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Jimmy Jam on Prince the multi instrumentalist Jimmy Jam < The thing that was cool about it was I remember that class was going to put a band together to play at this school play. I told them I would play drums and Prince said, “I’ll play guitar.” I looked at him because I didn’t know he could play guitar. I thought he only played keyboards. He said, “Yeah, I play the guitar too.” So we get into our first rehearsal and Prince plugged his guitar in and he was unbelievable. He played “Make Me Smile” by Chicago, and the song had a guitar solo. And, if you played the guitar, it was like the go-to guitar solo. It was a great way of showing someone that you could really play the guitar. Prince ripped the solo note-for-note, and I was like, “Oh, my God!” I had no idea he was that good. I said to myself, “This is the baddest dude I’ve ever seen.” We took a break from the rehearsal. I went to the bathroom, and I heard someone playing the drums and they’re tearing them up. I was thinking it was the music teacher Mr. Hamilton. Mr. Hamilton was really good. So I walked out, and it was Prince sitting at the drums. We were twelve or thirteen at this time. If I remember correctly, Prince got his record deal when he was fifteen. We did the whole gig, and I remember a few years afterward someone told me that Prince played all the instruments on his demo. I told them I bet he did because I saw him do it before. | |
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Hey man! Thanks for posting!
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DAMN...My Princey was good back in the day...and he still is now. This Could Be Us But U Be Playin...
You Can Call It The Unexpected Or U Can Call It WOW | |
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Ohh purple joy oh purple bliss oh purple rapture! REAL MUSIC by REAL MUSICIANS - Prince "I kind of wish there was a reason for Prince to make the site crash more" ~~ Ben |
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Listening to it now, and it does have a kick-ass guitar solo at the 2:45 mark. Pretty impressive if P played it note for note. | |
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hopefularranger said: Hey man! Thanks for posting!
You are welcome | |
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http://www.waxpoetics.com/features/articles/jimmy-jam-interview
I like the whole article, especially the detailed description, from Jam's perspective of how Prince formed The Time. It's the same story but from a totally different angle. [Edited 8/22/14 15:36pm] | |
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Yes, God definitely blessed Prince with musical talent, and also made him handsome to boot! | |
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The reason i posted is because some orgers like to question his ability on various instruments. I take Jimmy Jams word over some of the org people. | |
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I've never heard anyone say that Prince was not a highly talented musician. Of course he can play the hell out of a number of instruments. But is he a highly talented composer? That's where I get confused. You hear some of his PR era through SOTT era stuff and say of course he's a great composer, but then you hear his 1989-2014 material and say of course not. | |
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'Around the World in a Day' is reminiscent of that Chicago song at the beginning. I get song ideas based off of other songs, too. I imagine that is what was up with Prince and this song.
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There is a guitar solo in Make Me Smile but i recall somewhere reading that the song that your guitar skills were based in Prince's highschool was 25 or 6 to 4 also by Chicago. The song is more well known for its guitar solo and more likely to be the song Jam is being confused with. However Jam has said before that he was a big Chicago fan in highschool so maybe he remembered accurately. | |
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