Paul Gilbert of MR Big,Racer X fame on Prince as a guitar player :

You mentioned Prince. What are your thoughts on him as a guitarist?

I thought he was a weird guitarist. His funk stuff, if you hear his playing on something like Alphabet St., it's super tight. And he was so harmonically advanced. He heard the "adult chords," you know? But when he'd crank up the distortion and do something like the When Doves Cry intro, I mean, it was great because it was so obviously him. But I remember when it came out I was into Van Halen and guys who really had a technical command of their instrument. And Prince, he was leaking over the lines a little bit, you know what I mean? But that's awesome. I love players like that because you know it's them. They have a real character. For me, the thing about Prince was that he was a ridiculously good singer. One of my favorite songs of his is International Lover, which is this slow shuffle. Talk about being a virtuoso—his vocals on that, it's like Cirque du Soleil. He was such an athlete with his voice.

Wolfie87 said:

So what he's really saying is; Oh yeah, he's ok...but he's really shit. But I have to use my words in the most political correct terms to get away with dignity. Wierd is always a another word for bad or horrible.

I don't think he meant shit,i think that he was into different type of guitar players

I always liked Paul Gilbert. He's one of the few shredders that I can stomach....He's done some great tributes to Jimi Hendrix too.....I thought what he said about P was cool....Nuno Bettencourt, Richie Kotzen, George Lynch, Jake E. Lee and Steve Stevens are big P fans too.

SPYZFAN1 said:

I always liked Paul Gilbert. He's one of the few shredders that I can stomach....He's done some great tributes to Jimi Hendrix too.....I thought what he said about P was cool....Nuno Bettencourt, Richie Kotzen, George Lynch, Jake E. Lee and Steve Stevens are big P fans too.

i did know about Nuno and Richie beeing fans

thebanishedone said:

SPYZFAN1 said:

I always liked Paul Gilbert. He's one of the few shredders that I can stomach....He's done some great tributes to Jimi Hendrix too.....I thought what he said about P was cool....Nuno Bettencourt, Richie Kotzen, George Lynch, Jake E. Lee and Steve Stevens are big P fans too.

i did know about Nuno and Richie beeing fans

https://www.laweekly.com/the-best-gig-i-ever-saw-steve-stevens/

Stevens talking about the best gig he ever seen and it was Prince

Wolfie87 said:

Wierd is always a another word for bad or horrible.

Phase3 said:

Who?

Remember the song To Be With You By Mr Big? that guy

I think what he wanted to say is he liked Prince's funk rhythm guitar playing,but he thought Prince's lead playing was sloppy compared to players he liked(Eddie Van Halen )

funkbabyandthebabysitters said:

I thought P outplayed Dez on that First Ave/March 1982 show. P was on fire during "Critics".

And i'm not a kind of fan who thinks Prince is always the best at everything,for example

i can admit that Mike Scott kicked Prince's ass on guitar everytime during 1998-1999 period.

That period of time was the only i felt that Prince didn't practice guitar at all.

Considering how he played from day 1 until 1997 and again how great

he was from 2000 until the end on guitar.

Maybe Prince was affected by stuff going on in his private life cause everything he played on guitar 1998-1999 is substandard to what he can really do.

Liste to Prince guesting on guitar on Jungle Love with The Time Las Vegas (1998 or 1999?)

his worst solo ever.

And i find Motherless Child (that many here hail as great ) as a mess.

And not only his playing but for the first and only time during his career

he had the worst guitar sound

(rave era) .His guitar souded like some cheap distorted casio synth.

Sweet Thing with Chaka from London 1998 have terrible guitar sound ,after that listen to Swet Thing from 2007 with Stevie Wonder when he was doing Chaka tribute.He had again beautiful creamy mid range sound.

But after that period starting with 2000 Hit'n'run tour and singles that he was releasing (When We Will B Paid,Habibi...) Prince step up and played many amazing ,fantastic epic guitar solos until the very end.

So Prince was killing Dez on every tour every concert.Even on the 1999 tour when Prince decided to be more of a rhythm guitar player everytime he decided to solo he played great.

Listen to Prince guitar solo on Lady Cab Driver (29 or 30 november 1982) Dez does the first solo than they go into extended part and Prince plays beautiful melodic Santana influenced guitar solo.

Also let's not forget that Prince was playing solos on Get It Up and 777 9311 ,those are killer solos.

And that solo on Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad have a shread guitar part that is fast and not easy to play.I recorded a video of myself playing guitar solo from Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad playing along Prince and you can see that to play it you actually need a good picking technique and speed.

