Ok i know this topic was done to death in the past ,but these days i was watching a lot of live videos of Jesse Johnson and i just dont understand how can anyone say

that Jesse is better guitar player than Prince?

Jesse always play the same box pentatonic solos that sound like he is playing on auto pilot cliched blues patterns without even listening what is going on with the chord changes in the song.

He sounds like Ernie Isley on a bad day.

Prince plays blues licks but that was only a small part of what he did on guitar.

Prince played all kind of crazy stuff and runs on guitar that dont have any cliches and it did sound like Prince understands harmonic changes in the song much better than Jesse.

The only time Prince didnt sound like what he is doing on guitar was only sometimes

on his fusion jazz rock stuff.

And dont get me wrong i dont think Prince is a guy who can do no wrong.

i think that during Rave era Prince totally sucked on lead guitar. An

example of that is Prince and

Morris Day and The Time live in Las Vegas 1999 when Prince played guitar solo

on Jungle Love that night his solo was terrible and one of his worst guitar solos ever.

But listen to Prince soloing on guitar on Jungle Love in the 2000's

he is smoking Jesse with what he played(Coachella version of Jungle Love for example).

I want to say that i love Jesses music and his voice,but regarding guitar playing even though he have awsome guitar sound,nice bendings and vibrato but he aint even close to Prince in my opinion.

Not a player myself, but am a huge fan of players. I consider SRV one of the best and what he has in common with Prince is musicality. Jesse is awesome but I think he is missing some extra gear Prince had.

Wolfie87 said:

But Jesse played that blues guitar on If The Kid Can't Make you Come. And it breaks my heart when you guys told me that Prince couldn't keep up with that sound that Jesse supposedly was making on that song. That could possibly be one of my favorite arrangements by Prince and he wasn't even featured on guitar

There is a slow version of She's Always In My Hair from 2000 from one of the Hitnrun tour aftershows.check out the bluesy intro Prince plays at the beginning.

Dalia11 said:

Competition, competition, competition. It has to stop!

It's a guy thing...

There's no contest.

Prince for the win.

Jesse is best in The Time because you have to think of context with bands.

Jesse can play well but he repeats licks.

Jesse, if he is too egoed out to play in The Time could maybe join Ready For The World.

[Edited 10/11/20 13:24pm]

What a tired topic.

Rock n Roll Hall of Fame all star jam with Jeff Lyne, Tom Petty, and Steve Winwood - and PRINCE on guitar doing "While My Guitar Gently Weeps"

Everyone else sit down - CASE CLOSED

AMERICA1ST said:

What a tired topic.

Rock n Roll Hall of Fame all star jam with Jeff Lyne, Tom Petty, and Steve Winwood - and PRINCE on guitar doing "While My Guitar Gently Weeps"

Everyone else sit down - CASE CLOSED

Winner, Prince!

Now, I can go back to my nap.

Both are/were very skilled but let's get real...neither could really lay a finger on Jimi, Albert King, SRV and dozens of other Blues guitarists.

homesquid said:

Both are/were very skilled but let's get real...neither could really lay a finger on Jimi, Albert King, SRV and dozens of other Blues guitarists.

I used to think that until the night I stood about 5 feet from Prince and his guitar during an aftershow in the Kodak Theatre

AMERICA1ST said:

homesquid said:

Both are/were very skilled but let's get real...neither could really lay a finger on Jimi, Albert King, SRV and dozens of other Blues guitarists.

I used to think that until the night I stood about 5 feet from Prince and his guitar during an aftershow in the Kodak Theatre

Well I sulte and respect your experience....but Prince is not in the top 10 guiratists in any poll, list, chart, etc...and I love me some Prince...but he doesn't need to be the best in everything and he's not. Peace and love.

AMERICA1ST said:

What a tired topic.

Rock n Roll Hall of Fame all star jam with Jeff Lyne, Tom Petty, and Steve Winwood - and PRINCE on guitar doing "While My Guitar Gently Weeps"

Everyone else sit down - CASE CLOSED

And while that was iconic (I think the song's chord changes and arrangement added to the nuance of the ensuing soloing by Prince), Prince really pulled some typical guitar solo tricks for his time on stage. He did it well, but every section was stuff we've heard other people do before. His personal vibrato, showmanship and one-up-ness sorta made you not notice, though.

There's some poetry to that, because for solos like "Little Red Corvette," he took sections of Dez's solo or whatever and made the solo we now know. He often took parts of one song and used them for something else (as we've learned listening to outtakes on 1999 and SOTT). So for him to take different rock n' roll guitar tricks and fuse them together like Frankenstein makes sense.

homesquid said: