nosajd said:

Hope they find this footage if it exists! https://www.guitarworld.c...y-park-jam

I would love seeing that!

So, this was 94-95-ish?

Never states the timeframe in the article.

On one of the "The Park" boots (can't remember which volume), I believe Prince does a version of Vai's Tender Surrender and so it's plausible that they connected. Only thing is that I dont really remember it sounding like Tender Surrender and so it might have been mislabelled on the boot.

***Partly scratch what I said above....he actually played it on September 30, 2000 at PP. "The Park" series of boots were mostly from 1995.

[Edited 4/8/22 7:27am]

Thanks for sharing!

I'd be interested to know when this took place. According to Vai's tour archive https://www.vai.com/ontheroad/ the first time he played Minneapolis was in 1999. Of course it's entirely possible that Prince could have called Sonny and Michael in at a later date to jam, or that Vai's archive isn't entirely comprehensive.

I would LOVE to see/hear that jam!

jazzz said:

. Could it be that Prince was present somewhere in the Paisley Park building during the jam, but was so intimidated by Vai's playing that he decided not to join in? .

Prince Intimidated??!! That doesn't even deserve a response!

BalladofPeterParker said:

jazzz said:

. Could it be that Prince was present somewhere in the Paisley Park building during the jam, but was so intimidated by Vai's playing that he decided not to join in? .

Prince Intimidated??!! That doesn't even deserve a response!

I know this will bring hell fire my way but I think Steve Vai is a far more technically advanced musician than Prince was. Conversely, Prince played with a lot more passion than Steve Vai does. Having said that, Prince is my favourite guitarist.

Michael Bland apparently commented about it:

"sonny and i jammed with steve vai.. his brother-in-law is sal greco, the long time studio maintenance engineer at paisley park. steve made his tour bus driver stop at paisley on his way out of town, to visit sal and hopefully meet/jam with prince. sonny was as the studio doing some recording or something when steve arrived..
so, he calls me and says, "dude, steve vai's here to jam with us.. you, me, and p!!"
i live 15 minutes away from paisley, so i turn off nick at nite, and tell my wife (now, ex-wife)that i'm going out there..
i got there, and we waited around for prince to materialize.. he didn't.. so, me and sonny just started freestyling with steve.. we played a couple of feels he's used to.. the hard rock boogie type thing he does, and some kinda band of gypsies type stuff, y'know? then, sonny just turned the corner and started playing some funk!! so, i went with him.. but, steve don't really play that type of thing.. so, we just kinda knocked off, after that..
it was fun.. we played about an hour, he got on his tour bus and went to wisconsin without seeing prince, once..

the whole thing is on videotape.. somewhere..

michael b."

^ Thanks Gustavo.
So that would date it early 90's perhaps. According to Prince Vault, Sal worked at Paisley till '93.

Milty2 said:

On one of the "The Park" boots (can't remember which volume), I believe Prince does a version of Vai's Tender Surrender and so it's plausible that they connected. Only thing is that I dont really remember it sounding like Tender Surrender and so it might have been mislabelled on the boot.

***Partly scratch what I said above....he actually played it on September 30, 2000 at PP. "The Park" series of boots were mostly from 1995.

[Edited 4/8/22 7:27am]

Prince didn't play Tender Surrender by Steve Vai, he played Villanova Junction by Jimi Hendrix. Steve Vai was HEAVILY influenced by the Hendrix tune, though maybe not consciously.

rockford said:

Milty2 said:

On one of the "The Park" boots (can't remember which volume), I believe Prince does a version of Vai's Tender Surrender and so it's plausible that they connected. Only thing is that I dont really remember it sounding like Tender Surrender and so it might have been mislabelled on the boot.

***Partly scratch what I said above....he actually played it on September 30, 2000 at PP. "The Park" series of boots were mostly from 1995.

[Edited 4/8/22 7:27am]

Prince didn't play Tender Surrender by Steve Vai, he played Villanova Junction by Jimi Hendrix. Steve Vai was HEAVILY influenced by the Hendrix tune, though maybe not consciously.

Princevault says otherwise.

Milty2 said:

rockford said:

Prince didn't play Tender Surrender by Steve Vai, he played Villanova Junction by Jimi Hendrix. Steve Vai was HEAVILY influenced by the Hendrix tune, though maybe not consciously.

Princevault says otherwise.

Princevault is wrong. Steve Vai says otherwise. Here is a quote from Steve Vai himself: "That led me to assume that Prince had heard Alien Love Secrets and perhaps thought that the 1st verse of Tender Surrender was a good little Jam piece. I understand now that he was actually covering the Hendrix song. Oh Well!!!" The source is here (Steve Vai's official website): http://www.vai.com/forum/...p;start=45

Milty2 said:

rockford said:

Prince didn't play Tender Surrender by Steve Vai, he played Villanova Junction by Jimi Hendrix. Steve Vai was HEAVILY influenced by the Hendrix tune, though maybe not consciously.

Princevault says otherwise.

Also, you can just listen to the damned thing. It's Villanova Junction. If you search Villanova Junction on YouTube there's a Prince performance of it from 2011. It's the Hendrix tune. The chords are the same as the Hendrix tune whereas Vai's tune has some different chords. They're both basically minor blues in the style of B.B. King's "The Thrill is Gone". I love me some Steve Vai and I love me some Prince, but this is a Hendrix tune. Prince would definitely be familiar with the tune as it was performed by Hendrix at Woodstock and released on the film and soundtrack album, all of which Prince has consumed. The melody is Villanova Junction. Tender Surrender is different - case closed.

[Edited 4/13/22 15:12pm]

BalladofPeterParker said:

jazzz said:

. Could it be that Prince was present somewhere in the Paisley Park building during the jam, but was so intimidated by Vai's playing that he decided not to join in? .

