat or Flying V and loads of imagination. He basically used the fuzz as a boost, but not always. A simple rig if there ever was one.

However in the studio, he was known to use a Fender Twin Reverb and a Bassman amp.

Prince's rig to me seems like combining every BOSS pedal known too man at once, including the cheater's special, Compression.

Alright you haters, let it rip...

[Edited 1/13/18 21:04pm]

his saying prince never did a guitar album or guitar riffs or whatever it was he said just made me dismiss him right there, the Purple Rain album was his guitar god album, let's go crazy, purple rain, when doves cry, computer blue all had fantastic guitar work which Jimi would approve I'm sure.

purplerabbithole said:

you can have an opinon without writing a condensending and insulting post to Prince fans. Yes, everyone is aware that Prince didn't write songs for the guitar necessarily and that Jimi was an innovator but there is no accounting for taste and shouldn't be. Also, your discussion of Prince's guitar playing is very much rooted in what he recorded in the studio rather than what he performed live. Guitar riffs are not a big part of his recordings, but he played beautifully live in extended and moving solos...those should at least be taken into consideration without just dismissing them as cheating due to his use of technology.

Musician9 said:

JIMI by a country mile and further...

it is also my opinion that if you're not a musician and especially not a guitarist, you should ignore this blog because your tastes and feelings are based on your utter hero worship and obsession with all things Prince, and not based on actual fact and knowledge, just sayin'...

having said that I am a superfan of both, not obsessed, and I own every record released by both artists barring a few of the recent boots of Prince material which I seriously doubt will effect my judgment here and the upcoming Jimi release Both Sides Of The Sky.

Firstly, we need to look at the Orger's original question, which is who was better at age 27?

Jimi died at that age so his entire opus was completed, not released, because when you're dead you can no longer create music.

In 1970 Jimi had mastered blues, rock in all its forms at the time, RnB, had begun adding funk into his repertoire and was dabbling in jazz (the so-called Hendrix chord is one found often in jazz). Had he lived, no doubt he would have embraced the entire funk genre and would have recorded jazz with Miles and Mcloughlin among others, he was already heading that way musically.

when Jimi died he was actively recording and performing live on a regular basis, there were no proper tours in his day, just scheduled shows whenever and wherever.

Prince at 27 was not touring, was recording actively and filming a movie. With 7 released albums at this point, I don't care about the side projects, not one of them was a pure Rock 'n' Roll record, not even Purple Rain. Prince was mainly a funk guitarist, who dabbled in rock occasionally, but his version of Rock is very different from Jimi's and other Classic Rock artists.

Secondly, Rock is largely, though not always, based on riffs, and Prince is not a good riff composer, maybe in funk, but one chord repetition is hardly skillful. I dislike laying funk because it hardly ever goes anywhere, it's just monotonous groovin'. Prince is a marvelous composer overall, no disagreement there, but we're talking guitar skills and every thing that goes with it

how can you compete with Jimi when every single song the man ever played had guitars in them as the main instrument and Prince's composition's do not? Prince clearly doesn't write on the guitar much (by the way, I'm a guitarist) and the vast majority of his songs are written on and for piano and keyboards, like a POP artist, not a ROCK one. Prince doesn't play like a rock guitarist no think like one at 27, it's merely an embellishment to songs.

At 27, Prince rarely played the blues, and even when he did it's sort of a vamp, because he grew up influenced by Funk. So all I hear on Prince records up to the age of 27 is 80 percent funk, 20 percent rock, so he cant even be compared to Jimi.

At 27, Jimi was already lauded as the best guitarist of his generation by virtually everybody in music, while nobody thought of Prince as such in the summer of '85 when he turned 27. Instead he was a POP star and talented multi-instrumentalist. And I'm fairly certain Prince never thought he could play like Hendrix, besides copying his clothes, facial expressions, psychedelic imagery etc, and I do hear the Santana influence in playing as he admits.

Thirdly, based on hat Jimi achieved from the release of hist first album to his untimely death and/or murder, (yes, I went there) with only 3 released albums, one of them a double LP, his legend was already enshrined I the music world, so God only knows what directions he would have gone in, impossible to know.

But one factor that puts this trivial argument to bed is the fat that every year there is an event called the Experience Hendrix Tour which features numerous guitarists from any and every genre of music who tour for a couple or three months around the country and world playing Jimi's timeless music. You will never see or hear of an Experience Prince tour featuring only his rock songs because there aren't that many compared to the rest of his ouvre, because he was a op artist and not a guitar god.

