Remembering Prince

Photo Credit: Billboard

It’s been a week and I’m still trying to get used to the idea that Prince is dead. Yet another iconic musician is gone too soon. Like many of his fans, I can’t claim to have loved much of his recent offerings. The last of his albums that I purchased was his “Love Symbol” disc way back in 1992 and the truth be told, I found it to be a disappointment. But his output when I was a kid back in the 80s? Wow.

Dirty Mind, Controversy, 1999, Purple Rain, Around the World in a Day, Parade, and Sign o’ the Times are all top-notch. For seven years, there was no one consistently putting out better music. And this was in the same era as other pop superstars such as Michael Jackson, Madonna, and Duran Duran. As the years went on, I found his choice of material less appealing, but his talent remained undeniable. The man was born to make music and I’d argue that he’s one of the best guitar players to ever live.

Prince represents a pair of important firsts in my life. My first real date was to see the film Purple Rain, if you can call your mom dropping you off and picking you up from the theater a “real date”. The date was a disaster. The girl wound up going home with another (older) guy at the end of the night, who had his own car of course, but I managed to make wiser choices as the years went on. And I loved the movie. I’ve probably watched it another dozen times since, including with women that actually like me. My first real concert was the Purple Rain tour in 1985. To this day, I consider it the best performance I’ve ever attended and I’ve been to dozens of concerts since, including his Lovesexy tour. I recently found a copy of one of those five Atlanta performances at the old Omni on YouTube. The extended encore of “Baby I’m a Star” is every bit as fantastic as I remember it.

It’s depressing to see your favorite artists die off. Even if you might not like much of their recent work, as long as they’ve alive, you can still hold out hope that they’ll thrill you one more time. They’ll release one more masterpiece. It’s said that Prince has hundreds of songs locked away in a vault at his Paisley Park studio. Who knows, maybe he has some from that 80s period that are just lying on a shelf, waiting to be discovered. A part of me hopes that’s the case even while another part says that if the artist wanted them to remain private, we should honor that wish. Whether we ever hear another new song by Prince or not I’ll continue playing my old records and CDs, probably until I shuffle off this mortal coil myself. His best work holds up amazingly well. What more can any artist ask for?