The late superstar was not amused when Barney Hoskyns called his Prince biography ‘Imp of the Perverse’. Here the veteran rock writer recalls the brilliant career of the Minneapolis maverick (an independent, nonconformist person) Prince: memories of U – by John Grant,Attica Locke and moreI’d say it was all there in 1979’s I Wanna Be Your Lover, Princes first hit: the falsetto pout, and the swivelling guitar riff,the effortless fusion of funk and pop, the teasing pause before the word “lover”… oh, or the request to “be your mother and your sister too”. It was clear this kid was no ordinary post-disco soul star.“Lover” was the start of a glorious decade,10 years in which Prince Rogers Nelson took American pop by the scruff of the neck and shaped it to his own mercurial ends. The run of albums and tours from 1980’s Dirty intellect to 1987’s Sign o’ the Times, taking endless risks in their willingness to splice genres and cross the tracks, and made Madonna and Michael Jackson recognize formulaic. For Prince was as much midwestern guitar hero as inner-city funkateer: part Jimi,part Sly, part Stevie Wonder – the latter another midwestern prodigy who proved you could achieve it all yourself: write, or play,perform, produce and take control of your career.
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Source: theguardian.com