Stevie G: I hailed Prince as 'greatest living artist'... and he died that day!
Prince collaborated with and inspired many generations of artists, many of whom look at him as the North Star when it comes to artistry.
The Thursday he died was just a day like today. I had been working late the previous night and was going for a mid afternoon lie down before my evening gig when I received a text. A friend had texted “nice column Stevie, did you kill Prince?”. I didn’t understand the joke until I opened twitter two seconds later to find out reports were coming in that Prince had died. My column, published in that afternoon’s Echo, was accompanied with a pic of Prince and the headline “Prince is the greatest living music artist”. By pure coincidence, we heard of his death on the day it was published.
I couldn’t believe it. Prince was one of those guys we thought would last forever. And thanks to his music, he has done just that in other ways. Even ten years on, I discover something different and new about Prince regularly, and there’s recordings of studio sessions and live gigs continually shared online even a decade on. There are very few artists who were so prolific or influential.
During that week’s column I had compared Prince to the greats of the past and the present. James Brown and Michael Jackson were other recently deceased artists who could justifiably stand alongside Prince, and of the living ones I put Prince up with one of his heroes, the living legend that is Stevie Wonder. Others, such as Sly Stone and Aretha Franklin, have since passed, and it’s fair to say that Sly helped pave the way for Prince in many ways. Sly’s impact can never be questioned but the Prince impact is even bigger for me. His longevity was insane and even as the pop hits dried up, he continued to prolifically record and write many great songs for both himself and others.
By the 2000s, many felt he was yesterday’s man, but Prince, one of the first artists to embrace the internet, continued to collaborate with and inspire many more generations of artists, many of whom look at him as the North Star when it comes to artistry. Many of this century’s biggest artists – such as Outkast, D’Angelo, Janelle Monae, Beyonce, Frank Ocean, Erykah Badu, The Weekend – owe a lot to Prince, who like many of the true greats, was always at the cutting edge and open to new music right up until his passing.
The sheer volume of Prince material can be intimidating to all but his biggest fans. There is no doubt for me that the mid 80s remains his greatest period. This was the era where he blew up commercially, and as a boy I vividly remember watching MT-USA, watching “Let’s go Crazy” for the first time. Prince had jams that we all loved and his music crossed boundaries between soul, rock, funk, jazz, disco and pretty much everything else. Prince could wear high heels and suspenders in an era where homophobia was rampant, but somehow it didn’t really bother anyone.
40 years on, culture wars and bigotry have sadly changed things for the worse, but Prince was strong enough to do his own thing, and despite a diminutive frame he was a hugely charismatic artist who cast a huge shadow.
There were few better guitarists in the history of music. And he could play everything. Few better songwriters. Few better producers. Few better talent spotters.
Few worked harder in the studio and the stories of Prince working constantly through the night and all day are legendary in music circles.
Few could take on a major record company and come out the other side. Few could play for two hours in a stadium and go play another two hours in a small jazz club later that night.
Prince did it all and he did it all the time.
He truly remains one of the greatest ever to do it!
