what, in your opinion, are Prince's best impersonations according to his four biggest influences:

Jimi Hendrix
James Brown
Sly and The Family Stone.
George Clinton (and all his incarnations)
for me they would be:

Habibi
Sexy MF
Make Your Mama Happy
If I Was Your Girlfriend

The Work Pt 1. Could almost be a JB track!

SquirrelMeat said:

Pretty man is even more a JB-track !

I've tried to visualise/sonicise(?) who would sound good doing which songs...

Jimi Hendrix - Joy In Repetition
James Brown - Housequake
Sly and The Family Stone - 1999
George Clinton - Big Fun

Well obviously Forever In My Life is a Sly-esque track.

not to quibble but i think santana is a bigger influence that hendrix, and prince said a similar thing to rolling stone in 85? i think!

softandwet said:

oh stop quibbling

While not an influence in the same sense as James or Hendrix, I've heard people say that "Loose!" kind of sounds like something Nine Inch Nails would have done, but with more funk.

Bootsy Collins - Do Me, Baby
James Brown - The Parade Tour & almost every funk-track
Funkadelic - Shockadelica
Jimi Hendrix - no particular song, but Prince stole the image

eheheh, his best impersonation is Ozzie Osbourne!

Santana on I'm Yours.

Here I thought this was going to be about voice impersonations, like his Morris Day voice, his Italian voice, his country voice...

NCC2012 said:

heheh

2songs that´s really Sly Stone-esqe in my ears
R Strange relationship with that pumping
bassline & the singing as well as If I was your
girlfriend with his upspeeded Camille-voice.
Another 1 is Let´s have a baby,not the song
but the way he sings I´ll B right by your schide.
That sounds like something Sly would say it like.
/peace Manki

"Ozzy Osburn"

Make Your Mama Happy / lots of others -- Sly Stone
The Work Part 1 / Prettyman -- James Brown
Condition of the Heart / Power Fantastic -- Joni Mitchell
Erotic City / Joint to Joint / The War -- Funkadelic
Damned If I Do (last half) / Sensual Everafter -- Santana
The Good Life (remix) -- Cameo
La, La, La, He, He, Hee -- George Clinton
Get Wild -- Bootsy Collins
Feel U Up -- Jesse Johnson

Fhunkin said:

Amen!

JDINTERACTIVE said:

I also thought by the title of the thread, this is cool, Prince impressions, as he has done a couple. I personally get a kick out of his Bela Lugosi impression near the start of Under the Cherry Moon movie. Ozzy is well done to. I read he grew up on the streets of Minny doing impersonations of Mad Dog Vachon, an old AWA wrestler. I'm sure this would take the cake. An other impersonations or impressions anyone knows of?

Scarlet Pussy reminds me most of George Clinton

Don't blow me away, but i see a fair bit of Mick Jagger in Prince.

Marrk said:

Must be the libido