I've never read anywhere or met any guitarist who said his influence was Prince. And that's because he wasn't an innovator, few are, but guess what? Jimi was one of them, not Prince. He was an innovator in the field of Pop music and composition, but we're not talking that point, we're talking guitar. I can detect the non-musician fans on this blog by them constantly bringing up Prince's other instruments, or the number of albums he recorded, or that Clapton or Vai said this or that because you cannot argue about an instrument you do not play, you can only speak as a fan, or by the emotion it gives you personally.

But guess what, the rest of the world does not agree with you. You cannot even fathom the number of guitar clinics, documentaries and fan tutorials dedicated to Jimi on YouTube, its virtually infinite with more added yearly as new and young guitarists discover his music for the first time. Having Lenny Kravitz and Bruno Mars as the artists honoring you at an awards show is bloody sad. That's who stepped up, or were chosen to honor Prince, pretty lame in my book. No world famous classic rock ions were asking to lay Purple Rain or Let's Go Crazy, the same 2 songs played ad nauseum by most people because they're among the few solid guitar songs that were known by Prince.

Here there's a Hendrix tribute, the line is down the street and then some by guitarists itching to show off their chops. Learning Jimi's grooves and phrasing is difficult and requires years of laying, whereas Prince's licks are quite simple and easy to emulate. Just a natural fact, like the man himself sings in It.

In closing, there's no debate about the age of 27 here. Of course many will disagree, you're beyond fans, you're disciples, whereas I choose not to worship humans, especially dead ones.

I loved Prince's music, from 1999 to the 90's when it got quite iffy for me, still I listened to it all at least once. Jimi dies the year I was born, so like a lot of kids my age we got into him in our teens when we formed garage bands. Eventually you go to the source so you start listening to Jimi, Zeppelin and The Who for ideas even though we had the 80's hard rock scene as ours. I never recall referencing my Prince collection for ideas in that regard, it was just good Pop music with strains of rock 'n' roll peppered in it, but course, that's what made Purple Rain unique at the time, but it could never displace my Maiden, Priest, Kinks, Van Halen, and ZZ Top records for genre purity, come on.

P.S. Jimi was not a drug addict, never did heroin, though he was most likely addicted to sleep meds at the end (sound like someone you Orgers know?). We know no for a fat that his gangster manager Michael Jeffries fed him acid to keep him complacent and dependent because he was robbing Jimi blind. The sloppy playing mentioned here mes mainly from his last year when Jeffries booked him in ludicrous gigs that might be one day in Miami, the next day Chicago, then the following day in LA.

I'm not playing the he was an angel card for Jimi, but he wasn't constantly high like people claim. The night he died his stomach and lungs were filled with red wine, and the only meds present were sleeping pills. We now know that basically Jimi was waterboarded with a a gallon of wine, either by Jeffries or others, who immediately claimed the insurance policy on Jimi to pay off his underworld debts. This subject is both fascinating and sad as many ex-girlfriends of Jimi also died within years of him under mysterious circumstances. Jeffries died in a plane crash in '73, so good riddance to the man who ended a legends career thinking him worth more dead than alive.

Gear wise, all Jimi used was a wah pedal, a fuzz face, a uni-vibe w/expession pedal and an Octavio pedal, and that's it. An overdriven Marshall stack, a coiled wire with a Strat or Flying V and loads of imagination. He basically used the fuzz as a boost, but not always. A simple rig if there ever was one.

However in the studio, he was known to use a Fender Twin Reverb and a Bassman amp.

Prince's rig to me seems like combining every BOSS pedal known too man at once, including the cheater's special, Compression.

Alright you haters, let it rip...

[Edited 1/13/18 21:04pm]

Well, he is not the only musicians to say that, but really riffs are not everything. Prince's live solos are so moving to me and they are much more intricate than a lot of what he recorded (not to dismiss that). Plus, funk grooves require staying in the pocket as they say..not sure that's as easy as it seems especially when you are dancing and prancing around the stage at the same time. Wendy's description of P's rhythm guitar playing kind of discredits the supposed simplicity of P's playing. Besides, if you spread your talents out, it is hard to find the strength in it.

Plus, can people stop with the rock snobbery. Pop is not inherently worse than rock. Hell, I love rock music but its not necessarily more sophisticated than "Pop". Pop just means popular...that's all.

