Prince reigns in the Queen City
Don’t be distracted by the outrageous falsetto vocals and whispered speeches. Ignore the short stature, ambiguous race and seeming preoccupation with sex. And don’t try to figure out why he’s a prima donna when anyone is looking but rarely allows himself to be seen.
Genius breeds insanity, and Prince is a musical genius. That is a fact independent of how palatable (or detestable) one finds his music.
Consider that he could play 12 instruments by ear, including piano, guitar, keyboards and drums, and was fronting his own band by the time he was in junior high school.
And give some weight to the fact that at age 19 Prince became the youngest artist ever to be granted total control over an album (his debut, ‘For You,’ released in 1978) when he signed a contract with Warner Bros. Records.
Prince ‘after-parties’ are notorious for stretching far into the pre-dawn hours and turning into funky jam sessions that test band members’ stamina and musical prowess with improvisation and unrehearsed covers.
These days he is said to play at least 27 instruments, and his vocal range at 45 is as surreal as when he recorded ‘Kiss’ in 1986.
And, if you think you don’t like his music, remember that Prince hits aren’t always Prince hits.
Sin’ad O’Connor’s huge hit single ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’ was a Prince creation. Sheila E. and Vanity owed their modest successes to the Purple One’s pen. And filed among the greatest tunes of the prolific Bangles is ‘Manic Monday,’ also written by you-know-who.
Prince’s ‘Musicology’ tour funked through Cincinnati on April 13, and though he didn’t play ‘Sometimes It Snows in April’ (it did), he managed to throw in a medley of hits, a few side orders of hits, and a ‘Purple Rain’ encore.
He avoided his raunchiest efforts; there were no ‘wardrobe failures,’ and the stage did not become his darling, Nikki.
However, the show was seasoned with enough of all-things-Prince to remind audiences that even a subdued version of His Purple Majesty is royalty in a field of pop stars whose king has become a court jester.
