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By Renee Graham
The Boston Globe
Sun, Mar. 28, 2004

Absolutely nothing in this still-nascent year in music has been as deeply satisfying as the glorious re-emergence of Prince.

Looking great and sounding even better, there he was at last month's Grammys, opening the show with a medley of Purple Rain, Baby, I'm a Star and Let's Go Crazy. (Oh, and Beyonce was also there to shake her hair and get in the way.) Normally considered publicity-shy, he's made several recent television appearances, including The Ellen DeGeneres Show and Today. Next week, he launches his first major national tour in six years, including an April 2 stop at the American Airlines Center in Dallas.

Last week, as a 2004 inductee into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, he kicked off the ceremony with another sizzling medley featuring Let's Go Crazy, Sign O' the Times and Kiss, plus a snippet of the Sam and Dave classic Soul Man. And he wasn't done. During the tribute to fellow inductee the late George Harrison, Prince offered a blazing guitar solo on While My Guitar Gently Weeps, which had other onstage musicians such as Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne and Harrison's son Dhani staring in wide-eyed amazement.

Did we even know how much we missed Prince? If we didn't, maybe it's because it seems he's ever-present in one form or another.

On Clay Aiken's current tour, the American Idol runner-up has been performing When Doves Cry. The Foo Fighters' cover of Darling Nikki has been an alternative-rock radio staple since last year. On her 2001 debut, Songs in A Minor, Alicia Keys had a hit with How Come U Don't Call Me Anymore. And the influence of Prince's musically expansive worldview is stamped all over OutKast's sprawling Grammy-winning CD, Speakerboxxx/The Love Below. Not surprisingly, OutKast's Andre 3000 and Big Boi and Keys were invited to induct Prince into the rock hall.

"Back in the day, entertainers were singers, they were dancers, they had great style, they had great personality," Andre 3000 said in his introduction. "We've lost a lot of that today, and so when it comes for me to do music, Prince is definitely one of my greatest inspirations."

The precocious prodigy named Prince Rogers Nelson was only 19 when he rewrote music industry rules with his debut, 1978's For You. He composed all the songs, played all the instruments and produced the album. No one that young, let alone an untested artist, had ever been given so much creative freedom. But it was immediately apparent that this kid would be a legend.

An expressive, versatile singer and virtuoso guitarist, Prince churned out hit song after hit song, hot album after hot album.

His music encompassed funk, soul, jazz, gospel and rock, and tipped freely between the profane and the sacred. He even made movies, including the pop classic Purple Rain.

Then, after a protracted fight and finally his release from his former record label, Warner Bros., he seemed to disappear in a purple haze. He changed his name to that weird symbol for a while, and people were ready to write him off.

But the music never stopped. On albums distributed through his Web site, he continued to push himself with concept albums such as 2001's The Rainbow Children and the all-instrumental N.E.W.S., released last year.

And now he's back in the spotlight, as resplendent as ever and ready to show everyone the way it's supposed to be done. He's got a new album, Musicology, that Sony Music picked up. Whether the market, currently preoccupied with Justin, Britney and Beyonce, will make room for a 45-year-old whose best commercial days were in the 1980s and early 1990s is a valid question -- but only if you're talking about fellow 1958 babies Michael Jackson or Madonna.

Mired in mediocrity and redundancy, the music industry unquestionably needs Prince's full-on, full-out musical genius now more than ever.