PeteSilas said:

his saying prince never did a guitar album or guitar riffs or whatever it was he said just made me dismiss him right there, the Purple Rain album was his guitar god album, let's go crazy, purple rain, when doves cry, computer blue all had fantastic guitar work which Jimi would approve I'm sure.

purplerabbithole said:

you can have an opinon without writing a condensending and insulting post to Prince fans. Yes, everyone is aware that Prince didn't write songs for the guitar necessarily and that Jimi was an innovator but there is no accounting for taste and shouldn't be. Also, your discussion of Prince's guitar playing is very much rooted in what he recorded in the studio rather than what he performed live. Guitar riffs are not a big part of his recordings, but he played beautifully live in extended and moving solos...those should at least be taken into consideration without just dismissing them as cheating due to his use of technology.

[Edited 1/13/18 21:04pm]

I loved that performance but I have to say that it is not even close to Prince's best guitar playing. So, I kind of agree. He has done better playing during aftershows. I just listened to his stunning guitar solo during the live performance with him and Amy Winehouse. That is so much more impressive to me.

MD431Madcat said:

IMO the hall of fame performance wasn't that great!

PeteSilas said:

he was the greater pioneer but i think Prince surpassed him by the time of the Hall of fame performance. In the eighties, i'm not really even sure the comparisons to hendrix were really even that justified, he wasn't even the best guitarist in minneapolis at that time I do think Jesse was damned good.,

[Edited 1/12/18 16:33pm]

[Edited 1/13/18 21:38pm]

purplerabbithole said:

I loved that performance but I have to say that it is not even close to Prince's best guitar playing. So, I kind of agree. He has done better playing during aftershows. I just listened to his stunning guitar solo during the live performance with him and Amy Winehouse. That is so much more impressive to me.

MD431Madcat said:

IMO the hall of fame performance wasn't that great!

[Edited 1/13/18 21:38pm]

well, i don't get what either of you were listening to because that's the performance that has gone down in history as the example of the man and his main instrument. and i'm still marinating on the riff comment, i think bambi was a helluva riff, always have, i think the when you were mine guitar line was about as good a one as i've ever heard, and let's go crazy i always liked because it fused so much together, the gospel opening, giving way to the apocalyptic heavy metal guitar with the cut time ending which hearkened all the way back to early Elvis. People who say he didn't do much guitar stuff just baffle me to no end, he always had some kind of rock guitar going on in his albums, some more than others but I still remember, he was always considered a crossover artist in the eighties because of and mainly because of the guitar, no other real reason except for maybe the loopy interviews and the racial ambiguity although i guess his early, dirty mind punk posture and rebellious attitude could have had something to do with it too.

[Edited 1/13/18 22:55pm]

PeteSilas said:

Musician9 said:

It's Monika Danneman, who conveniently committed suicide in '96 after being held in contempt of court, she was the one with him that night, and possibly helped Jeffrries or whoever put the wine in him. It's impossible to drink that much wine and of course he vomited it up, but he did not choke on the vomit, he drowned because thecwine filled his lungs, think about it, you could not do that drugged out or sober. he as essentially waterboarded. If you're interested there are dozens if not hundreds of podcasts and docs online dealing with newerevidence about that night.

i don't believe that, one of my favorite seattle musicians and a Jimi disciple (you want to talk about someone who may have surpassed jimi? I sometimes think he may have, he's that good, name is Jabrille 'Jimi James' Williams) believes that story. I don't, I have heard that one of the docs around at the time has said that He thought jimi was murdered but this particular doctor was stripped of his license for some ethical misdeed or another, not a good source. I don't really believe Jimi, Prince, Kurt or Cornell were murdered. Addiction is a common factor here.

I'll have to check him out, thanks.

PeteSilas said:

purplerabbithole said:

I loved that performance but I have to say that it is not even close to Prince's best guitar playing. So, I kind of agree. He has done better playing during aftershows. I just listened to his stunning guitar solo during the live performance with him and Amy Winehouse. That is so much more impressive to me.

