Ron Wood, guitarist for The Rolling Stones & The Faces, speaks fondly of Prince in his autobiography, Ronnie, released in the U.S. on October 30th. Below are some excerpts:

"In October 1981, a then unknown soul phenomenon opened for the Stones at the L.A. Coliseum. Charlie [Watts] said, You have to listen to this guy before he becomes famous.' And when Charlie says that, the rest of us take notice...

"On Charlie's say-so, we gave this little rocker his first break. When he stepped out onstage we were all - especially Keith - a bit surprised because he was wearing a raincoat & stockings. 'That's the trouble of conferring a title on yourself before you've proved it,' said Keith. The crowd was a bit surprised too and started lobbing fruit & vegetables at the guy. But it quickly became clear that this guy had something special. He brought so much vavavoom to the stage..."

"Five years later, Sting and I were with Prince - playing 'Miss You' at Wembley Arena. By then, Prince had a massive entourage & was completely surrounded by a lot of huge black bodyguards. If you you wanted to talk to him, you had to dig through this mound of muscle. What you found when you got to the middle was this very polite little guy. A real gentleman. But the thing that always struck me about him is his love for music. He breathes it & sleeps it

"One of the characteristics of musicians who ooze music is that they have a top-notch band & Prince was no exception. Because this gig was organized so fast, we had no time to rehearse, so when it came to the night, the pint-size pop Prince asked 'What you gonna do when the middle eight comes up?'

I suggested we leave it out. He understood & the band understood - they were real tight & I got on with them as if we'd been playing together for years.

Backstage, I found a little girl who looked totally lost & I asked her if she was all right.....Turns out it was Kylie Minogue...."

"After that, Prince & I would meet every now & then in social circumstances. But it's always the same old problem. We'd bump into each other in a club or at a bar where the music was so loud that normal talking was virtually impossible. We found the only way to defeat this was to sng our conversations to each other..."

The rest of the book, published by St. Martin's Press, is an honest, excellent glimpse into the life of a Rolling Stone, from his childhood, his battles with substance abuse, to his work as an artist & musician with numerous music giants. Wood is an accomplished guitarist & a cool cat, & to fans in the know, so much more than the guy often mistaken for Keith Richards.

vavavoom !


thx! this is a nice read.

That's a great article, thank you. Except, I don't care for writer's saying,
pint-sized. It sounds cute, but Prince is more like a bushel babe.

viewaskew said:

I love that version of Miss You, it's a great jam.
It was one of the first bootleg recordings I heard.
The way they played made the Stones song really sound like a Prince tune.

"Five years later, Sting and I were with Prince - playing 'Miss You' at Wembley Arena.

THIS WAS MY VERY FIRST PRINCE CONCERT - I loved it - although my mum was a tad concerned about the lyric 'see those roaches on the wall, watch those motherfuckers crawl...' But I was naive and didn't really have a clue so she let me sing along anyway...

Ahhh the memories...
xx

I love Woody. Thanx 4 posting.