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From the day in 1978 that he released his debut album For You, on which he wrote and produced every song, played every instrument, and sang every melody and harmony, it was evident that Prince was a special, singular talent. But ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons has a crystal clear memory of the moment that he realised that the multi-talented Minneapolis-born superstar was also a guitar hero for a new generation.
That epiphany came on the evening of March 15, 2004, when Prince joined Tom Petty, Steve Winwood, Jeff Lynne, Dhani Harrison and more to honour Harrison’s father George at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York. Three-and-a-half minutes into the all-star band’s tribute performance of The Beatles‘ While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Prince stepped up to play a guitar solo: three minutes later, when he finished playing, jaws were on the floor.
“He just burned it up,” Tom Petty later recalled. “You could feel the electricity of, Something really big’s going down here.”
Petty wasn’t the only one blown away by Prince’s performance.
Recalling that night in an archive interview with legendary broadcaster Dan Rather on AXS TV, Billy Gibbons said, “I had become a fan of Prince. I admired his showmanship, I considered him a world class entertainer. It was only until he appeared with the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame closing jam session, when he picked up a guitar and tore it up, lit the stage on fire with his technical dexterity [that I recognised] Prince to be that accomplished as a guitarist. A great dancer, a great singer, a great composer [and] I knew he held a guitar, but I didn’t really see him play it much.
“And that one appearance at the close of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction awards really caught me off guard,” the Houston-born guitarist continued, “and I I started listening intently.”
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Not long after that memorable night, Gibbons was in New York himself, seeking out a post-show meal in Manhattan after discovering that his usual late night haunt in the Meatpacking District was closed for renovations. After arriving at the shuttered restaurant, the guitarist noticed that a bar across the street was loud and lively, and decided that he’d call in there instead.
“No sooner had I crossed the threshold,” he told Rather, “than a large guy came up and tapped me on the shoulder. He said, ‘Somebody wants to speak to you.’ And I said, Okay. And he pointed, and sitting in this little horseshoe banquette all alone, there sat Prince.
“I took a seat,” Gibbons continues, “and he said, ‘Yeah, sit down.’ He said, ‘I just would like to talk guitar.’ And I said, Well, you’ve come to the right place. And I said, Now knowing you as a guitarist, which I had not known before, let’s peel the onion. And we sat for a good two hours talking about how to do this,and how to do that.”
Gibbons recalls that his conversation with Prince carried on until around 5am, and at its conclusion, he asked the younger musician if he would teach him how to play the guitar intro to his classic 1984 single When Doves Cry.
He said, ‘I fell into it by accident’,” Gibbons says. “He said, ‘I haven’t been able to play it like that ever since… Let’s go learn it.”
“Prince,” Gibbons concludes, “was a prince.”