[Edited 1/13/18 21:38pm]

well, i don't get what either of you were listening to because that's the performance that has gone down in history as the example of the man and his main instrument. and i'm still marinating on the riff comment, i think bambi was a helluva riff, always have, i think the when you were mine guitar line was about as good a one as i've ever heard, and let's go crazy i always liked because it fused so much together, the gospel opening, giving way to the apocalyptic heavy metal guitar with the cut time ending which hearkened all the way back to early Elvis. People who say he didn't do much guitar stuff just baffle me to no end, he always had some kind of rock guitar going on in his albums, some more than others but I still remember, he was always considered a crossover artist in the eighties because of and mainly because of the guitar, no other real reason except for maybe the loopy interviews and the racial ambiguity although i guess his early, dirty mind punk posture and rebellious attitude could have had something to do with it too.

[Edited 1/13/18 22:55pm]

you cited 3 songs, my point exactly. 39 albums and that's all that comes to mind, huh? You could probably distill all of his riff oriented, true rock songs down to a double album to represent his entire career, maybe a 3 disc one, but it proves my point, he's not a ROCK guitarist but a FUNK one. And you don't get to cry "he's a multi-instrumentalist, he plays it all", nobody cares. The vast majority of his music is piano/keyboard based, that's a plain fact. Also, not the topic of this thread but someone always has to go there when their argument or general point is lost. And the RRHOF solo is not that good, truth hurts, no crying now...

Musician9 said:

PeteSilas said:

i don't believe that, one of my favorite seattle musicians and a Jimi disciple (you want to talk about someone who may have surpassed jimi? I sometimes think he may have, he's that good, name is Jabrille 'Jimi James' Williams) believes that story. I don't, I have heard that one of the docs around at the time has said that He thought jimi was murdered but this particular doctor was stripped of his license for some ethical misdeed or another, not a good source. I don't really believe Jimi, Prince, Kurt or Cornell were murdered. Addiction is a common factor here.

I'll have to check him out, thanks.

you won' be dissapointed here's his facebook: https://www.facebook.com/...mp;fref=nf even though the thought that he may have surpassed jimi sometimes crosses my mind, i never would say that to him, and I know he would deny it, he's that humble.

Musician9 said:

PeteSilas said:

well, i don't get what either of you were listening to because that's the performance that has gone down in history as the example of the man and his main instrument. and i'm still marinating on the riff comment, i think bambi was a helluva riff, always have, i think the when you were mine guitar line was about as good a one as i've ever heard, and let's go crazy i always liked because it fused so much together, the gospel opening, giving way to the apocalyptic heavy metal guitar with the cut time ending which hearkened all the way back to early Elvis. People who say he didn't do much guitar stuff just baffle me to no end, he always had some kind of rock guitar going on in his albums, some more than others but I still remember, he was always considered a crossover artist in the eighties because of and mainly because of the guitar, no other real reason except for maybe the loopy interviews and the racial ambiguity although i guess his early, dirty mind punk posture and rebellious attitude could have had something to do with it too.

[Edited 1/13/18 22:55pm]

you cited 3 songs, my point exactly. 39 albums and that's all that comes to mind, huh? You could probably distill all of his riff oriented, true rock songs down to a double album to represent his entire career, maybe a 3 disc one, but it proves my point, he's not a ROCK guitarist but a FUNK one. And you don't get to cry "he's a multi-instrumentalist, he plays it all", nobody cares. The vast majority of his music is piano/keyboard based, that's a plain fact. Also, not the topic of this thread but someone always has to go there when their argument or general point is lost. And the RRHOF solo is not that good, truth hurts, no crying now...

no, i don't cry, but 3 songs? I'm not going to sit here and list every single song he ever did that had a shred of rock guitar in it because the list would be long. More often than not though, he'd have some funk foundation and throw some solo guitar on top of it. I'm a pianist and although I believe that man was better than me, i've heard a zillion pianists better than him, guitarists? I've known guitarists who THINK they play better than everyone but they're wrong. His piano playing was a key part of his sound sure, but I have to disagree with anyone who says that was his best insturment, as scottie baldwin did recently. Lots of unknowns i've heard could play better.

