Every time Ive seen prince being asked about his influences its always james brown sly stone maybe stevie but what about the beatles the stones zeppelin hendrix etc. Also when I have heard people bring up these name he always denies an influence why? Its it because in the early days he was accused of selling out to a white rock market?

At one time or another, he has played songs by all the rock performers you name. I wouldn't call that denying them.

I heard Prince say Jimi once on BET. When the Musicology album was coming out. When asked basically his influences. He goes "All the greats, James, Sly, Earth Wind And Fire, Jimi, Carlos Santana, all of them."

Yes I have heard him mention Jimi Hendrix and the others, Prince has never shown and denial of ather artists because of race. Shame on you!

But I have to say early in Prince's carrer Prince did deny listening to Jimi in an interveiw in about 1980. Actually in that particular interveiw Prince showed a little disrepect towards Jimi. Saying he didn't listen to that type of music or whatever. Cuz the guy doing the interveiw was saying how Prince came off like Jimi on stage. So I guess Prince got upset. Also Prince says "Well he's DEAD isn't he." I thought that was fucked up.

Dayclear said:

Whats race got to do with it lasts time I looked jimi was black.

rolling said:

Cause his ROCK came from P-FUNK, then Jimi.....

rolling said:

I was thinking the same thing.

How about Joni Mitchell ???

She was an influence.....


I dont think its about color but about personal choice ....

Prince has been denying his rock n roll influences since the early 90's. In the early days (78-88) Prince was all about bringing black and white together - black and white people, black and white music, etc. It was beautiful. By the time the early 90s came around that changed considerably. I think that is b/c Prince had been to a fairly large degree abandoned by the black audience in the latter half of the 80's. (No, I'm not saying Prince had no black fans in the 2nd half of the 80's.) Black audiences felt, rightly or wrongly, abandoned by him. They felt he had stopped making black music and was courting the white music press and white music fans. This hurt Prince. There was the famous quote of a Paisley Park staffer who said Prince was tired of going into black clubs and not hearing his music played. So he has been downplaying any white influences on his music, playing Essence Fest, writing songs like "Musicology" and "Black Sweat", and changing the original racial make up of his band from very mixed to almost all black - all in an effort to turn on the black music community. Dr. Fink has said as much about Prince.

That's why I still say the coolest time to be a Prince fan was the DIRTY MIND/CONTROVERSY/1999 era. Prince's audiences were such a melting pot. (Black, white Puerto Rican everybody just a freakin, good times were rollin') And that was very groundbreaking for those days - and very cool.

does this hav 2 b a race thing?? eyem jus sayin

LinnLM1 said:

hence one of the reasons 4 creating the black album

Prince did an interview with Larry King at the end of 1999 in which he professed his love for rock music. I believe that Prince's main influences (meaning the ones he started out listening to) are R&B performers. It only makes sense that they would be the first to come to mind.

Why does rock=white?

JuliePurplehead said:

There u have it.....

Cause he has black-pride. Maybe.

I think he got compared to jimi hendrix a lot during the PR era. I think prince purposely did a 180 2 show people he could do it all. Prince got played on a lot of rock stations when ATWIAD first came out. Ever since that time he went further away from that except 4 sign and TGE...

nevermind... forget what i said...
[Edited 7/22/08 19:16pm]

bla bla bla...You guys act like Tony Orlando didn't add a sliver...grow up!

the prince dirty mind/controversy/1999 era he kept building and striving on his sound and image. the new wave/rock/pop was blended together with such a level of genious. it was a fascinating time. he brought 2gether whites, pr, black people..etc

LinnLM1 said:

I ve seen this type of conversation come up several times on the org over the years and usually I have said pretty much what you just said and I believe it and I dug that period the best but alsao maybe cuz it was during my adolescence but really I think he was at his peak then coincidently. Anyways I know many people here or at least a few will argue against you andd say na na he was always like that but really I believe you are on the right trtack about this.

I think Prince said he likes Fleetwood Mac

Rinluv said:

It was very fucked up. I remember reading that when it came out. That was one time where I thought P was tripping. He sounded like he was high almost saying that way out shit. Dez after reading that was probably like "Huh?". Prince played the game a little bit trying to downplay Hendrix all the while he was biting visually off of Jimi. All of this was before PR of course. THEN folks REALLY started to clown Prince on imitating Jimi. Especailly in the rock mags like Creem and Circus. Everytime they ran a pic of Prince, they either mentioned Jimi underneath the pic or they just flat out ran a pic of Jimi next to P's picture to show how similar the two were dressed, the same poses, facial expressions, etc. Then after I think P got more confident, THEN he started giving props to Jimi.

jasmine69 said:

My judgement of you was correct all along, of what your intentions were.

jasmine69 said:

People like you really shouldnt be here cuz your just here to hate plse take it elsewhere.

OskarKristio2 said:

Bravo!

jasmine69 said:

are you some kind of strange weirdo? you start several threads about Prince's height and shoe size and then call him garbage, he's garbage but you're still here, you still take the time to logon on a site dedicated to him?

Gosh, the Internet is full of creepy creeps.

jasmine69 said:

Is this supposed to be sarcasm? Some kind of joke?

jasmine69 said:

They even say how ugly inside and out Mani is.