The Very Best of Prince (Guitar Recorded Versions)
Category: Books,Arts & Photography,Music
The Very Best of Prince (Guitar Recorded Versions) Details
(Guitar Recorded Versions). Note-for-note transcriptions of 17 smash hits from His Royal Badness! Includes: Cream * Diamonds and Pearls * I Would Die 4 U * Kiss * Let's Go Crazy * Little Red Corvette * 1999 * Purple Rain * Raspberry Beret * Sign O' the Times * When Doves Cry * U Got the Look * and more!
Reviews
It's long overdue. Most of you reading my comments know exactly what I'm talking about. For a man that dominates the guitar I don't know why they never published any guitar tab works in the past. A lot of his songs are guitar driven and yet finding any tablature in the past was non existent . Most of us who had to learn Prince songs on guitar went through the painstaking process of just listening to his albums over and over, and watching his hands in videos or live. Some guitar magazines in the past did publish "Let's Go Crazy" and "Purple Rain", but that is it. Guitar World in the mid 90's did one time publish some songs, but they were useless couple of measures and songs like "200 balloons." Now "The Very Best of Prince" has come along and it is a gem. When I got this book in the mail I immediately opened to see if it really was a guitar tab book, and to my surprise it was. Finally after all these years they published some tab of a underrated guitarist. I have reviewed the whole book measure by measure and it's mostly accurate. I give it 4 stars, cause there are some stuff missing here and there, and I felt that some songs that were released as singles that were more guitar oriented should have been in there instead of songs like "Thieves In The Temple" and "I Would Die 4 U". Let me throw this in by the way. The vocal notations are spot on. More so than a PVG(Piano Vocal Guitar) book. This book shows his triad voicing (sometimes 4) to precision. I was marveled at his vocal arrangements that sometimes gets overlooked. Lets begin reviewing each song:I Wanna Be Your Love- Two guitar parts are on dead on. On the album he jams out in the end and that is left out.1999- It's exact including the wah part, but also the jam in the end is left out. Radio edit.Little Red Corvette- The whole 5:04 is in there. Including Dez Dickerson solo.When Doves Cry- The beginning solo with his Boss Octave pedal is included, but the end solo is completely left out.Let's Go Crazy- The Holy Grail of Prince guitar song is flawless. It even notes for the vocals to put a quarter note regeneration echo with one repeat. Spot on.Purple Rain- Not bad, some things are a bit off, but nothing to complain about. Also you learn of how much Prince uses the octave pedal. All three guitar parts are there. There are two ways of playing this song. What I'm about to say is not in the book. This song is in the key of Bb, which makes it hard for the average guitarist to play. Now there are two versions of playing this song on guitar. The Prince way, or the Lisa way. The reason why Lisa should be honorably mentioned is because she plays the most difficult inversion of these chords that make that "Purple Rain" uniqueness. The way she plays it is not in the book. She plays an F9 chord inversion that spreads five frets, and my hands to this day cannot make that chord clean. You'll notice that in the movie Purple Rain when she plays it. I do not know if it's the Rickenbacker guitar or her blessed female hands, nevertheless this is something worth noting. In the book they just have a regular barred F chord, and even the Eb9 the way she plays it is not in there. I know I'm breaking it down to the cent, but after all this is about authentic transcription or why bother.I Would Die 4 U- Notations are true, but not a guitar song to be put in this book.Raspberry Beret- You can see the arpeggiated notations of the acoustic guitar that was hard to hear on the album.Kiss- Good transcription, but they added the synth part for guitar. Prince is known for his minimalism in his 80's and to play the synth part on guitar is overkill in my opinion. One of his funkiest guitar released single, and yet he only played the guitar break in the chorus. The tight funky rhythm is played by Tony Christian, and the lead wah is played by Craig Powell. Give credit when credit is due.Sign o' The Times- Also the reason why I gave it four stars. The end of the song where it gets into that slightly overdriven sporadic rhythmic guitar solo is completely gone. You give me the full five minute transcription of "Little Led Corvette", but not Sign o' The Times?U Got the Look- Accurate. So accurate that the synth intro states is 7 seconds long. It's true. I'm glad to see this song in tab, because of the processed flanged guitar sound made it hard to differentiate between the keyboards in the past. Here you see how tight Prince plays the riffs and solo.Alphabet Street- They did a excellent job transcribing this.Thieves In The Temple- Not a guitar song to be put in this book. I do not know if it's 100% correct. Let me explain. Looking at this song on paper made me realize of how the guitar parts were hidden audibly when listening to this song. Prince in the start of the 90's started being more complex in his overall arrangements, so guitar parts were harder to hear than his 80's album. Graffiti Bridge album was going through the whole New Jack Swing phase with sequenced keyboard parts that made guitar more of a production instrument.Gett Off- The tab takes away all the mystery of that fuzzed wah guitar. I don't believe the solo is accurate, but it does come closeCream- Almost 100%. Some wah guitar measure was missing. Nothing to cream about. The joy of this book is how songs like these is played with single eight note patterns. A lot of Prince songs are sculpted with single note guitar licks. Here you get to see it in Cream. The two guitar parts are uniquely intwined compared to other Prince songs. I wonder if Levi Seaver Jr(NPG) played the rhythm part to this song.Diamond and Pearls- Seven second intro is to the t(Yes, I timed it for fun). Another song if never tabbed I would have guessed the whole guitar parts. Prince in this stage in his career was playing with NPG and they were masterful musicians that had to be mixed right on their albums. His guitar parts were being more obscured because of production. It's like discerning each instruments of Earth Wind and Fire. The guitar was hard to hear so here we have it. The guitar is harmonized a fifth above with wet/dry mix. The keyboards sound similar in this song, so I do not know if a measure of guitar was taken out, but it seems correct all the way through.Money Don't Matter 2 Night- Right on the money, and when it comes to this review it does matter.Overall I am pleased with this book, and it's also a book where one can learn how two or more guitars can play tastefully in a production setting. If you are a Prince fan and want to play his songs on guitar, then this is the book to get. You will not be disappointed.