PeteSilas said:

Musician9 said:

you cited 3 songs, my point exactly. 39 albums and that's all that comes to mind, huh? You could probably distill all of his riff oriented, true rock songs down to a double album to represent his entire career, maybe a 3 disc one, but it proves my point, he's not a ROCK guitarist but a FUNK one. And you don't get to cry "he's a multi-instrumentalist, he plays it all", nobody cares. The vast majority of his music is piano/keyboard based, that's a plain fact. Also, not the topic of this thread but someone always has to go there when their argument or general point is lost. And the RRHOF solo is not that good, truth hurts, no crying now...

no, i don't cry, but 3 songs? I'm not going to sit here and list every single song he ever did that had a shred of rock guitar in it because the list would be long. More often than not though, he'd have some funk foundation and throw some solo guitar on top of it. I'm a pianist and although I believe that man was better than me, i've heard a zillion pianists better than him, guitarists? I've known guitarists who THINK they play better than everyone but they're wrong. His piano playing was a key part of his sound sure, but I have to disagree with anyone who says that was his best insturment, as scottie baldwin did recently. Lots of unknowns i've heard could play better.

okay, so what's our point here? I don't think he's great at any instrument frankly, just proficient, let's say. But to me he was very limited on guitar whereas he expressed himself far better on the keys, and he was more creative there. Not tooting my own horn, but I play keys and guitar too. You can hear he doesn't write on the guitar or the songs would be very different. I add my guitr tracks before the bass because I write most everything on the axe, but if I'm not writitng a rock song, the piano gets priority. And you're right, a zillion pianists are better than him, guitarists as well...

Musician9 said:

PeteSilas said:

no, i don't cry, but 3 songs? I'm not going to sit here and list every single song he ever did that had a shred of rock guitar in it because the list would be long. More often than not though, he'd have some funk foundation and throw some solo guitar on top of it. I'm a pianist and although I believe that man was better than me, i've heard a zillion pianists better than him, guitarists? I've known guitarists who THINK they play better than everyone but they're wrong. His piano playing was a key part of his sound sure, but I have to disagree with anyone who says that was his best insturment, as scottie baldwin did recently. Lots of unknowns i've heard could play better.

okay, so what's our point here? I don't think he's great at any instrument frankly, just proficient, let's say. But to me he was very limited on guitar whereas he expressed himself far better on the keys, and he was more creative there. Not tooting my own horn, but I play keys and guitar too. You can hear he doesn't write on the guitar or the songs would be very different. I add my guitr tracks before the bass because I write most everything on the axe, but if I'm not writitng a rock song, the piano gets priority. And you're right, a zillion pianists are better than him, guitarists as well...

my point is i believe guitar is his main instrument, i think that's the one he woodshedded on more than any other. Even with guitar though, some of our posters have pointed out that he went through phases where it seems he wasn't as focussed on it and he certainly was not as focussed on some of the other instruments at different times for good reasons, it's an inhuman workload. There were times he didn't publicly play the other instruments at all and i always thought his Purple Rain era piano playing was pretty bad, which, when you realize just how many other things he was working on at the time, is perfectly understandable. And, not every performance of anyone is consistent, his solo, in the rain at the superbowl wasn't one of his better ones but it made for great television under the circumstances. i'm sure he wrote songs on both piano and guitar just like any other multi-instrumentalist and also, he was known to have songs complete in his head before he started, some of Morris Hayes' stories about his feats in the studio are Mozart level shit. Is it that rare? I don't know, i guess the package that he was is rare but I've seen some pianists who boggle my mind, i just can't even begin to comprehend how they do what they do so, Prince doing astounding things in and of itself isnt' the only thing special, it's the entire package, the business saavy, the artistic sense, the passion. To tell the truth, guys that play a mean guitar are a dime a dozen, i've been seeing them since i started in music and as much as I like Jabrille, the odds are stacked against him because he only has that one piece of the puzzle down, he doesn't really sing, he writes but I haven't heard anything that knocks my socks off, he's a bandleader but bands fall apart almost as soon as you put them together, in short, it's just not enough to get him to where he's trying to get as much as he deserves it. of course luck and the right breaks are involved too but having as many aces as you can get your hands on doesn't hurt.

Just Proficient?? When he was 27 maybe. The man was constantly evolving and improving. Have you really listened to this man play beyond what was recorded in sessions 30 years ago. I mean sought out more obscure stuff.

Musician9 said:

PeteSilas said:

no, i don't cry, but 3 songs? I'm not going to sit here and list every single song he ever did that had a shred of rock guitar in it because the list would be long. More often than not though, he'd have some funk foundation and throw some solo guitar on top of it. I'm a pianist and although I believe that man was better than me, i've heard a zillion pianists better than him, guitarists? I've known guitarists who THINK they play better than everyone but they're wrong. His piano playing was a key part of his sound sure, but I have to disagree with anyone who says that was his best insturment, as scottie baldwin did recently. Lots of unknowns i've heard could play better.

okay, so what's our point here? I don't think he's great at any instrument frankly, just proficient, let's say. But to me he was very limited on guitar whereas he expressed himself far better on the keys, and he was more creative there. Not tooting my own horn, but I play keys and guitar too. You can hear he doesn't write on the guitar or the songs would be very different. I add my guitr tracks before the bass because I write most everything on the axe, but if I'm not writitng a rock song, the piano gets priority. And you're right, a zillion pianists are better than him, guitarists as well...

