Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire TMZ is reporting Prince is dead

The guy was a great musician and performer. Also battled some chronic health issues. He had epilepsy, according to one report.

He was married in the 90's, and he & his wife had a boy who died a few days after birth, due to a rare disorder. They lost another kid due to miscarriage.

Also had to be rushed to the hospital last week with a bad bout of the flu, then apparently checked himself out against orders, to keep playing concerts.

I didn't follow his career that closely, but I never heard of him being associated with drug or alcohol abuse. At 57, he may have simply not taken sufficient care of himself, and died of a heat attack, or other complications.

when he was in the hospital the other day he given a drug to counteract the effects of an opiate overdose, and checked out because he couldn't get a private room.

He had a bad hip, so maybe he got himself hooked on oxy and it spiraled out of control. Who knows...

He wouldn't let drugs or alcohol in to Paisley Park as a general rule, not even tobacco.

It's tough to say what killed him at this point.

Edit: I don't believe it was the flu.

I recall at one point Boy George called him "a midget dumped in a vat of pubic hair" But then Boy George sure lived in a glass house his own self.

Never did care much for his music and IMHO Morris Day and the Time absolutely stole the Purple Rain movie with their on-screen stage perfomances.

I will say that I can measure how fast life passes with his song "1999". That song came out in '82, when I was in Africa and 1999 seemed far in the future.

Sure was a surprise how fast it was 1999 already tho, and now 1999 is growing small in the rear-view mirror.

Also, his half-time show at the Super Bowl was one of the few actually worth seeing.

And geeze, something I weren't aware of until today, his guitar solo on "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" 2006 (skip to 3:25)



So, a guy in a position to totally sleaze and decadent his life away becomes a Jehova's Witness instead.

If it were addiction that killed him, I expect better men than me have fallen that way.

RIP Prince Rogers Nelson.

Birdwatcher

+1

25 year Dilauded habit

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...rug-dealer-reveals-extent-addiction.html

To a reasonable extent I can accept the great "performer" comments flowing here (the flash and shock, the moves, the androgynous makeup/clothes/action, etc.)

However, the great "musician" aspect seems way overstated. With the help of others (including his father) he did write a number of the things he performed. and as performed by others. On some takes he did play more than one of the instruments in the recordings (I think primarily guitar, percussion and keyboard) but a good bit of that was rather elemental. Certainly not top-drawer stuff. Some say that "he played any instrument" - but that is a falsehood.

Actually, the most accurate claim might be that, given those captivated by his props and actions, he well-represented the changing artistic tastes (diminishing), the acceptance and even acclaim of musical mediocrity, and the increasing acceptance of vulgarity and crassness in our culture.

Hmmm....you have a point.

nah

he was a helluva musician. There is no shortage of well respected people in the music industry who put this man on ah pedestal for both his showmanship and his passion to make music.

I read a Billy Gibbons interview saying he couldn't touch what Prince did in the opening of When Doves Cry.

Most don't understand depression.
I've been there...often.

It's not a good place.

Here's an unplugged session, I find it preferable to all that shredding...

Was it creative writing you taught?

I didn't care for his music. But I will admit I've been surprised at his claimed guitar talent. I personally think Glenn Fry was much more talented. But hey, I'm just a southern redneck so what do I know.

+1

You are getting nowhere quoting others of that stripe - people in the "music industry" primarily are interested in the $$ value (there, "taste" again) and if they praise his "showmanship and passion" they are merely reinforcing what I said. Tons of folks do not understand the difference between "showmanship" and "musicianship"

Thanks, Birdwatcher, for that sample. It's right there. He starts by repeating the same memorized 16 bar segment and breaks to charm the audience - then moves on to other memorized stuff from his own repertoire.

He plays just fine, but I can hear the same things played just as well by buskers on streetcorners in SF or in storefronts in Boston or in the underground in Montreal - or even out here in the mountains once in a while. Great musicians read/hear/think/interact instantaneously and create simultaneously with other musicians, etc., etc. He was a very successful performer. May he RIP.

No. Taught music writing and music in general - starting in 1962 and still going. What was your teaching field?

Agree, it's not all but the forum has it's fair share of the clueless. The Campfire forum is like a dirty toilet. Gross at times.

He was really something else.

Prince seemed to have some talent, with which he made a living. People liked what he did enough to pay him. He made money as a musician and lived a duplicitous life. If Minnesota legislators want to honor his memory by making the state flag purple, well, that's Minnesota. And that's the influence of media on our world. There's several other truly great music composers and musicians who deserved much better than a purple flag. But that's America in these days.