You can get my video playing it here : https://easyupload.io/iqgml6

Wolfie87 said:

So what he's really saying is; Oh yeah, he's ok...but he's really shit. But I have to use my words in the most political correct terms to get away with dignity. Wierd is always a another word for bad or horrible.

That's a grim filter to read what the guy said. He did nothing but compliment Prince.

And to think Prince wasn't weird in how he did shit - one should read up on Prince more.

No one was putting their drums through a guitar pedal. Prince did.

Few, if any, were plugging their instruments directly into the soundboard to record. Prince did.

No one was recording albums in a concrete building with nothing on the walls to counter reverb and echo. Prince did.

No one was not worrying about track bleeding, yet when you hear the stems to "Let's Go Crazy", there is bleeding all over the place. Prince did that.

The weirdest thing about Prince was that he just did it. He wasn't always sitting in a posh Paisley Park recording shit to a DAT machine. Even up to 1986/7, he was sorta using rogue recording methods to get songs done. Sure some were more polished and exacting, but plenty were on the fly and "by the seat of our pants" approach. In music, that is weird.

Paul Gilbert is awesome. He's worked so hard to make his playing more vocal-like, I swear he's playing better than every now despite being less shreddy.

And he's right, Prince was never the most technical player in the world but he could be incredibly tight when he needed to be. His lead stuff was generally quite messy but full of personality. No one else plays like him.

ian said:

Paul Gilbert is awesome. He's worked so hard to make his playing more vocal-like, I swear he's playing better than every now despite being less shreddy.

And he's right, Prince was never the most technical player in the world but he could be incredibly tight when he needed to be. His lead stuff was generally quite messy but full of personality. No one else plays like him.

Yeah but the thing is how much technique you need to play something?

Problem with a lot of guitarists is tendency to overplay,not in terms of how many notes they use but how they use them.

Here is a video of Paul Gilbert playing lead on While My Guitar https://www.youtube.com/w...WliruQZ9Bk .Paul is supposed to be a better guitar player than Prince,listen to Pauls solo on the song and tell me who's the man

thebanishedone said:

The thing is, I really don't care what anyone else think or says about Prince and his playing and singing.....I liked it, and that all that matters, to me.

thebanishedone said:

And i'm not a kind of fan who thinks Prince is always the best at everything

Me, niether, but you are at all costs correct in my humble opinion.

I highly recommend the instrumental version of "Days O Wild" from the first NPGMC to prove any Princely guitar.

nayroo2002 said:

thebanishedone said:

And i'm not a kind of fan who thinks Prince is always the best at everything

Me, niether, but you are at all costs correct in my humble opinion.

I highly recommend the instrumental version of "Days O Wild" from the first NPGMC to prove any Princely guitar.

to be honest that version is weak.it sounds attractive because of weird effects but he is only repeating 3 notes lick again and again.

Thats from the Rave Era and the only era his guitar playing was subpar.

thebanishedone said:

And i'm not a kind of fan who thinks Prince is always the best at everything,for example

i can admit that Mike Scott kicked Prince's ass on guitar everytime during 1998-1999 period.

That period of time was the only i felt that Prince didn't practice guitar at all.

Considering how he played from day 1 until 1997 and again how great

he was from 2000 until the end on guitar.

Maybe Prince was affected by stuff going on in his private life cause everything he played on guitar 1998-1999 is substandard to what he can really do.

Liste to Prince guesting on guitar on Jungle Love with The Time Las Vegas (1998 or 1999?)

his worst solo ever.

And i find Motherless Child (that many here hail as great ) as a mess.

And not only his playing but for the first and only time during his career

he had the worst guitar sound

(rave era) .His guitar souded like some cheap distorted casio synth.

Sweet Thing with Chaka from London 1998 have terrible guitar sound ,after that listen to Swet Thing from 2007 with Stevie Wonder when he was doing Chaka tribute.He had again beautiful creamy mid range sound.

But after that period starting with 2000 Hit'n'run tour and singles that he was releasing (When We Will B Paid,Habibi...) Prince step up and played many amazing ,fantastic epic guitar solos until the very end.

So Prince was killing Dez on every tour every concert.Even on the 1999 tour when Prince decided to be more of a rhythm guitar player everytime he decided to solo he played great.

Listen to Prince guitar solo on Lady Cab Driver (29 or 30 november 1982) Dez does the first solo than they go into extended part and Prince plays beautiful melodic Santana influenced guitar solo.