Prince Intimidated??!! That doesn't even deserve a response!

Do you think Prince was so simple that he didn't recognize Steve Vai as a complete guitar virtuoso and incredible musical mind? Intimidated might be the wrong word, but with Steve Vai around what would Prince add on guitar? Prince was known to be very competitive and he's enough of a badass to know that Steve Vai is athletically one of the best on the planet. Prince was great, but not even close to the same level physically. I'd rather listen to David Gilmour play something slow and beautiful like his solo on Comfortably Numb that 99% of Steve Vai's solos (personal taste), but there is absolutely no one who would dispute that Steve Vai can physically do things David Gilmour couldn't even do on his best day. If Vinnie Colaiuta popped in for a jam I can guarantee you that Prince would not be playing the drums. Vai played with and impressed Zappa. Zappa wanted to meet Prince and was walking over to meet him at some awards show or something and he says Prince looked freaked out and ran off. Again, intimidated might be the wrong word, but in this case it would be like Prince trying to play basketball with Michael Jordan in his prime: why would he?

rockford said:

Milty2 said:

Princevault says otherwise.

Also, you can just listen to the damned thing. It's Villanova Junction. If you search Villanova Junction on YouTube there's a Prince performance of it from 2011. It's the Hendrix tune. The chords are the same as the Hendrix tune whereas Vai's tune has some different chords. They're both basically minor blues in the style of B.B. King's "The Thrill is Gone". I love me some Steve Vai and I love me some Prince, but this is a Hendrix tune. Prince would definitely be familiar with the tune as it was performed by Hendrix at Woodstock and released on the film and soundtrack album, all of which Prince has consumed. The melody is Villanova Junction. Tender Surrender is different - case closed.

[Edited 4/13/22 15:12pm]

Here we go.

I'm not disputing whether Prince performed Villanova Junction. In fact, PrinceVault confirms that he did at some point. Im just talking about his Sept 30, 2000 performance at PP where he performed Tender Surrender.

rockford said:

rockford said:

BalladofPeterParker said:

Prince Intimidated??!! That doesn't even deserve a response!

Do you think Prince was so simple that he didn't recognize Steve Vai as a complete guitar virtuoso and incredible musical mind? Intimidated might be the wrong word, but with Steve Vai around what would Prince add on guitar? Prince was known to be very competitive and he's enough of a badass to know that Steve Vai is athletically one of the best on the planet. Prince was great, but not even close to the same level physically. I'd rather listen to David Gilmour play something slow and beautiful like his solo on Comfortably Numb that 99% of Steve Vai's solos (personal taste), but there is absolutely no one who would dispute that Steve Vai can physically do things David Gilmour couldn't even do on his best day. If Vinnie Colaiuta popped in for a jam I can guarantee you that Prince would not be playing the drums. Vai played with and impressed Zappa. Zappa wanted to meet Prince and was walking over to meet him at some awards show or something and he says Prince looked freaked out and ran off. Again, intimidated might be the wrong word, but in this case it would be like Prince trying to play basketball with Michael Jordan in his prime: why would he?

I think Fink was into Zappa and was really into Tommy Mars and Prince was fully aware of Zappa and his bands (and his struggles with WB)
Prince was known back in the 80s as that guy that couldn't really handle himself around huge players like Zappa and his band so I could see him running away when Zappa approached him
back in 84 or 85 Stevie Ray Vaughn famously was completely ignored by Prince when he approached him. Later it was explained that Prince didn't know what to do or say and shut down and came off as a asshole when he didn't mean it like that.

nosajd said:

rockford said:

Do you think Prince was so simple that he didn't recognize Steve Vai as a complete guitar virtuoso and incredible musical mind? Intimidated might be the wrong word, but with Steve Vai around what would Prince add on guitar? Prince was known to be very competitive and he's enough of a badass to know that Steve Vai is athletically one of the best on the planet. Prince was great, but not even close to the same level physically. I'd rather listen to David Gilmour play something slow and beautiful like his solo on Comfortably Numb that 99% of Steve Vai's solos (personal taste), but there is absolutely no one who would dispute that Steve Vai can physically do things David Gilmour couldn't even do on his best day. If Vinnie Colaiuta popped in for a jam I can guarantee you that Prince would not be playing the drums. Vai played with and impressed Zappa. Zappa wanted to meet Prince and was walking over to meet him at some awards show or something and he says Prince looked freaked out and ran off. Again, intimidated might be the wrong word, but in this case it would be like Prince trying to play basketball with Michael Jordan in his prime: why would he?

Maybe as the article suggests, he was in awe, and simply decided to enjoy the show?

That is also a possibilty. More likely he wanted to watch for a while to see if there was any reason for him to join the jam and he decided thew answer was no.

JorisE73 said:

I think Fink was into Zappa and was really into Tommy Mars and Prince was fully aware of Zappa and his bands (and his struggles with WB)
Prince was known back in the 80s as that guy that couldn't really handle himself around huge players like Zappa and his band so I could see him running away when Zappa approached him
back in 84 or 85 Stevie Ray Vaughn famously was completely ignored by Prince when he approached him. Later it was explained that Prince didn't know what to do or say and shut down and came off as a asshole when he didn't mean it like that.

.

- He ran away from Elton John too...hehe. Later they became friends.

Prince once said something like ´How am I going to tell Miles Davis what to do?" (about a collaboration between the two of them).

.

Prince seemed more comfortable with musicians he could teach/manipulate, etc. He rarely played with famous instrumentalists, who had a career out of Prince´s world (Maceo, Najee, Tal Winkenfeld are few that come to my mind).

.

About Steve, maybe he felt he wouldnt add nothing to the jam, or maybe he only wanted to enjoy the experience. And was shy enough to watch from the stage.