Happy Birthday To My Uncle...

This past Saturday marked the 50th birthday of my Uncle...the one & only Prince!

WARNING: HE IS MY UNCLE IN MY HEAD, SO PLEASE DON'T LEAVE COMMENTS ASKING ME IF THIS IS REALLY TRUE!

Now if you have been living under a rock for the last 25 years Prince is a gifted singer, songwriter, producer, arranger, and musician. He is best known for his skills on the guitar, bass, piano, & drums.

My appreciation for Prince goes back to the late 70s when he came out with the jam " I Wanna Be Your Lover". It really kicked into overdrive when he released the work he's probably most famous for, the soundtrack to the motion picture "Purple Rain". I was in 8th grade when the first single "When Doves Cry" was released. I remember seeing the video on New York Hot Tracks (am I telling my age or what!?) and waiting in anticipation for the movie, and I was not disappointed! This movie fueled my appreciation for all music under the "Minneapolis Sound". This includes the music of The Time, Vanity 6, Jill Jones, The Family, Sheila E., Mazarati (who actually recorded the original version of "Kiss", but that's a story for another day), and many others who went on to varying degrees of success.

Now I gotta tell you, I was a little worried when he was going through his "SLAVE" phase (The Love Symbol Album, Emancipation), but my appreciation never wavered. He continues to do a lot of things with his music cats out here today are trying to emulate (listen to Alicia Keys, N.E.R.D. and Andre 3000 to see if I'm lying) and will continue to try years from now, they just don't realize it. If you listen to his complete body of work you can hear an evolution and see how far he's come. This man was doing things 25 years ago that would seem tame by comparison today(check out "Let's Pretend We're Married" and "Head")!

Even though he's a practicing Jehovah's Witness he can still write a love song like nobody's business (check out "Satisfied" from 3121 if you have any doubts), and can still make that guitar scream. How many 50 year olds can still turn out a live performance and leave the people wanting more (anybody remember the 2004 Grammys with Beyonce?)?

With all that being said I wanted to give my personal birthday salutation to someone whose music has made me think, made me dance, and made me smile.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY UNCLE!