I was born in 1952, making me chronologically OLDER than rock & roll itself. Further, I have now lived through five complete decades of rock & roll and two partial decades. The 1980's were - by far - the WORST decade of music I spent ten years in. In fact, if I really had to break it down, Prince might have been the ONLY truly POPULAR artist of the 1980's I really liked. (And I'm talking widespread, mass, man-on-the-street popularity here, not The Replacements or REM popular.) Michael Jackson? Don't make me fucking laugh, Prince portrayed more rock & roll heart and talent in any ONE of his guitar solos than Jackson did in his entire career.
So when I was driving home today from the cancer clinic where my sister gets her chemotherapy treatments and CD102.5 was playing "The Cross," my first thought was, "Wow, this is a weird programming choice, even for No Repeat Thursday." And when the DJ came on and said Prince was dead at 57 I just thought, "Jesus, that can't be right." I can deal with Bowie and Glenn Frey and Buffin from Mott The Hoople being gone, they were all older than me. But Prince was only 57 and - to paraphrase an old Rolling Stones bootleg - "Live'r than I'll ever be."
Prince was brilliant. He was a born performer, played KILLER guitar, and wrote so many great songs he could just farm them out to other acts (The Time, Vanity 6, Sinead O'Connor, Sheila E, The Bangles, etc.) when he got tired of scaling the charts himself. (And let's face facts, if Prince never did anything cooler than making it with Susanna Hoffs of The Bangles, he'd STILL be one of my Top 5 Rock & Roll Heroes.)
I don't know what he died of, I really don't care, I just know my world is a little quieter, and a lot less rock & roll than it was yesterday. - Ricki C. / April 21st, 2016
Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band paying tribute to Prince, 4/23/2016