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And there's another racial aspect to Prince's uneven recording career. Great comedy & recorded music happen best as a result of collaboration. For the first 40-50 years when black artists recorded for wide audience, record producers and A&R people were white. Great synthesis can come (Wikkit Pikkit did some of his best work showing ofay producers why he didn't need em) from these polar relationships, but it is generally not well-sustained. Except when Stevie Wonder became so enamored of the electronic musicians Margoleff & Cecil that he established a long production relationship with them and produced arguably the greatest 5-album run an artist ever has, white producers havent shared a vision thing nor worked on the shaping of sound, effect & presentation with black artists and black artists have resented & resisted white people telling them what to do. "Let's get it down and get outta here" are not optimal production conditions.Especially with the awful relationships Prince had with his labels, he werent consulting nobody about his sound or his flow and, as i've gone on&on with about other "unrefined" artists like Sufjan Stevens & Maria McKee, posterity suffers the result.
King Crimson, Court of the Crimson King.zamboni said:
Rarely hear anyone tout Mountain, but Nantucket Sleigh Ride was awesomerustycolts said:
David LaFlamme played some on Its a Beautiful Day. Papa John Creech was featured on the Hot Tuna Album Burgers. Me, I always loved Vassar Clemmons, but that's venturing out of Rock to Blue Grass.
Jack Bruce's "Theme For An Imaginary Western" has always been on my short list of all-time favorite songs.
I don't know anything about playing the guitar other than I've tried and can't do it. So, I can't criticize him from a technical standpoint.
Another factor that damaged Prince's mid-to-late career was his inability to incorporate hip hop culture into his music. Rap pushed Prince off his perch in the late 80s and early 90s. He responded with the diss track "Dead On It" from the Black Album which sounds worse today than it did at the time.
Had to love Felix Pappalardi, played with Mountain, produced Cream and had un-credited tracks, hung with King Crimson, and appeared on at least one Hot Tuna Album I can think of.
Eddie Jobson played violin with Roxy Music and prog supergroup UK. Billy Currie played violin quite a bit on early records by Ultravox! but moved almost exclusively to synths by the time they reached their commercial peak with Midge Ure replacing John Foxx.
Closest to making my head explode a band ever has. Mountain was right up there with Deep Purple volumewise, but i once had the bad luck to see them play in a college field house with corrugated tin walls. Their 135 db load bounced off all three walls and therefore every note hit me like Joe Pesci getting done in in Casino. Great band though - perhaps the most underrated of all time.
Felt the same way until I saw one of his performances on SNL. I can't find it now, though.
I always liked Mountain. I guess most people recognize Mississippi Queen. West was and is a great guitarist. Pappalardi was an outstanding producer. After Mountain broke up they reformed as West,Bruce and Laing. West on lead and Jack Bruce on Bass what a combination.
Honorable mention to any album cover done by Roger Dean.
Here are two performances.
I THINK IT WAS IN '85, LIKE,
His choice of musician buddies was much better than his choice of a spouse. :(
I'm going to start off this post with two comments. First, I am acknowledging he has skill. My critique is that his own songs don't move me.
Beyond his skill as a guitarist, the guy basically played all the instruments on his own tracks. I think the only thing he left up to other people were backing vocals, sometimes (thanks Wendy and Lisa!). He composed and produced all his own stuff and a ton of things for other people as well (often covering instruments then too). At one point in the mid 80's it seemed like every fourth track on pop radio was a Prince production. This is what people mean when they talk about him being a musical genius - the guitar virtuosity was just icing on a many layered cake.
Look, I could do the exact same thing. With today's technology I could write and record my whole album. And you know what, if Prince were alone today, he would probably think my album is crap, just like what I think about his music.
Like whenever I make a comment about the trio from up north! 
Hard to compare with Geddy though. He is one of the most likable and modest superstars you'll find in rock history - even the Rush detractors and Geddy voice-haters would probably agree with that.In semi-agreement with Bull, I keep going back and forth on the RRHOF performance. On the one hand, it is so awesome, especially the walk-off at the end; but on the other, part of me thinks it's a little show-offy and a RRHOF celebration of someone else's career shouldn't be that sort of performance. What I am talking about is Geddy Lee during the Yes enshrinement a couple years ago. Chris Squire died a couple years earlier and when they needed someone to play bass on Roundabout, Geddy simply played bass in the background not making a big deal of himself. The one part that makes me OK with Prince at the George Harrison performance is George Harrison's son Dhani is playing and seems to be loving watching Prince.
Vassar Clements was a frikkin demon. Squarest-lookin' dude you ever wanna see but there was nuttin but fire & frenzy in dem fingers. He's the one i'm takin if i gotta go to Georgia.
I like some of his other hits (not Kiss, that song is awful), but Purple Rain was definitely his masterpiece. Great album from start to finish.
Purple Rain is the only album worth listening to from Prince.
But even that is overshadowed by the breathless adoration of an otherwise mediocre catalog. And the deification and exploitation of the man in this city over two years removed from his death is nauseating.
What i've heard is all One Love post-horny bull####, occasionally broken up by a rousing altar call.. But i've yet to hear a Prince song which doesn't have an interesting tonal and/or rhythmic element. There was more magic in his ear than there ever was in his purple rock, and more modes than moods.
Yeah but everybody does splits, twirls & sexual things when they play guitar. I know I do.
My partner Michelle Deanovich and I did synchronized splits in a dance contest at a Hamilton High School disco dance night. We won of course.
The debut (the one with the great John Brown album cover) is a pretty audacious debut. After Don Kirshner signed them out of Topeka, Kansas recorded an album with a unique fusion of prog and boogie.
I’m wondering if “It’s So Easy” is one of those you think should have been shaved off. Because I was astonished to learn, reading their Wiki page, that it was the first single off the album- a song I have never heard on the radio.
Certainly the presentation was part of it: Slash in the top hat, Axl doing a Davy Jones dance move, etc.
