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Tom Morello Writes For Rolling Stone About Prince’s “Fearless” Guitar Playing

The music world has taken a lot of heavy blows over the past few months. LemmyDavid Bowie, The Eagles‘s Glenn Frey, Phife Dawg, and Earth Wind & Fire founder Maurice White to name just a few are some of the shock and tragic passings that have rocked the international music community, and world at large, but one particular death stung the most for so, so many. The death of Prince. As tributes continue to pour in for The Purple One and people around the world mourn, this is also a time for reflection on the sheer talent, skills and abilities that Prince possessed in him – a reflection Rage Against The Machine‘s Tom Morello has recently penned beautifully.

As told to Rolling Stone‘s Kory Grow, Morello reflected on the fact that Prince’s insatiable love of the guitar, and his incredible skills with the instrument, were a lot of the time eclipsed by his persona, and the many other facets of “Prince.” It was hardly a secret that Prince was one of the best guitar players in the world, but Morello has presented an alternate view saying that not quite enough credence was given to just how good he was.

“There are many pop stars who are great performers – but there is no chart-topping pop star in history who could play guitar like Prince.”

“He combined the showmanship of Jimi Hendrix with the incredible melodic sensibility of a seasoned jazz cat,” Morello said, detailing his own experiences with discovering Prince, from his music to even Purple Rain the movie, calling it “the greatest rock & roll film of all time.”

“When he plays the “Purple Rain” solo, it’s life-changing. Put that on right now and try not to cry. And at the end of the movie, he conjures this genre–destroying guitar storm – and does it in high heels on top of a piano while his guitar is squirting. You just can’t compete with that,” Morello exclaimed.

Going onto say that he’s been watching many performance videos of Prince in action, Morello also brought up one particular performance of him playing While My Guitar Gently Weeps at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2004. “His playing is deeply emotional, beautifully melodic, raw, inventive and soul-stirring, and then when you least expect it, he just fucking flat-out flies up and down the neck shredding like Paganini and whirling like a dervish.”

It’s a truly touching piece from not only one of Prince’s peers, but one of his fans. Perhaps Morello sums it up best when he finishes by saying, “There was nobody like Prince.”

Read the full piece here.

Image: Rolling Stone