I was reading older threads about his childhood and his high school newspaper interview indicated that Prince occassionally sang and placed most of its emphasis on his playing instruments.. I also discovered recently that Prince's early band with Pepe has Prince not singing (only playing guitar and piano).

He kind of approached music in the opposite direction of most pop stars. He learned instruments first. I wonder what influenced him to start using his voice as an instrument? I wonder why a kid with a baritone speaking voice decided to use a falsetto? I wonder if his mom being a jazz singer for a brief period had any influence on him (or was it just James Brown, Marvin Gaye etc).

In my opinion, he first showed his true range as a singer when he did the 1999 album because he dumped the falsetto at times. So why did he decide to do songs like "Delirious" in a deeper voice?

Anyhow, the trajectory of his voice is fascinating to me. HIs songwriting and his voice are probably the things that really set him apart from other talented instrumentalists from Minneapolis (andre, Jesse etc).

I know Prince didn't have the loudest voice in the world. But his voice in my opinion had somethings even better--texture, expressive versatility, interpretative ability, phrasing, sensuality, threatics and control.

Listening to him cover others' songs in the Piano and Microphone tour ( Heroes, Use Me, Waiting inVain) and make them his own both in terms of arrangement and vocalization, he could have been a fine interpretive style singer.(Sinatra by the way was also good at this, but in a very different way.)

[Edited 12/30/16 22:30pm]

If I'm remembering correctly, I think P said in an interveiw that it was more difficult on his voice to sing for prolonged periods in his deeper voice so that was why he sang in the falsetto more often.

Not quite sure, but in my opinion Prince found his voice artistically around Prince/Dirty Mind.

Nice thread. Well, I've heard that he really had to be pushed to sing. He was indeed an instrumentalist, and the only way Chris Moon could get him to sing, was to leave him alone in a darkened room, where he would lie down and sing his parts.

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Also, I'm pretty sure he still recorded his vocals in the control room at the board, which is generally unheard of.

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One thing that always gets me is that right from the beginning (first album), he was layering beautiful and complex harmonies.

Giovanni777 said:

Nice thread. Well, I've heard that he really had to be pushed to sing. He was indeed an instrumentalist, and the only way Chris Moon could get him to sing, was to leave him alone in a darkened room, where he would lie down and sing his parts.

.

Also, I'm pretty sure he still recorded his vocals in the control room at the board, which is generally unheard of.

.

One thing that always gets me is that right from the beginning (first album), he was layering beautiful and complex harmonies.

I agree, a great thread and I love his voice, full of warmth and sincerity.

Giovanni777 said:

purplerabbithole said: