leadline said:

Prince surpassed Jimi decades ago in his guitar skills. Perhaps if Jimi lived as long as Prince, he would have reached Prince's level. I think some of you just like sayin' Jimi is king for the sake of saying it. Prince had 30 more years than Jimi to perfect his craft, and he could do MANY things on guitar Jimi could not do, Prince's playing was much more colorful and precise.

Prince played ALL styles of playing and ALL styles of music, Jimi existed in a pretty narrow channel, Prince was indeed inspired by Jimi, but he took it to a completely different level.

Red House

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2_2HCWjSVI

Purple House

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txINFvta2Xg

The winner? Prince, hands down. Listen to that precision, listen to that color, listen to the varying styles, there is just so much more to Prince's playing than Jimi was capable of at his peak, perhaps given another 30 years, maybe.

I thought you were going for the ’87 New Morning rendition of it.
If you want to play the game, Prince was closer to 27.

Not fair to show Jimi making an arse of himself. This smells like bad drugs.
Verbose without saying much, which is not representative of Jimi's genius.

Not a fan of the 1999 version, I'd rather go with "The Ride", which through the years has regularly been
a showcase of Prince's mastery of nuances. The version I'm posting is quite exceptional...
This is going to shut up for good any philistine pretending SKipper relied too much on his pedals.

bonatoc said:

leadline said:

Prince surpassed Jimi decades ago in his guitar skills. Perhaps if Jimi lived as long as Prince, he would have reached Prince's level. I think some of you just like sayin' Jimi is king for the sake of saying it. Prince had 30 more years than Jimi to perfect his craft, and he could do MANY things on guitar Jimi could not do, Prince's playing was much more colorful and precise.

Prince played ALL styles of playing and ALL styles of music, Jimi existed in a pretty narrow channel, Prince was indeed inspired by Jimi, but he took it to a completely different level.

Red House

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2_2HCWjSVI

Purple House

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txINFvta2Xg

The winner? Prince, hands down. Listen to that precision, listen to that color, listen to the varying styles, there is just so much more to Prince's playing than Jimi was capable of at his peak, perhaps given another 30 years, maybe.

I thought you were going for the ’87 New Morning rendition of it.
If you want to play the game, Prince was closer to 27.

Not fair to show Jimi making an arse of himself. This smells like bad drugs.
Verbose without saying much, which is not representative of Jimi's genius.

Not a fan of the 1999 version, I'd rather go with "The Ride", which through the years has regularly been
a showcase of Prince's mastery of nuances. The version I'm posting is quite exceptional...
This is going to shut up for good any philistine pretending SKipper relied too much on his pedals.

No need to post, won't convince real guitarists of anything, I saw better players the other night at Buddy Guy's Legends. Can't understand you Orgers' obsession with proving to non-fans and critics

your opinions about the little fella, it's downright unhealthy, no one cares and why do you want them to do so? Might be time to call up that shrink in Beverly Hills, or wherever you reside, you know the one...

I Love You Man!

You have a BRAIN!!!! and you use it Well!!! Right On!

Musician9 said:

JIMI by a country mile and further...

it is also my opinion that if you're not a musician and especially not a guitarist, you should ignore this blog because your tastes and feelings are based on your utter hero worship and obsession with all things Prince, and not based on actual fact and knowledge, just sayin'...

having said that I am a superfan of both, not obsessed, and I own every record released by both artists barring a few of the recent boots of Prince material which I seriously doubt will effect my judgment here and the upcoming Jimi release Both Sides Of The Sky.

Firstly, we need to look at the Orger's original question, which is who was better at age 27?

Jimi died at that age so his entire opus was completed, not released, because when you're dead you can no longer create music.

In 1970 Jimi had mastered blues, rock in all its forms at the time, RnB, had begun adding funk into his repertoire and was dabbling in jazz (the so-called Hendrix chord is one found often in jazz). Had he lived, no doubt he would have embraced the entire funk genre and would have recorded jazz with Miles and Mcloughlin among others, he was already heading that way musically.

when Jimi died he was actively recording and performing live on a regular basis, there were no proper tours in his day, just scheduled shows whenever and wherever.

Prince at 27 was not touring, was recording actively and filming a movie. With 7 released albums at this point, I don't care about the side projects, not one of them was a pure Rock 'n' Roll record, not even Purple Rain. Prince was mainly a funk guitarist, who dabbled in rock occasionally, but his version of Rock is very different from Jimi's and other Classic Rock artists.

Secondly, Rock is largely, though not always, based on riffs, and Prince is not a good riff composer, maybe in funk, but one chord repetition is hardly skillful. I dislike laying funk because it hardly ever goes anywhere, it's just monotonous groovin'. Prince is a marvelous composer overall, no disagreement there, but we're talking guitar skills and every thing that goes with it

how can you compete with Jimi when every single song the man ever played had guitars in them as the main instrument and Prince's composition's do not? Prince clearly doesn't write on the guitar much (by the way, I'm a guitarist) and the vast majority of his songs are written on and for piano and keyboards, like a POP artist, not a ROCK one. Prince doesn't play like a rock guitarist no think like one at 27, it's merely an embellishment to songs.

At 27, Prince rarely played the blues, and even when he did it's sort of a vamp, because he grew up influenced by Funk. So all I hear on Prince records up to the age of 27 is 80 percent funk, 20 percent rock, so he cant even be compared to Jimi.

At 27, Jimi was already lauded as the best guitarist of his generation by virtually everybody in music, while nobody thought of Prince as such in the summer of '85 when he turned 27. Instead he was a POP star and talented multi-instrumentalist. And I'm fairly certain Prince never thought he could play like Hendrix, besides copying his clothes, facial expressions, psychedelic imagery etc, and I do hear the Santana influence in playing as he admits.

Thirdly, based on hat Jimi achieved from the release of hist first album to his untimely death and/or murder, (yes, I went there) with only 3 released albums, one of them a double LP, his legend was already enshrined I the music world, so God only knows what directions he would have gone in, impossible to know.

But one factor that puts this trivial argument to bed is the fat that every year there is an event called the Experience Hendrix Tour which features numerous guitarists from any and every genre of music who tour for a couple or three months around the country and world playing Jimi's timeless music. You will never see or hear of an Experience Prince tour featuring only his rock songs because there aren't that many compared to the rest of his ouvre, because he was a op artist and not a guitar god.

I've never read anywhere or met any guitarist who said his influence was Prince. And that's because he wasn't an innovator, few are, but guess what? Jimi was one of them, not Prince. He was an innovator in the field of Pop music and composition, but we're not talking that point, we're talking guitar. I can detect the non-musician fans on this blog by them constantly bringing up Prince's other instruments, or the number of albums he recorded, or that Clapton or Vai said this or that because you cannot argue about an instrument you do not play, you can only speak as a fan, or by the emotion it gives you personally.

But guess what, the rest of the world does not agree with you. You cannot even fathom the number of guitar clinics, documentaries and fan tutorials dedicated to Jimi on YouTube, its virtually infinite with more added yearly as new and young guitarists discover his music for the first time. Having Lenny Kravitz and Bruno Mars as the artists honoring you at an awards show is bloody sad. That's who stepped up, or were chosen to honor Prince, pretty lame in my book. No world famous classic rock ions were asking to lay Purple Rain or Let's Go Crazy, the same 2 songs played ad nauseum by most people because they're among the few solid guitar songs that were known by Prince.

Here there's a Hendrix tribute, the line is down the street and then some by guitarists itching to show off their chops. Learning Jimi's grooves and phrasing is difficult and requires years of laying, whereas Prince's licks are quite simple and easy to emulate. Just a natural fact, like the man himself sings in It.

In closing, there's no debate about the age of 27 here. Of course many will disagree, you're beyond fans, you're disciples, whereas I choose not to worship humans, especially dead ones.

I loved Prince's music, from 1999 to the 90's when it got quite iffy for me, still I listened to it all at least once. Jimi dies the year I was born, so like a lot of kids my age we got into him in our teens when we formed garage bands. Eventually you go to the source so you start listening to Jimi, Zeppelin and The Who for ideas even though we had the 80's hard rock scene as ours. I never recall referencing my Prince collection for ideas in that regard, it was just good Pop music with strains of rock 'n' roll peppered in it, but course, that's what made Purple Rain unique at the time, but it could never displace my Maiden, Priest, Kinks, Van Halen, and ZZ Top records for genre purity, come on.

P.S. Jimi was not a drug addict, never did heroin, though he was most likely addicted to sleep meds at the end (sound like someone you Orgers know?). We know no for a fat that his gangster manager Michael Jeffries fed him acid to keep him complacent and dependent because he was robbing Jimi blind. The sloppy playing mentioned here mes mainly from his last year when Jeffries booked him in ludicrous gigs that might be one day in Miami, the next day Chicago, then the following day in LA.

I'm not playing the he was an angel card for Jimi, but he wasn't constantly high like people claim. The night he died his stomach and lungs were filled with red wine, and the only meds present were sleeping pills. We now know that basically Jimi was waterboarded with a a gallon of wine, either by Jeffries or others, who immediately claimed the insurance policy on Jimi to pay off his underworld debts. This subject is both fascinating and sad as many ex-girlfriends of Jimi also died within years of him under mysterious circumstances. Jeffries died in a plane crash in '73, so good riddance to the man who ended a legends career thinking him worth more dead than alive.

Gear wise, all Jimi used was a wah pedal, a fuzz face, a uni-vibe w/expession pedal and an Octavio pedal, and that's it. An overdriven Marshall stack, a coiled wire with a Strat or Flying V and loads of imagination. He basically used the fuzz as a boost, but not always. A simple rig if there ever was one.

However in the studio, he was known to use a Fender Twin Reverb and a Bassman amp.

Prince's rig to me seems like combining every BOSS pedal known too man at once, including the cheater's special, Compression.

Alright you haters, let it rip...

Litho-'Faye' Pridgon

Harlem 'Fly Girl'

lonelyalien said:

Musician9 said:

well, smoking weed and snorting coke are two very different animals, but what I meant to convey is that he wasn't drugged out constantly like the false narrative has been until the last several years or so. I once read a comment on a YouTube page by someone claiming to have been a roadie or some other person in the Jimi organization, anyway, he claimed to have witnessed firsthand how Jeffries would spike anything Jimi drank with uppers, downers, ludes, whatever was there to keep Jimi placid and open to influence.

I feel that's why he couldn't get his fourth album releeased, we know he had more than enough material, it's that Jeffries kept him on the road because of course that's guaranteed money in hand, paid after every show. It's a shame, the whole end of the 60's vibe was dark and negative, of course culminating with the events at the Stones free concert at Altamont. Seemed like a dark cloud was over every popular music act. But different era and we can only imagine what those artists were truly experiencing then when most were in their twenties an dthe music business as we know it was in its infancy. Hell, there weren't even proper tours then, just one-off shows...

In a jimi dvd ive got with various interviews clapton jagger little richard etc the lady who was his girlfriend before he was famous cant remember her name said something like jimi had to take double what anyone else did he was abnormal to begin with and it would just bring him back round to being normal. I wish I could remember her name black lady ah hang on I think it was fey something.

[Edited 1/15/18 18:05pm]

Musician9 said:

JIMI by a country mile and further...

it is also my opinion that if you're not a musician and especially not a guitarist, you should ignore this blog because your tastes and feelings are based on your utter hero worship and obsession with all things Prince, and not based on actual fact and knowledge, just sayin'...

having said that I am a superfan of both, not obsessed, and I own every record released by both artists barring a few of the recent boots of Prince material which I seriously doubt will effect my judgment here and the upcoming Jimi release Both Sides Of The Sky.

Firstly, we need to look at the Orger's original question, which is who was better at age 27?

Jimi died at that age so his entire opus was completed, not released, because when you're dead you can no longer create music.

In 1970 Jimi had mastered blues, rock in all its forms at the time, RnB, had begun adding funk into his repertoire and was dabbling in jazz (the so-called Hendrix chord is one found often in jazz). Had he lived, no doubt he would have embraced the entire funk genre and would have recorded jazz with Miles and Mcloughlin among others, he was already heading that way musically.

when Jimi died he was actively recording and performing live on a regular basis, there were no proper tours in his day, just scheduled shows whenever and wherever.

Prince at 27 was not touring, was recording actively and filming a movie. With 7 released albums at this point, I don't care about the side projects, not one of them was a pure Rock 'n' Roll record, not even Purple Rain. Prince was mainly a funk guitarist, who dabbled in rock occasionally, but his version of Rock is very different from Jimi's and other Classic Rock artists.

Secondly, Rock is largely, though not always, based on riffs, and Prince is not a good riff composer, maybe in funk, but one chord repetition is hardly skillful. I dislike laying funk because it hardly ever goes anywhere, it's just monotonous groovin'. Prince is a marvelous composer overall, no disagreement there, but we're talking guitar skills and every thing that goes with it

how can you compete with Jimi when every single song the man ever played had guitars in them as the main instrument and Prince's composition's do not? Prince clearly doesn't write on the guitar much (by the way, I'm a guitarist) and the vast majority of his songs are written on and for piano and keyboards, like a POP artist, not a ROCK one. Prince doesn't play like a rock guitarist no think like one at 27, it's merely an embellishment to songs.

At 27, Prince rarely played the blues, and even when he did it's sort of a vamp, because he grew up influenced by Funk. So all I hear on Prince records up to the age of 27 is 80 percent funk, 20 percent rock, so he cant even be compared to Jimi.

At 27, Jimi was already lauded as the best guitarist of his generation by virtually everybody in music, while nobody thought of Prince as such in the summer of '85 when he turned 27. Instead he was a POP star and talented multi-instrumentalist. And I'm fairly certain Prince never thought he could play like Hendrix, besides copying his clothes, facial expressions, psychedelic imagery etc, and I do hear the Santana influence in playing as he admits.

Thirdly, based on hat Jimi achieved from the release of hist first album to his untimely death and/or murder, (yes, I went there) with only 3 released albums, one of them a double LP, his legend was already enshrined I the music world, so God only knows what directions he would have gone in, impossible to know.

But one factor that puts this trivial argument to bed is the fat that every year there is an event called the Experience Hendrix Tour which features numerous guitarists from any and every genre of music who tour for a couple or three months around the country and world playing Jimi's timeless music. You will never see or hear of an Experience Prince tour featuring only his rock songs because there aren't that many compared to the rest of his ouvre, because he was a op artist and not a guitar god.

I've never read anywhere or met any guitarist who said his influence was Prince. And that's because he wasn't an innovator, few are, but guess what? Jimi was one of them, not Prince. He was an innovator in the field of Pop music and composition, but we're not talking that point, we're talking guitar. I can detect the non-musician fans on this blog by them constantly bringing up Prince's other instruments, or the number of albums he recorded, or that Clapton or Vai said this or that because you cannot argue about an instrument you do not play, you can only speak as a fan, or by the emotion it gives you personally.

But guess what, the rest of the world does not agree with you. You cannot even fathom the number of guitar clinics, documentaries and fan tutorials dedicated to Jimi on YouTube, its virtually infinite with more added yearly as new and young guitarists discover his music for the first time. Having Lenny Kravitz and Bruno Mars as the artists honoring you at an awards show is bloody sad. That's who stepped up, or were chosen to honor Prince, pretty lame in my book. No world famous classic rock ions were asking to lay Purple Rain or Let's Go Crazy, the same 2 songs played ad nauseum by most people because they're among the few solid guitar songs that were known by Prince.

Here there's a Hendrix tribute, the line is down the street and then some by guitarists itching to show off their chops. Learning Jimi's grooves and phrasing is difficult and requires years of laying, whereas Prince's licks are quite simple and easy to emulate. Just a natural fact, like the man himself sings in It.

In closing, there's no debate about the age of 27 here. Of course many will disagree, you're beyond fans, you're disciples, whereas I choose not to worship humans, especially dead ones.

I loved Prince's music, from 1999 to the 90's when it got quite iffy for me, still I listened to it all at least once. Jimi dies the year I was born, so like a lot of kids my age we got into him in our teens when we formed garage bands. Eventually you go to the source so you start listening to Jimi, Zeppelin and The Who for ideas even though we had the 80's hard rock scene as ours. I never recall referencing my Prince collection for ideas in that regard, it was just good Pop music with strains of rock 'n' roll peppered in it, but course, that's what made Purple Rain unique at the time, but it could never displace my Maiden, Priest, Kinks, Van Halen, and ZZ Top records for genre purity, come on.

P.S. Jimi was not a drug addict, never did heroin, though he was most likely addicted to sleep meds at the end (sound like someone you Orgers know?). We know no for a fat that his gangster manager Michael Jeffries fed him acid to keep him complacent and dependent because he was robbing Jimi blind. The sloppy playing mentioned here mes mainly from his last year when Jeffries booked him in ludicrous gigs that might be one day in Miami, the next day Chicago, then the following day in LA.

I'm not playing the he was an angel card for Jimi, but he wasn't constantly high like people claim. The night he died his stomach and lungs were filled with red wine, and the only meds present were sleeping pills. We now know that basically Jimi was waterboarded with a a gallon of wine, either by Jeffries or others, who immediately claimed the insurance policy on Jimi to pay off his underworld debts. This subject is both fascinating and sad as many ex-girlfriends of Jimi also died within years of him under mysterious circumstances. Jeffries died in a plane crash in '73, so good riddance to the man who ended a legends career thinking him worth more dead than alive.

Gear wise, all Jimi used was a wah pedal, a fuzz face, a uni-vibe w/expession pedal and an Octavio pedal, and that's it. An overdriven Marshall stack, a coiled wire with a Strat or Flying V and loads of imagination. He basically used the fuzz as a boost, but not always. A simple rig if there ever was one.

However in the studio, he was known to use a Fender Twin Reverb and a Bassman amp.

Prince's rig to me seems like combining every BOSS pedal known too man at once, including the cheater's special, Compression.

Alright you haters, let it rip...

One for the musicians: Jimi Hendrix vs Derek Bailey? (as much as I love Jimi, my money is on Derek)

Kind of illustrates how facile and blinkered these debates tend to be.

P.S The Bruno Mars tribute thing speaks more to the nature of the event, the taste of the organisers and the general state of popular music than it does anything else.

[Edited 1/15/18 8:55am]

she's a great interview and as i said one of the better people in his life. she probably knew all the sides of jimi better than anyone else, she describes how childish he could be as well as how violent, he'd tie her up like loon and have sex with her. I'm not sure if she considered it rape or not, but it sounded wierd, she also said jimi thought he was possessed.

MD431Madcat said:

Litho-'Faye' Pridgon

Harlem 'Fly Girl'

lonelyalien said:

In a jimi dvd ive got with various interviews clapton jagger little richard etc the lady who was his girlfriend before he was famous cant remember her name said something like jimi had to take double what anyone else did he was abnormal to begin with and it would just bring him back round to being normal. I wish I could remember her name black lady ah hang on I think it was fey something.

a.) very few people on here have said that P was a better guitarist at 27. No one is trying to convince you of anything other than their right to be a fan of the dude whose name is on the title of his fanpage.

b.) If Prince fans came on a Jimi Hendricks site and wasted their time trying to convince his fans that Prince was better than yes, you could made that insulting argument. You are being a troll. This is the first time you have ever been on this site and only because you happen to read that some folks don't hold JImi in the same regard. You call yourself a super fan of Prince but basically insult his fans for having opinions, position yourself as someone with superior knowledge, basically state that you are as talented as Prince, and basically state that he is mediocre in a number of different ways and that you haven't enjoyed him since the 90's.. Using two of the most over-rated and overplayed of his guitar playing to support your claim doesn't indicate a super fan to me.

Your opinion is not the truth. I don't think the RRHOF is P's best guitar playing but I don't tell others who feel differently that 'the truth hurts"...

c.) Defending Prince doesn't mean saying he was better than Jimi.

As for professional guitarists/musicians.. who have thrown acclaim Prince's way...

Pearl Jam on Prince--"the greatest guitar player we have ever seen">

ZZ tops Billy Gibbons--"Sensational guitarist" "defying description"

Steve Vai-- (2007, he wasn't being sarcastic--he's complimented him several times)

--Jeff Beck in 2001 called Prince a very gifted guitar player

There are more... many more. Even Miles Davis thought Prince was the shit.

Musician9 said:

bonatoc said:

I thought you were going for the ’87 New Morning rendition of it.
If you want to play the game, Prince was closer to 27.

Not fair to show Jimi making an arse of himself. This smells like bad drugs.
Verbose without saying much, which is not representative of Jimi's genius.

Not a fan of the 1999 version, I'd rather go with "The Ride", which through the years has regularly been
a showcase of Prince's mastery of nuances. The version I'm posting is quite exceptional...
This is going to shut up for good any philistine pretending SKipper relied too much on his pedals.

No need to post, won't convince real guitarists of anything, I saw better players the other night at Buddy Guy's Legends. Can't understand you Orgers' obsession with proving to non-fans and critics

your opinions about the little fella, it's downright unhealthy, no one cares and why do you want them to do so? Might be time to call up that shrink in Beverly Hills, or wherever you reside, you know the one...

[Edited 1/15/18 9:47am]

https://www.dailymotion.c...eo/x5w33zs

Musician9 said:

JIMI by a country mile and further...

it is also my opinion that if you're not a musician and especially not a guitarist, you should ignore this blog because your tastes and feelings are based on your utter hero worship and obsession with all things Prince, and not based on actual fact and knowledge, just sayin'...

having said that I am a superfan of both, not obsessed, and I own every record released by both artists barring a few of the recent boots of Prince material which I seriously doubt will effect my judgment here and the upcoming Jimi release Both Sides Of The Sky.

Firstly, we need to look at the Orger's original question, which is who was better at age 27?

Jimi died at that age so his entire opus was completed, not released, because when you're dead you can no longer create music.

In 1970 Jimi had mastered blues, rock in all its forms at the time, RnB, had begun adding funk into his repertoire and was dabbling in jazz (the so-called Hendrix chord is one found often in jazz). Had he lived, no doubt he would have embraced the entire funk genre and would have recorded jazz with Miles and Mcloughlin among others, he was already heading that way musically.

when Jimi died he was actively recording and performing live on a regular basis, there were no proper tours in his day, just scheduled shows whenever and wherever.

Prince at 27 was not touring, was recording actively and filming a movie. With 7 released albums at this point, I don't care about the side projects, not one of them was a pure Rock 'n' Roll record, not even Purple Rain. Prince was mainly a funk guitarist, who dabbled in rock occasionally, but his version of Rock is very different from Jimi's and other Classic Rock artists.

Secondly, Rock is largely, though not always, based on riffs, and Prince is not a good riff composer, maybe in funk, but one chord repetition is hardly skillful. I dislike laying funk because it hardly ever goes anywhere, it's just monotonous groovin'. Prince is a marvelous composer overall, no disagreement there, but we're talking guitar skills and every thing that goes with it

how can you compete with Jimi when every single song the man ever played had guitars in them as the main instrument and Prince's composition's do not? Prince clearly doesn't write on the guitar much (by the way, I'm a guitarist) and the vast majority of his songs are written on and for piano and keyboards, like a POP artist, not a ROCK one. Prince doesn't play like a rock guitarist no think like one at 27, it's merely an embellishment to songs.

At 27, Prince rarely played the blues, and even when he did it's sort of a vamp, because he grew up influenced by Funk. So all I hear on Prince records up to the age of 27 is 80 percent funk, 20 percent rock, so he cant even be compared to Jimi.

At 27, Jimi was already lauded as the best guitarist of his generation by virtually everybody in music, while nobody thought of Prince as such in the summer of '85 when he turned 27. Instead he was a POP star and talented multi-instrumentalist. And I'm fairly certain Prince never thought he could play like Hendrix, besides copying his clothes, facial expressions, psychedelic imagery etc, and I do hear the Santana influence in playing as he admits.

Thirdly, based on hat Jimi achieved from the release of hist first album to his untimely death and/or murder, (yes, I went there) with only 3 released albums, one of them a double LP, his legend was already enshrined I the music world, so God only knows what directions he would have gone in, impossible to know.

But one factor that puts this trivial argument to bed is the fat that every year there is an event called the Experience Hendrix Tour which features numerous guitarists from any and every genre of music who tour for a couple or three months around the country and world playing Jimi's timeless music. You will never see or hear of an Experience Prince tour featuring only his rock songs because there aren't that many compared to the rest of his ouvre, because he was a op artist and not a guitar god.

I've never read anywhere or met any guitarist who said his influence was Prince. And that's because he wasn't an innovator, few are, but guess what? Jimi was one of them, not Prince. He was an innovator in the field of Pop music and composition, but we're not talking that point, we're talking guitar. I can detect the non-musician fans on this blog by them constantly bringing up Prince's other instruments, or the number of albums he recorded, or that Clapton or Vai said this or that because you cannot argue about an instrument you do not play, you can only speak as a fan, or by the emotion it gives you personally.

But guess what, the rest of the world does not agree with you. You cannot even fathom the number of guitar clinics, documentaries and fan tutorials dedicated to Jimi on YouTube, its virtually infinite with more added yearly as new and young guitarists discover his music for the first time. Having Lenny Kravitz and Bruno Mars as the artists honoring you at an awards show is bloody sad. That's who stepped up, or were chosen to honor Prince, pretty lame in my book. No world famous classic rock ions were asking to lay Purple Rain or Let's Go Crazy, the same 2 songs played ad nauseum by most people because they're among the few solid guitar songs that were known by Prince.

Here there's a Hendrix tribute, the line is down the street and then some by guitarists itching to show off their chops. Learning Jimi's grooves and phrasing is difficult and requires years of laying, whereas Prince's licks are quite simple and easy to emulate. Just a natural fact, like the man himself sings in It.

In closing, there's no debate about the age of 27 here. Of course many will disagree, you're beyond fans, you're disciples, whereas I choose not to worship humans, especially dead ones.

I loved Prince's music, from 1999 to the 90's when it got quite iffy for me, still I listened to it all at least once. Jimi dies the year I was born, so like a lot of kids my age we got into him in our teens when we formed garage bands. Eventually you go to the source so you start listening to Jimi, Zeppelin and The Who for ideas even though we had the 80's hard rock scene as ours. I never recall referencing my Prince collection for ideas in that regard, it was just good Pop music with strains of rock 'n' roll peppered in it, but course, that's what made Purple Rain unique at the time, but it could never displace my Maiden, Priest, Kinks, Van Halen, and ZZ Top records for genre purity, come on.

P.S. Jimi was not a drug addict, never did heroin, though he was most likely addicted to sleep meds at the end (sound like someone you Orgers know?). We know no for a fat that his gangster manager Michael Jeffries fed him acid to keep him complacent and dependent because he was robbing Jimi blind. The sloppy playing mentioned here mes mainly from his last year when Jeffries booked him in ludicrous gigs that might be one day in Miami, the next day Chicago, then the following day in LA.

I'm not playing the he was an angel card for Jimi, but he wasn't constantly high like people claim. The night he died his stomach and lungs were filled with red wine, and the only meds present were sleeping pills. We now know that basically Jimi was waterboarded with a a gallon of wine, either by Jeffries or others, who immediately claimed the insurance policy on Jimi to pay off his underworld debts. This subject is both fascinating and sad as many ex-girlfriends of Jimi also died within years of him under mysterious circumstances. Jeffries died in a plane crash in '73, so good riddance to the man who ended a legends career thinking him worth more dead than alive.

Gear wise, all Jimi used was a wah pedal, a fuzz face, a uni-vibe w/expession pedal and an Octavio pedal, and that's it. An overdriven Marshall stack, a coiled wire with a Strat or Flying V and loads of imagination. He basically used the fuzz as a boost, but not always. A simple rig if there ever was one.

However in the studio, he was known to use a Fender Twin Reverb and a Bassman amp.

Prince's rig to me seems like combining every BOSS pedal known too man at once, including the cheater's special, Compression.

Alright you haters, let it rip...

thebanishedone said:

Musician9 said:

JIMI by a country mile and further...

it is also my opinion that if you're not a musician and especially not a guitarist, you should ignore this blog because your tastes and feelings are based on your utter hero worship and obsession with all things Prince, and not based on actual fact and knowledge, just sayin'...

having said that I am a superfan of both, not obsessed, and I own every record released by both artists barring a few of the recent boots of Prince material which I seriously doubt will effect my judgment here and the upcoming Jimi release Both Sides Of The Sky.

Firstly, we need to look at the Orger's original question, which is who was better at age 27?

Jimi died at that age so his entire opus was completed, not released, because when you're dead you can no longer create music.

In 1970 Jimi had mastered blues, rock in all its forms at the time, RnB, had begun adding funk into his repertoire and was dabbling in jazz (the so-called Hendrix chord is one found often in jazz). Had he lived, no doubt he would have embraced the entire funk genre and would have recorded jazz with Miles and Mcloughlin among others, he was already heading that way musically.

when Jimi died he was actively recording and performing live on a regular basis, there were no proper tours in his day, just scheduled shows whenever and wherever.

Prince at 27 was not touring, was recording actively and filming a movie. With 7 released albums at this point, I don't care about the side projects, not one of them was a pure Rock 'n' Roll record, not even Purple Rain. Prince was mainly a funk guitarist, who dabbled in rock occasionally, but his version of Rock is very different from Jimi's and other Classic Rock artists.

Secondly, Rock is largely, though not always, based on riffs, and Prince is not a good riff composer, maybe in funk, but one chord repetition is hardly skillful. I dislike laying funk because it hardly ever goes anywhere, it's just monotonous groovin'. Prince is a marvelous composer overall, no disagreement there, but we're talking guitar skills and every thing that goes with it

how can you compete with Jimi when every single song the man ever played had guitars in them as the main instrument and Prince's composition's do not? Prince clearly doesn't write on the guitar much (by the way, I'm a guitarist) and the vast majority of his songs are written on and for piano and keyboards, like a POP artist, not a ROCK one. Prince doesn't play like a rock guitarist no think like one at 27, it's merely an embellishment to songs.

At 27, Prince rarely played the blues, and even when he did it's sort of a vamp, because he grew up influenced by Funk. So all I hear on Prince records up to the age of 27 is 80 percent funk, 20 percent rock, so he cant even be compared to Jimi.

At 27, Jimi was already lauded as the best guitarist of his generation by virtually everybody in music, while nobody thought of Prince as such in the summer of '85 when he turned 27. Instead he was a POP star and talented multi-instrumentalist. And I'm fairly certain Prince never thought he could play like Hendrix, besides copying his clothes, facial expressions, psychedelic imagery etc, and I do hear the Santana influence in playing as he admits.

Thirdly, based on hat Jimi achieved from the release of hist first album to his untimely death and/or murder, (yes, I went there) with only 3 released albums, one of them a double LP, his legend was already enshrined I the music world, so God only knows what directions he would have gone in, impossible to know.

But one factor that puts this trivial argument to bed is the fat that every year there is an event called the Experience Hendrix Tour which features numerous guitarists from any and every genre of music who tour for a couple or three months around the country and world playing Jimi's timeless music. You will never see or hear of an Experience Prince tour featuring only his rock songs because there aren't that many compared to the rest of his ouvre, because he was a op artist and not a guitar god.

I've never read anywhere or met any guitarist who said his influence was Prince. And that's because he wasn't an innovator, few are, but guess what? Jimi was one of them, not Prince. He was an innovator in the field of Pop music and composition, but we're not talking that point, we're talking guitar. I can detect the non-musician fans on this blog by them constantly bringing up Prince's other instruments, or the number of albums he recorded, or that Clapton or Vai said this or that because you cannot argue about an instrument you do not play, you can only speak as a fan, or by the emotion it gives you personally.

But guess what, the rest of the world does not agree with you. You cannot even fathom the number of guitar clinics, documentaries and fan tutorials dedicated to Jimi on YouTube, its virtually infinite with more added yearly as new and young guitarists discover his music for the first time. Having Lenny Kravitz and Bruno Mars as the artists honoring you at an awards show is bloody sad. That's who stepped up, or were chosen to honor Prince, pretty lame in my book. No world famous classic rock ions were asking to lay Purple Rain or Let's Go Crazy, the same 2 songs played ad nauseum by most people because they're among the few solid guitar songs that were known by Prince.

Here there's a Hendrix tribute, the line is down the street and then some by guitarists itching to show off their chops. Learning Jimi's grooves and phrasing is difficult and requires years of laying, whereas Prince's licks are quite simple and easy to emulate. Just a natural fact, like the man himself sings in It.

In closing, there's no debate about the age of 27 here. Of course many will disagree, you're beyond fans, you're disciples, whereas I choose not to worship humans, especially dead ones.

I loved Prince's music, from 1999 to the 90's when it got quite iffy for me, still I listened to it all at least once. Jimi dies the year I was born, so like a lot of kids my age we got into him in our teens when we formed garage bands. Eventually you go to the source so you start listening to Jimi, Zeppelin and The Who for ideas even though we had the 80's hard rock scene as ours. I never recall referencing my Prince collection for ideas in that regard, it was just good Pop music with strains of rock 'n' roll peppered in it, but course, that's what made Purple Rain unique at the time, but it could never displace my Maiden, Priest, Kinks, Van Halen, and ZZ Top records for genre purity, come on.

P.S. Jimi was not a drug addict, never did heroin, though he was most likely addicted to sleep meds at the end (sound like someone you Orgers know?). We know no for a fat that his gangster manager Michael Jeffries fed him acid to keep him complacent and dependent because he was robbing Jimi blind. The sloppy playing mentioned here mes mainly from his last year when Jeffries booked him in ludicrous gigs that might be one day in Miami, the next day Chicago, then the following day in LA.

I'm not playing the he was an angel card for Jimi, but he wasn't constantly high like people claim. The night he died his stomach and lungs were filled with red wine, and the only meds present were sleeping pills. We now know that basically Jimi was waterboarded with a a gallon of wine, either by Jeffries or others, who immediately claimed the insurance policy on Jimi to pay off his underworld debts. This subject is both fascinating and sad as many ex-girlfriends of Jimi also died within years of him under mysterious circumstances. Jeffries died in a plane crash in '73, so good riddance to the man who ended a legends career thinking him worth more dead than alive.

Gear wise, all Jimi used was a wah pedal, a fuzz face, a uni-vibe w/expession pedal and an Octavio pedal, and that's it. An overdriven Marshall stack, a coiled wire with a Strat or Flying V and loads of imagination. He basically used the fuzz as a boost, but not always. A simple rig if there ever was one.

However in the studio, he was known to use a Fender Twin Reverb and a Bassman amp.

Prince's rig to me seems like combining every BOSS pedal known too man at once, including the cheater's special, Compression.

Alright you haters, let it rip...

hahaha wow i cant believe what u said and ure still alive lol.so funk is only one chord wamp and it dont need a lot of skill to do that? wow tell that to Sugarfoot Bonner,Jimmy Nolen,Paul Jackson jr... Prince is not a good riff composer? hmm so Bambi,When U Were Mine,Interactive,Chaos And Disorder ,Lets Go Crazy ,Endorphin Machine are not good riffs?ok Jimi was always with guitar,he was there at the evolution of rock guitar.Prince would be just as awesome if he never touched guitar. And Jimi was a drugg addict,he was always high(except in the studio,but he was high sometimes even in the studio.

The guy used a sh1t-ton of words to say practically nothing. After declaring (correctly) that you probably need to be a guitar player to have a legit opinion, he demonstrated a near total lack of understanding about what it takes and means to be a great player,

Yes, hendrix came along at exactlt the right time be considered the best player ever-- because before electric music the guitar did not have the gravitas that Marshal and fender and Les paul delivered.

Like Clapton, hendrix was around and competent--little else.

To say Prince rarely played the blues, or that rhythm is largely (joy in) repetition, or that Purple rain was not a "rock and roll" record are all just silly to the point of the ridiculous.

As for murder,I would be more convinced if he had, as the legendary Derek Smalls once said--choked on "someone elses' vomit."

In case the troll returns, here's to shred him at 11 : Boom!

bonatoc said:

In case the troll returns, here's to shred him at 11 : Boom!

How was your visit to the shrink? Were you so upset that you brought up this blog to him? You're the kind of guy who'd smell Prince's farts then proclaim them the most aromatic in music...

Musician9 said:

bonatoc said:

In case the troll returns, here's to shred him at 11 : Boom!

How was your visit to the shrink? Were you so upset that you brought up this blog to him? You're the kind of guy who'd smell Prince's farts then proclaim them the most aromatic in music...

Congratulations, you recognized yourself.

You're still a long way to know thyself, but that's a start.

We really need to go to the original question which was

"At 27 years old who was a better guitarist prince or hendrix?"

now, Mr. "by the way, I play guitar" Musician9 says:

[Edited 1/18/18 7:46am]

I'm going with Prince.

U take Jimi and I'll take Prince 8 days a weeks.

prince was a jimi fanatic ---- Just stop!

Graycap23 said:

U take Jimi and I'll take Prince 8 days a weeks.