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Prince reigns again
That sizzling Grammys set reminds everyone of his majesty

By DAVID MENCONI, Staff Writer


Three months ago, Prince seemed to be just another past-his-prime rock star. He was still around and making music, but for only a fraction of the audience he commanded at his mid-'80s peak -- and some of the people paying attention didn't exactly dig what they heard.

info


Who: Prince.

When: Tonight at 8.

Where: RBC Center, Raleigh.

Cost: $75, $49.50 (prices includes a copy of new CD).

Call: Ticketmaster, 834-4000.





The Onion (www.theonionavclub.com), a satirical Web site, even went so far as to declare Prince's fusion experiment "N.E.W.S." the "Least Essential Album of 2003": "[R]arely has a once-great musician sounded so uncompromising and so inessential at the same time."

But you know what they say about the darkest hour falling just before the dawn. And all it took to get the Prince express rolling again was a few precious minutes of prime-time network television on the Grammy Awards.

The Feb. 8 Grammy telecast opened with Prince dressed in trademark purple and playing a medley of hits from 1984's "Purple Rain" (the title track plus "Baby I'm a Star" and "Let's Go Crazy"), accompanied by Grammy It Girl Beyonce Knowles. Across the nation, millions watched in amazement and came to the same conclusion: "Dang, she looks good. But he still sounds fantastic."

Suddenly, Prince was hot again, and seemingly everywhere. A month later, he was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and stole the ceremonies with a shredding guitar solo on "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" during the George Harrison tribute. He turned up on "Ellen" and "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno" and was the subject of a "Saturday Night Live" sketch. And he's on his biggest concert tour in years, a trek that hits Raleigh's RBC Center tonight.

"Basically, this all stems from the Grammy Awards," says Bob Burke, vice president and managing director of the Friday Morning Quarterback radio tip sheet. "He's always had that eccentric left-of-center mystique, and I think he surprised everybody when he came out and did a bunch of the old radio hits that made him popular. Prince is a musical genius, there's no denying that, and sometimes it takes a 20th anniversary to make people remember that. That's what he let people see on the Grammys. He just came out and killed it, and it really did wonders for him."

Whether this qualifies as a true "comeback" is open to debate, because Prince has never stopped being one of the most iconic stars on Earth. In fact, Kings is sponsoring a "Prince Versus Michael Jackson" dance party May 7, with dueling DJs Bro Rabb and Sleazy McQueen alternating their hits "so you can rock the night away like it's 1999."

Yet Prince has been absent from the charts for years, even though his influence on the mainstream remains considerable. Last year's best album, OutKast's sprawling "Speakerboxxx/The Love Below," was steeped in the styles and vibes of Prince's last great masterwork, 1987's "Sign O' The Times" (which still sounds as current today as it ever did). Everyone from piano prodigy Alicia Keys to pop-metal band the Foo Fighters have scored hits with covers of Prince songs in recent years. And even "American Idol" star Clay Aiken has drunk from the purple fountain, covering "When Doves Cry" in his concerts.

Now Prince has a new album, "Musicology" (Columbia Records), his first major-label album of this century. His tour is also called "Musicology," and it supposedly represents a farewell to his past. Ads for the show proclaim that Prince is "per4ming his greatest hits 4 the last time," although one should probably take that promise with as much seriousness as Cher's last retirement announcement.

"He's always been hip and remains so," says Sean Ross, vice president of music and programming for Edison Media Research. "His classic music remains classic, and you can certainly draw a straight line from him to almost anybody who's hip right now -- OutKast, the Neptunes, even Maroon 5, anybody who tries to put rock power chords together with R&B attitude. The real test will be whether he can still have a current hit. Right now, his new song is doing respectably. Not flying up the charts, but it's only a few weeks old. It's not a one-listen record, but neither is it, 'Sheesh, this isn't it.' He's certainly doing all the right things to get it out there."

One fan who has kept the faith over the years is Paul Laughter, who will be coming from Wilmington for tonight's show. He should be easy to spot -- the guy in the "Lovesexy" T-shirt, a souvenir of Prince's 1988 concert at Greensboro Coliseum. That was the first show Laughter ever attended, as a 15-year-old. He would have gone to the "Purple Rain" show in Greensboro three years earlier, he says, but his parents wouldn't allow it. And Laughter still talks about the night seven years ago when he saw Prince tear the roof off Raleigh's Plum Crazy nightclub after playing a full set at Walnut Creek earlier in the evening.

"I was like a deer in the headlights that night," Laughter says. "He was calling people onstage to rap and I was right in front, close enough to spit on him. But I was paralyzed and just could not move. I'd never seen anyone give off so much energy after already having played two hours onstage, and he just kept playing and playing. It was pretty incredible."

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