I don't have to witness to you all - we know that Prince is a hell of a guitar player.

IMO ... most of the world doesn't. Pop star yes, but great guitarist ... not so much. (and that's from seeing teachers and students over the years all give me the "You like Prince?" look when I'm playing one of his tunes or telling them to check out his music).

I had the opportunity to write a guest post for a Seattle music studio in their "Discover a Guitarist" series. There have been some great musicians covered already, so I decided to hip all those rock and blues guys to Prince.

www.deftdigits.com

I found some cool videos for the article that show him playing in all his live, tear-it up, glory.

The article covers how I got into Prince, some of the joy and heartache of being a guitar playing Prince fan, info on his guitars/gear (Most of that was gleened from the limited info you find from music mags, old pics, interviews, etc.) and the things he does that makes it hard being a Prince fan (like threatening suit on guitar tab sites to remove user created tab of his songs)

It's just a fan piece with some humor and candid points about one of our favorite musicians.

Check it out guys and let me know what you think, post on that site or here. Share your Prince guitar knowledge with me. I

Cool article!

I find it strange that after Bambi, Why you Wanna Treat me so Bad, Jack U Off, Little Red Corvette, Let's Go Crazy, Computer Blue, Purple Rain, U Got the Look, The Cross, I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man, Joy in Repitition, Peach, Pink Cashmere, Damned if I Do, Fury, Etc that it would still be necessay for people to 'discover' Prince as a guitarist. But I guess some folks are a little slow...

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I am also a guitar playing Prince fan and I can relate 2 every word of that article. Well done.

Uptowner said:

I find it strange that after Bambi, Why you Wanna Treat me so Bad, Jack U Off, Little Red Corvette, Let's Go Crazy, Computer Blue, Purple Rain, U Got the Look, The Cross, I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man, Joy in Repitition, Peach, Pink Cashmere, Damned if I Do, Fury, Etc that it would still be necessay for people to 'discover' Prince as a guitarist. But I guess some folks are a little slow...

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I know, right?

Most of what I see at the studio, especially from the younger crowd is "Yeah, the Purple Rain guy". No clue of the back catalog befor PR and only a few of the bigger tunes after.

Great Article. I, too, have always wondered by people question his playing ability. The answer in IMHO is that many of them never got past Purple Rain and don't know anthing else. What a loss.

great article! really well done.

Nice to see somebody writing about Prince's guitar playing. Thanks for posting.

The image shown accompanying the description of the Auesrwald Model C is incorrect, though. That's actually not even an Auerswald, but an Abstract "Kingpin". Prince's "C" does in fact have a single coil and humbucker set-up similar to the Clouds and Symbols.

[img:$uid]http://i906.photobucket.com/albums/ac268/squirrelgrease2009/Guitar/auerswald_model_c.jpg[/img:$uid]

[img:$uid]http://i906.photobucket.com/albums/ac268/squirrelgrease2009/Guitar/AuerswaldmodelC1988HQs-1.jpg[/img:$uid]

i wonder what the 'funk' version of peach is that was mentioned in the article..

I'm not a musician but I know when music moves me, and Prince was on FIRE at Bagleys!

Thanks for including the clips in your article.

Uptowner said:

I find it strange that after Bambi, Why you Wanna Treat me so Bad, Jack U Off, Little Red Corvette, Let's Go Crazy, Computer Blue, Purple Rain, U Got the Look, The Cross, I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man, Joy in Repitition, Peach, Pink Cashmere, Damned if I Do, Fury, Etc that it would still be necessay for people to 'discover' Prince as a guitarist. But I guess some folks are a little slow...

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Slow, dumb, stupid, idiotic, need I go on?

Nice set up/intro to the article. I haven't made it all the way through yet, but it's got some good insights thus far. And I hadn't seen that clip of Cream before. Thanks!

Very Good Job!

'The Cloud Guitar, first seen in “Purple Rain,”'

Funny, I first saw it when it was in it's original form as a bass guitar, played by André Cymone.

^^^^ wow, interesting!

Great read

Damn I miss those aftershows in the early to mid 90's. The main shows were OK, but P seemed a bit unhinged in the aftershows and even a bit aggressive at times, it was awesome. I reckon that's the best rendition of Peach ever!

Thank you!

squirrelgrease said:

^ I talked with Prince's luthier in Minneapolis, who had a chance to play the Aurswald, and he said the action was so incredibly high on P's Model C that he couldn't imagine playing it for very long. This would explain why it was only pulled out for a song or two on the Nude Tour. Prince did bring it out again for that aftershow or whatever it was in NY earlier this year or late last year.

Uptowner said:

I find it strange that after Bambi, Why you Wanna Treat me so Bad, Jack U Off, Little Red Corvette, Let's Go Crazy, Computer Blue, Purple Rain, U Got the Look, The Cross, I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man, Joy in Repitition, Peach, Pink Cashmere, Damned if I Do, Fury, Etc that it would still be necessay for people to 'discover' Prince as a guitarist. But I guess some folks are a little slow...

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I guess it also has a lot to do with the fact that lots of people -real fans aside- don't read any liner notes or credits for an album. So they might think that some guest guitar player does most of the guitar work and -solos.

If that's the case and as long as people haven't seen him live on stage, than I think lots of them think of Prince as "just" a singer who maybe sometimes does some casual licks on guitars and keyboards.

And to be honest: I knew Prince years before I saw him live for the first time and I knew he did a lot of instruments himself.

But until I saw him live performing with my own eys I had no idea he was THAT good.

On any instrument for that matter.

He's just as good a keyboardist as he is a guitar player or drummer. If I were asked who the best guitar player was I've ever seen live (and I've seen bands like G 'n R, Metallica and Aerosmith, who have or had great guitar players as well), than I would say Prince, hands down, no matter what.