PeteSilas said:

Musician9 said:

okay, so what's our point here? I don't think he's great at any instrument frankly, just proficient, let's say. But to me he was very limited on guitar whereas he expressed himself far better on the keys, and he was more creative there. Not tooting my own horn, but I play keys and guitar too. You can hear he doesn't write on the guitar or the songs would be very different. I add my guitr tracks before the bass because I write most everything on the axe, but if I'm not writitng a rock song, the piano gets priority. And you're right, a zillion pianists are better than him, guitarists as well...

my point is i believe guitar is his main instrument, i think that's the one he woodshedded on more than any other. Even with guitar though, some of our posters have pointed out that he went through phases where it seems he wasn't as focussed on it and he certainly was not as focussed on some of the other instruments at different times for good reasons, it's an inhuman workload. There were times he didn't publicly play the other instruments at all and i always thought his Purple Rain era piano playing was pretty bad, which, when you realize just how many other things he was working on at the time, is perfectly understandable. And, not every performance of anyone is consistent, his solo, in the rain at the superbowl wasn't one of his better ones but it made for great television under the circumstances. i'm sure he wrote songs on both piano and guitar just like any other multi-instrumentalist and also, he was known to have songs complete in his head before he started, some of Morris Hayes' stories about his feats in the studio are Mozart level shit. Is it that rare? I don't know, i guess the package that he was is rare but I've seen some pianists who boggle my mind, i just can't even begin to comprehend how they do what they do so, Prince doing astounding things in and of itself isnt' the only thing special, it's the entire package, the business saavy, the artistic sense, the passion. To tell the truth, guys that play a mean guitar are a dime a dozen, i've been seeing them since i started in music and as much as I like Jabrille, the odds are stacked against him because he only has that one piece of the puzzle down, he doesn't really sing, he writes but I haven't heard anything that knocks my socks off, he's a bandleader but bands fall apart almost as soon as you put them together, in short, it's just not enough to get him to where he's trying to get as much as he deserves it. of course luck and the right breaks are involved too but having as many aces as you can get your hands on doesn't hurt.

I get you, cool. But one bone to pick - the comparison to Mozart. Come on, we hear it all the time and it's silly. I too have entire songs in my head befire I record, not really difficult when we're talking the modern song format, a few chords and just multi-tracking. Mozart wrote entire symphonies in his head without even touching the instruments because he had perfect pitch and a vast musical knowledge. In the time it took Prince to write and record a typical album that probably had no more than 12 different chords, Mozart wrote concertos, operas and symphonies of incredible skill and complexity. No living composer is worth a scintilla of Mozart's talent, and no musician/composer ever will be. The age of true geniuses is over, it's all been done. European Classical music was the apex of musical composition and theory.

Good chatting with you, though...

i was referring to morris' story of how Prince was working on one of his tracks, a ten minute one, not just one of his pop tunes, but.., even if he was, as he did on the Parade album, where he went four tracks deep in one take from instrument to intstrument, that's some shit, where you remembere where to put the fills, what's going on in the arrangement etc.., and as everything we're discussing, was classical music the apex? I don't know, some would say jazz has stretched music way further than classical was even attempting anyway. I hear whole symphonies in my head too, i wouldn't know how to write the shit down and notate it, i don't have that background but i've been doing it since i was a teen. Euro credibility really isn't our bag as rock and roll musicians, we don't really need it but we do seem to fall for it for whatever reason, even Prince and some of his orchestral work with claire fischer, which i do love, but not everyone does, they just want the funk. anyway, nice chatting with you too.

Musician9 said:

PeteSilas said:

my point is i believe guitar is his main instrument, i think that's the one he woodshedded on more than any other. Even with guitar though, some of our posters have pointed out that he went through phases where it seems he wasn't as focussed on it and he certainly was not as focussed on some of the other instruments at different times for good reasons, it's an inhuman workload. There were times he didn't publicly play the other instruments at all and i always thought his Purple Rain era piano playing was pretty bad, which, when you realize just how many other things he was working on at the time, is perfectly understandable. And, not every performance of anyone is consistent, his solo, in the rain at the superbowl wasn't one of his better ones but it made for great television under the circumstances. i'm sure he wrote songs on both piano and guitar just like any other multi-instrumentalist and also, he was known to have songs complete in his head before he started, some of Morris Hayes' stories about his feats in the studio are Mozart level shit. Is it that rare? I don't know, i guess the package that he was is rare but I've seen some pianists who boggle my mind, i just can't even begin to comprehend how they do what they do so, Prince doing astounding things in and of itself isnt' the only thing special, it's the entire package, the business saavy, the artistic sense, the passion. To tell the truth, guys that play a mean guitar are a dime a dozen, i've been seeing them since i started in music and as much as I like Jabrille, the odds are stacked against him because he only has that one piece of the puzzle down, he doesn't really sing, he writes but I haven't heard anything that knocks my socks off, he's a bandleader but bands fall apart almost as soon as you put them together, in short, it's just not enough to get him to where he's trying to get as much as he deserves it. of course luck and the right breaks are involved too but having as many aces as you can get your hands on doesn't hurt.

I get you, cool. But one bone to pick - the comparison to Mozart. Come on, we hear it all the time and it's silly. I too have entire songs in my head befire I record, not really difficult when we're talking the modern song format, a few chords and just multi-tracking. Mozart wrote entire symphonies in his head without even touching the instruments because he had perfect pitch and a vast musical knowledge. In the time it took Prince to write and record a typical album that probably had no more than 12 different chords, Mozart wrote concertos, operas and symphonies of incredible skill and complexity. No living composer is worth a scintilla of Mozart's talent, and no musician/composer ever will be. The age of true geniuses is over, it's all been done. European Classical music was the apex of musical composition and theory.

Good chatting with you, though...

some of these people, i swear, i don't know what to think of them, Warner Brothers ain't stupid, they wouldn't sign a 18-19 year old kid to a deal and give him production of his own shit if they weren't blown away by something. someone said recently "how often has that happened" no one could give an answer because to our knowledge, it never had. Many artists had to fight tooth and nail for years to get out of oppressive creative situations just to get to the place Prince started at, the dude was special.

Prince surpassed Jimi decades ago in his guitar skills. Perhaps if Jimi lived as long as Prince, he would have reached Prince's level. I think some of you just like sayin' Jimi is king for the sake of saying it. Prince had 30 more years than Jimi to perfect his craft, and he could do MANY things on guitar Jimi could not do, Prince's playing was much more colorful and precise.

Prince played ALL styles of playing and ALL styles of music, Jimi existed in a pretty narrow channel, Prince was indeed inspired by Jimi, but he took it to a completely different level.

Red House

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2_2HCWjSVI

Purple House

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txINFvta2Xg

The winner? Prince, hands down. Listen to that precision, listen to that color, listen to the varying styles, there is just so much more to Prince's playing than Jimi was capable of at his peak, perhaps given another 30 years, maybe.

he very well may have, Jerry Lee Lewis, as good as he was on piano, wasn't nowhere near how fascile and agile as he would be in his late forties and fifties. Same with most great ones really, Elvis, as great as he was, got stronger as a singer, better range, depth as he went along. Still, most rock aficionados regard his best the first sides he did when his voice was still thin and when he himself thought he was a lousy ballad singer. Artististic merit and skillful rendering are really two different things.

leadline said:

Prince surpassed Jimi decades ago in his guitar skills. Perhaps if Jimi lived as long as Prince, he would have reached Prince's level. I think some of you just like sayin' Jimi is king for the sake of saying it. Prince had 30 more years than Jimi to perfect his craft, and he could do MANY things on guitar Jimi could not do, Prince's playing was much more colorful and precise.

Prince played ALL styles of playing and ALL styles of music, Jimi existed in a pretty narrow channel, Prince was indeed inspired by Jimi, but he took it to a completely different level.

Red House

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2_2HCWjSVI

Purple House

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txINFvta2Xg

The winner? Prince, hands down. Listen to that precision, listen to that color, listen to the varying styles, there is just so much more to Prince's playing than Jimi was capable of at his peak, perhaps given another 30 years, maybe.

although i think p passed jimi, i still have to say there has always been something epic and godlike to seeing jimi onstage, all the freakishness and talent and passion amalgamated he was like no one else. His playing overshadowed so many things he did well.

leadline said: