I'm listening to some live concert bootlegs of Prince's from the "Ultimate Live Experience" era ('95-'96), and by that time Levi Seacer left the band, and I was always thought with Levi leaving the NPG, so went his great rhythm playing and accompaniment but after Prince on a couple of CDs from this era he certainly learned tremendously from Levi and Miko Weaver because his rhythm playing in my opinion isn't as skillful, versatile and varied as those two cats he certainly was stretching and expanding his repetoire as a guitarist and I marvel at how inventively he can make up rhythms and melodys out of some of the most head scratching chords and use of harmonics you would ever hear. For the gear heads can anybody tell me which rhythm guitars he used and if he still uses them.

Don't quite get what you're trying to say here. On one hand you claim Prince was the lesser rhythm player of the 3; then you go on to say how great his playing is????

In my opinion Prince's rhythm guitar playing is technically his best hone(re)d skill. While Levi Seacer & Miko were certainly qualified enough to be great band members they didn't show anything like the level of inventiveness that Prince does in his rhythm playing. Prince has got 10 times the variation in this area than he has compared to playing lead solo.

wickyb said:

Sorry that's bollocks. Forget that comment; I've just watched him tearing it up on Question of U in Tokyo '90!

wickyb said:

thanks for answering my reply wickyb, what i was saying, was that as much as I dig Prince's rhythm playing, i prefer hearing someone like Levi or Miko play the licks. For example when have your heard Prince play "chicken grease" which is sustained 16th notes i.e. Sexy M.F. and the closest I heard was from a bootleg from '95 but that was masked my Sonny T's bass line and Mr. Haye's organ textures.

By that time he was playing almost exclusively his Symbol guitars live.

They're completely custom made, so one's only left to wonder how they do exactly play in your hands judging by the sparse specs that are around in the internet. Let me put it this way though - they're not necessarily cheap.

Miko has commented that he learned almost everything from watching prince play rhythm guitar. He said he would try to copy every lick that he did. Sometimes Miko would play something at a rehearsal and prince would say it sounded great and then enquire where he had picked it up from. Miko would then say that it was actually one of Princes own.

Think that was from a housequake interview.. or at least the link to the interview was on there.

Would it also be fair to say that any bandmembers have a forced discipline; i.e they have to play their part and only improvise when given the nod. Obviously Prince can play 'what he likes' and so has a tendency to move around the arrangement a lot more and be a bit looser. As long as the groove is locked down elsewhere then that's fine. Remember the Gold Experience tour, there was no guitar in the band and Prince played very little guitar himself on the shows.

I think what you're hearing most of the time from Levi & Miko is Prince's instructions, not their own inventions.

wickyb said:

Really? I thought this was the period when he finally set onto mainly playing the guitar on the live shows, and not prancing around the stage. But then again the Gold period was a rather weird one, things didn't work out like they were planned on most fronts.

wickyb said:

Great observation. I think P's rhythm guitar is underrated and one of the best in rock history (with Ike Turner). There is video of P guesting with Maceo that is cool. You can really hear what you're talking about in Small Club. He's almost tutoring Miko on stage.

prince played amazing rhythm guitar during peformance of head on dirty mind-controversy tour

Miko was my favorite rhythym guitarist. I don't agree with your statement that, "...he certainly learned tremendously from Levi and Miko Weaver because his rhythm playing in my opinion isn't as skillful, versatile and varied as those two cats..."

I remember reading an interview with Miko (third link from the very bottom) where they asked how much influence Miko had on Prince's music and he says, "