on “Living for the City.”
Sly and the Family Stone
Born Sylvester Stewart, Sly Stone could do it all and do it young—guitar, keyboard, vocals, bass, and drums before he was a teen. He listened to black and white radio growing up. He not only led his own band, the Family Stone, but also wrote for others and tried to cultivate a stable of artists on his own label: Stone Flower. He self-produced his debut album. His band was purposefully mixed by race and gender. He dressed to make a woman stare. Larry Graham was his bassist.
Musically, Sly helped not only to invent funk but also to wed it with catchy pop hooks, placing multiple singles in the top 100 and landing three at the top of the charts; a song like “Mountains” would fit in on any late 1960s Sly album. He mastered the art of blending multiple voices and harmonies on songs like “You Can Make It If You Try,” a mixture that Prince used on many songs, such as “Daddy Pop.” According to the Crystal Ball liner notes, Prince recorded “Make Your Mama Happy” after listening to Fresh. Further, Sly was a technological pioneer, with There’s a Riot Going On the first major album and “Family Affair” the first number one single to feature Prince’s early go-to studio instrument: the drum machine. Lyrically, Sly’s early career was marked by an almost naive self-help optimism that, like Prince, turned later to a more race-aware resolve. And Larry Graham was his bassist.
Like fellow Prince influencers Jimi Hendrix and Santana, Sly Stone indelibly stamped himself on the public consciousness with a jaw-dropping live performance at Woodstock. Equally adept in the studio, 1973’s Fresh, often considered his greatest LP, found Stone playing most of the instruments and engaging in bend-but-don’t-break aural experimentation. The cover of the classic “Qué Será, Será (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)” might be the slowest pop song ever. (Author’s collection)
Prince dug deeper and more often into the Sly and the Family Stone catalog than any other artist’s, due in part to his friendship with Graham. Prince most frequently covered the number one hit “Everyday People.” It appeared on 1998’s New Power Soul tour and was played about 100 times over the next two decades, occasionally with Family Stone members Jerry Martini (saxophone) and Cynthia Robinson (trumpet). “If You Want Me to Stay” was released in a medley with “Just Friends (Sunny)” on the One Nite Alone . . . The Aftershow LP.
Carlos Santana
Carlos Santana is a solo artist and leader of the ever-enduring band Santana. The Mexican-born guitarist is best known for fusing rock music and Latin American rhythms in the late 1960s, typified by the FM classic “Black Magic Woman.” He became a household name in 1969 with the release of the band’s double-platinum self-titled debut LP and a star-making appearance at Woodstock. Featuring a revolving door of lead singers, most notably Journey founder Greg Rolie, Santana released thirteen consecutive top forty albums through 1982’s Shangó. The band enjoyed a revival—seven straight top ten LPs—starting with 1999’s Supernatural, which has outsold Purple Rain by a cool 2 million copies.
Santana is known for his sweet, soaring guitar solos, and that’s his primary influence on Prince. His style is inviting and pleasant, challenging but never disrupting the listener. A line can be drawn from Santana to some of Prince’s most anthemic solos, such as “Empty Room,” “Gold,” and, of course, “Purple Rain.” The guitar-fueled Lotusflow3r is more Hendrix in sound but echoes the title of the 1974 live album Lotus. Santana IV, released less than a week before Prince’s death, was one of six albums he purchased at Electric Fetus in Minneapolis on April 16, Record Store Day 2016.
Prince often played the “Santana Medley,” known to Santana followers as “Santana Sandwich,” a union of “Jungle Strut,” “Batuka, “Soul Sacrifice,” and “Toussaint L’Overture.” On June 20, 1999, Prince and Larry Graham joined Santana onstage in Minneapolis on the number one smash “The Calling,” and Santana repaid the favor on February 21, 2011, at the Oakland Coliseum in Oakland, California, Santana taking the lead on “Santana Medley.”
Joni Mitchell
Joni Mitchell is a Canadian singer-songwriter with big US hits in 1974 with the number one LP Court and Spark and the Grammy Award–winning single “Help Me.” Her influence on Prince’s career and music is not readily apparent, and she often seems more of a muse or an unattainable high school crush. Mitchell almost says as much, recalling Prince as a doe-eyed fan at a mid-1970s Minneapolis show, one whose fan mail was deemed “lunatic fringe” by her management. She now claims him as the artist she’s influenced whose work she most appreciates.
That being said, there are references and traces. Controversy includes her name as a star-bordered newspaper headline on the back cover; 1975’s experimental The Hissing of Summer Lawns album is said to have inspired Prince’s eclectic departures on Around the World in a Day.” “Help Me” is name checked in “The Ballad of Dorothy Parker,” and other lyrics and titles are influenced by Mitchell, such as “When We’re Dancing Close and Slow” from a “Coyote” lyric and “Ice Cream Castles” from “Both Sides Now.”
In 1986 Prince wrote and recorded “Emotional Pump” for Joni Mitchell, presumably for her 1988 Chalk Mark in a Rain Storm LP. She rejected the song, it’s never been released, and she never worked with Prince, but Wendy and Lisa sing on “The Tea Leaf Prophecy (Lay Down Your Arms)” on the 1988 album. (Author’s collection)
“A Case of You” is the first cover song Prince performed live, at the landmark August 3, 1983, First Avenue show. A studio version appears on One Nite Alone . . . as “A Case of U” and an edited version on 2007’s A Tribute to Joni Mitchell LP, while 2018 saw the release of his piano rehearsal version on Piano & a Microphone 1983. He performed the song regularly, with the last performance at the Atlanta, Georgia, early show on April 14, 2016. He performed the Mitchell-associated song “Twisted” during a few 2002 shows and recorded an unreleased studio version; he also paraphrases the song’s Annie Ross–written lyrics in the unreleased “Lust U Always.” He covered Mitchell’s “Blue Motel Room,” with lead vocals by Elisa Fiorillo (Dease), at the epic July 23, 2010, Paris New Morning aftershow.
Jimi Hendrix
Jimi Hendrix was a charismatic stage performer, an effortless songwriter, and a distinctive singer. And the greatest guitarist of all time. Except Prince.
Comparing Prince to Hendrix was a knee-jerk reaction once Prince got popular and the media needed quick copy. And the comps are obvious. Early on, Hendrix wrote tight rock songs infused with blues and soul that had pop appeal. In person, he was shy with a good sense of humor but live was an extrovert. A wizard onstage, he was also at home in the studio creating deep sonic landscapes using the latest technology. In both places, he could do things that no one else had even dreamed about. And he oozed sexuality, a sexuality that made him exotic and dangerous.
Prince