The phenomenal body of work Prince created during his 57 years on Earth testifies to his genius for songwriting, sheer musicality and awesome guitar skills. But Prince was unique in that he processed similarly high-level skills when it came to recording, producing, choreography… You name it.
Prince, who seemed born to become the high priest of pop-funk, drew the inevitable guitar and showmanship comparisons to Jimi Hendrix and James Brown – and he was certainly the funkiest dude around, even though he loved hard rock and psychedelic music and drew from influences wherever he found them. His work ethic was unstoppable, and he drove those around him to rise to their utmost abilities, and then take it a notch further.
The ultimate manifestation of his all-or-nothing approach to just about everything was, of course, Paisley Park, his Minneapolis-based headquarters, where he drilled his musicians relentlessly, recorded music practically nonstop, and basically inspired everyone to be all they could be. If you were invited to be in Prince’s band – which in itself was a litmus test that hinged on one’s musical skills and creativity – it was implicit that you were signing on to work at the same gruelling pace that Prince demanded of himself. That included rehearsals that lasted for hours, mandatory choreography for the stage show, and then the studio sessions that all band members were on call for virtually any time of the day or night.
Those who felt like they had earned the right to play alongside Prince might have been surprised by the sort of bootcamp mentality that existed within Paisley’s confines, but with it came the lessons that Prince imparted to his players – lessons unavailable anywhere else – and the payoff for being brought into his world was a high-paying gig that practically guaranteed a musician would leave the band a better musician when the time came to move on.
“He single-handedly helped me become the guitar player that I am today,” says Mike Scott, a blazingly skilled guitarist who had worked with the rap/R&B duo Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis (among many others) before joining Prince in 1996. Scott toured extensively with New Power Generation and contributed to the albums Emancipation, Crystal Ball, The Truth and Newpower Soul.
“As far as a lead player, I was a little more technical than Prince was because I was listening to Return to Forever, Al Di Meola, the Mahavishnu Orchestra and stuff like that,” Scott says. “But when I would take solos with him onstage, he was like, ‘Man, all those notes don’t mean nothing because they don’t translate in an arena. I’ll hold a high note and have people screaming while you play 100 notes, and nobody’s going to hear what you did.’
“That was one of the most important things he ever told me, and there were so many moments like that, and so
