A few days later we were celebrating our annual province day. I was waiting outside the chapel of the retreat center shrine where the meetings were going on, milling around before Mass, touching base with confrere who I haven't seem in a while. One of my brothers, who has a few years on me, commented on Prince's passing, but asked what the big deal was. He knew who Prince was, and that he was popular, but for him The Artist Formerly Known as an Unpronounceable Symbol was still a new kid on the block. All I could say was that it was a generational thing. And while I wasn't a big Prince fan, his death did hit hard for that reason. He is the first major pop star of the 1980's, the era that I was in high school, to pass and it reminded me that I'm not getting any younger.
I know, what about Michael Jackson? I put Jackson is in the same category with the likes of David Bowie, Bruce Springsteen or Peter Gabriel, among others; artists of the '70's who had big commercial surges during a conservative period in the music industry (as well as the country) that was favoring known quantities over unproven talent. But Prince, though he got his start late in the previous decade at the tender age of 19, came up the slow and steady route before conquering the world with 1984's Purple Rain.
Like Bowie, who I've eulogized already, I found Prince's image a barrier to really entering into a dialogue with his music. He had a great pop-rock sense, and I loved When Doves Cry from the first listen. Raspberry Beret and Kiss were, respectively, pure psychedelic pop and minimalist funk master pieces I hated myself for loving, especially Beret. Maybe it was the hyper sexuality of his image, the cloths that made the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's period look restrained that turned me off. It could have been the shifting teams of backup singers who doubled for love interests that seemed like a publicity contrivance that was off putting to me. Maybe it's that I associated him with dance music at a I time when I was a reactionary rocker, but I let the Prince train pass me by with only a few glances now and then. When I might have given him a second chance, he decided to be known by a silent glyph instead of his name. It just confirmed that he was a little too strange for me.
After he went back to using his birth name, I figured out that he wasn't simply an eccentric pop star, but his eccentricity had a purpose: to stick it to his record label who he felt was unjustly controlling him and his art. But by that point it was the early 2000's and I became interested in what was happening now, not looking back so much to artists of the past.
Because Prince was so passionate about his work, and controlling how it was produced, marketed and distributed he kept his music and videos off streaming services and YouTube. So again, when I might have given him a second look his music wasn't in the places I go to before I purchase (the vow of poverty mitigates against impulse buys).
Since there seems to be no controlling legal authority overseeing Prince's affairs at Paisley Park now that he's dead, there's been a healthy dose of live material making it's way onto YouTube that would have otherwise been blocked if he were still alive. I'd seen the Super Bowl Half Time Show and his blazing guitar solo on While My Guitar Gently Weeps done at George Harrison's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony already, so I new he was a great guitarist.
But the other clips, mainly taken from various TV appearances over the years, show the Purple One to be a great showman, versatile in style and tirelessly dynamic in presentation. Michael Jackson could sing and dance, both exceptionally well, but Prince did those things, along with playing guitar and piano (some have reported he could play upwards of 20 instruments). He could turn from funk to rock, from raunch to sensitive to spiritual to rave on a dime. My regret is not that I didn't buy his albums, but that I never saw him perform live.
The most telling clip is a cell phone capture taken at the SNL 40th Anniversary after party. It's reputedly 4:30 AM. Prince is called to the stage by Jimmy Fallon, and with his band rips into a slowed down, yet hard rocking mid-tempo rendition of the usually frenetic Let's Go Crazy. It's a master class in how to play hard rock. That Prince channels Jimi Hendrix is no surprise, but he also throws in a dash of Edgar Winter with overtones of Black Sabbath, sometimes in the same bar. He is also tremendously generous. After tearing off a neat little solo he he puts the guitar aside and lets his young female player get not just one, but two chances to shine (which she does). He nails it better than any rocker could, and rock, arguably, wasn't his main genre (if he had one).
How his Jehovah Witness faith, come to after he was already famous, played into his music, I'm not qualified to say. I only know he stopped using profanity in his music as well as in his personal life, insisting that those in his company refrain from using foul language. While he didn't become a puritan on stage, he did try to tone down the extreme sexuality of his pre-conversion days.
Some musical artists of the last several decades have been all about the image, and without it they'd be nothing. With Prince, the image was a smoke screen hiding one of the few genuine musical geniuses in the pop world. Forget about the purple outfits. Forget about the prison like compound he lived in. Forget about the Artist Formerly Know As stunt and the salacious rumors. Focus on the music, and you'll find a funky, rocking, tender, mix delivered with enthusiastic energy. Now, I just hope once the estate issues are figured out that some live material makes it out of his legendary vault of unreleased music and hits the market.
In the appreciation of his music, we must never forget that Prince was a man with a soul. We don't know what demons, literal and figurative, were lurking behind the facade. He did express regret for his early excesses. We have to recognize that, in spite of the later day conversion, his earlier work was often sexualized to an extreme, sending the wrong messages, further coarsening an already coarse culture. So, we don't canonize, but we praise what is praise worthy and pray for his peaceful repose.
Eternal rest grant unto Prince Rogers Nelson, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him. May his soul, and all the souls of the faithfully departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. AMEN
Please excuse Maya Rudolph's over exuberant use of profanity. We're sure Prince didn't approve.
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