Also let's not forget that Prince was playing solos on Get It Up and 777 9311 ,those are killer solos.

And that solo on Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad have a shread guitar part that is fast and not easy to play.I recorded a video of myself playing guitar solo from Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad playing along Prince and you can see that to play it you actually need a good picking technique and speed.

You can get my video playing it here : https://easyupload.io/iqgml6

Interesting points and expertise.

I prefer his funky/rhythm playing. My fave P guitar solos...Head live (vid on top of speaker), Coachella/Montreux (throughout) and Make it Funky (live guesting with Maceo). Also recently heard the Thieves live solo and impressed.

Do u like these?

jdcxc said:

thebanishedone said:

And i'm not a kind of fan who thinks Prince is always the best at everything,for example

i can admit that Mike Scott kicked Prince's ass on guitar everytime during 1998-1999 period.

That period of time was the only i felt that Prince didn't practice guitar at all.

Considering how he played from day 1 until 1997 and again how great

he was from 2000 until the end on guitar.

Maybe Prince was affected by stuff going on in his private life cause everything he played on guitar 1998-1999 is substandard to what he can really do.

Liste to Prince guesting on guitar on Jungle Love with The Time Las Vegas (1998 or 1999?)

his worst solo ever.

And i find Motherless Child (that many here hail as great ) as a mess.

And not only his playing but for the first and only time during his career

he had the worst guitar sound

(rave era) .His guitar souded like some cheap distorted casio synth.

Sweet Thing with Chaka from London 1998 have terrible guitar sound ,after that listen to Swet Thing from 2007 with Stevie Wonder when he was doing Chaka tribute.He had again beautiful creamy mid range sound.

But after that period starting with 2000 Hit'n'run tour and singles that he was releasing (When We Will B Paid,Habibi...) Prince step up and played many amazing ,fantastic epic guitar solos until the very end.

So Prince was killing Dez on every tour every concert.Even on the 1999 tour when Prince decided to be more of a rhythm guitar player everytime he decided to solo he played great.

Listen to Prince guitar solo on Lady Cab Driver (29 or 30 november 1982) Dez does the first solo than they go into extended part and Prince plays beautiful melodic Santana influenced guitar solo.

Also let's not forget that Prince was playing solos on Get It Up and 777 9311 ,those are killer solos.

And that solo on Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad have a shread guitar part that is fast and not easy to play.I recorded a video of myself playing guitar solo from Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad playing along Prince and you can see that to play it you actually need a good picking technique and speed.

You can get my video playing it here : https://easyupload.io/iqgml6

Interesting points and expertise.

I prefer his funky/rhythm playing. My fave P guitar solos...Head live (vid on top of speaker), Coachella/Montreux (throughout) and Make it Funky (live guesting with Maceo). Also recently heard the Thieves live solo and impressed.

Do u like these?

Yes i do.Head from Controversy tour every version is killer with the extended guitar solo. Head live Washington DC is my favorite.Montreux 2009 is Prince in top form.Make It Funky is plain great.There are 2 different Thieves videos in circulation.i love the one with flamenco like rhythm guitar parts

looby said:

thebanishedone said:

thebanishedone said:

TrivialPursuit said:

Wolfie87 said:

So what he's really saying is; Oh yeah, he's ok...but he's really shit. But I have to use my words in the most political correct terms to get away with dignity. Wierd is always a another word for bad or horrible.

That's a grim filter to read what the guy said. He did nothing but compliment Prince.

And to think Prince wasn't weird in how he did shit - one should read up on Prince more.

No one was putting their drums through a guitar pedal. Prince did.

Few, if any, were plugging their instruments directly into the soundboard to record. Prince did.

No one was recording albums in a concrete building with nothing on the walls to counter reverb and echo. Prince did.

No one was not worrying about track bleeding, yet when you hear the stems to "Let's Go Crazy", there is bleeding all over the place. Prince did that.

The weirdest thing about Prince was that he just did it. He wasn't always sitting in a posh Paisley Park recording shit to a DAT machine. Even up to 1986/7, he was sorta using rogue recording methods to get songs done. Sure some were more polished and exacting, but plenty were on the fly and "by the seat of our pants" approach. In music, that is weird.

Are you sure? Mike Rutherford from Genesis has done some pretty interesting things over the years.

Gilbert is entitled to his opinion.

Pearl Jam guitarists have said Prince is the best they have ever seen. Vernon Reid, Gary Clark, Lionel Loueke, Slash, Tom Morello and other guitarists have all professed their love for Prince's guitar.