Four Memorable Prince Performances (via the New Yorker)

Last spring, after Prince died, the New Yorker posted four memorable performances worth watching again. I am sharing them here, as well.

In 1982, the Marvin Gaye influence is rich as Prince sings “I Wanna Be Your Lover” at Capitol, in Passaic, New Jersey; the opening verses, and then it all breaks down into a funk fantasy that would have widened Marvin’s eyes wide:

Here he is 1983, joining James Brown onstage, doing James Brown, paying homage, but doing it his way, and eliciting a smile of astonishment from the Godfather of Soul:

In 2004, at a memorial tribute to George Harrison, Prince takes the final solo, and it’s one of the most electrifying guitar turns since Hendrix playing “Machine Gun” at the Fillmore East or “The Star-Spangled Banner” at Woodstock. Playing a souped-up Fender Telecaster, Prince moves into the Harrison standard midway through and eclipses the solos that Eric Clapton had played on the original recording, all while falling backward into the audience and making his way back again:

In 2007, Prince, nearing fifty, took on the most corporate gig imaginable, the Super Bowl halftime show, and, in the rain, naturally, did it better than anyone else.

I still think that Prine's halftime show remains as the best in Super Bowl history. See the original article here.