Revenge, they say, is best served cold, and in 2004 Prince served up the perfect dish when he played While My Guitar Gently Weeps at that year's Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony.
The guitarist was joined onstage by Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne, Steve Winwood, and son-of-a-Beatle Dhani Harrison for the performance. It turns out the guitarist felt slighted by his omission from Rolling Stone’s list of the 100 Greatest Guitar Players Of All Time the year prior and used that anger to fuel his jaw-dropping solo.
As a new report has revealed, Prince’s powerfully emotive solo – hailed by Guitar Player as one of the greatest guitar solos of all time – was seen as an “act of revenge” by the illustrious pop star and multi-instrumentalist, offering fresh context to a standout moment in Prince’s career; itself full of such moments.
“On its face, it’s a supreme expression of Prince’s superiority and bravura,” a New York Times Magazine feature on an epic and exhaustive forthcoming Prince documentary by Ezra Edelman says. “But the film gives it a new context. Questlove, on the screen, talks about his disbelief, the previous year, when Rolling Stone made a list of the 100 greatest guitar players of all time, and Prince was left off it.”
The solo has gone on to be remembered as one of Prince’s most iconic moments, capped by his launching of his guitar into the air and strutting confidently off stage. As the piece later explains, Prince wasn’t quick to forget the slight. Instead, he waited for the opportune moment to exact his retaliation and let his guitar do the talking for him.
“Prince nursed these kinds of slights, and his commandeering of the stage – at an event associated with [founder] Jann Wenner and Rolling Stone – was, in part, an act of revenge,” the piece continues. “There’s spite and aggression in the performance. But there’s also pain – in his wincing face, his apartness: a small, soigné Black man onstage with these rumpled white rockers.”
Of those “rumpled white rockers” that were with him as the iconic moment unfolded, Petty said they knew the solo would very quickly enter hallowed pages of rock n’ roll folklore.
“You see me nodding at him, to say, ‘Go on, go on.’ He just burned it up. You could feel the electricity of ‘something really big’s going down here,’” the late singer-songwriter told The New York Times in 2016, reflecting on the guitarist’s career in the wake of his passing.
It seems the message, though cryptic to the onlooking masses, was received by its intended recipient. Rolling Stone’s latest list, now expanded to 250 to accommodate younger players like Christone ‘Kingfish’ Ingram, Nita Strauss, and Yvette Young, sees Prince ranked at number 14.
That list, however, isn’t without its critics. Eddie Van Halen, Chuck Berry, Jimmy Page, and Jimi Hendrix take the top spots, but luminaries like Gary Moore, and Joe Bonamassa are notable exclusions.
There were also questions as to why some spots went to guitar duos, such as Metallica's James Hetfield and Kirk Hammett (23) and Angus and Malcolm Young (38).
Still, Prince’s legacy, set further alight by that RRHOF performance, saw his Rolling Stone stock eventually rise significantly.
Incredibly, Edelman’s nine-hour documentary may never see the light of day. As per The New York Times Magazine piece, the artist’s estate is trying to block its release. It has concerns that it could tarnish the reputation of Paisley Park, Prince's $10 million multimedia complex in Minneapolis which houses recording studios, soundstages, video editing suites, and beyond.
Meanwhile, Prince's Vox HDC-77 guitar is set to be sold at auction. It has been left untouched since he last played it during his 3rdeyegirl era, having been used at the Montreux Jazz Festival, the Electric Ballroom, and the White House.
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