A Rock & Roll Hall of Fame tribute to a late Beatles legend has been named one of the greatest guitar performances of all time. Rolling Stone ranked Prince’s guitar work on the Beatles classic “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” at No. 15 on its list of the 100 most iconic guitar solos. The outlet described Prince’s legendary “mega-viral guitar solo” from George Harrison’s posthumous 2004 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony as “three minutes of sublime guitar bada—ery … a blaze of acrobatic shredding, rapid-fire legato runs, and electric showmanship.”
“But even at his flashiest, Prince keeps his phrasing rooted in the melody of Harrison’s White Album classic — a show of respect from one all-timer to another,” the outlet shared.
The Rolling Stone write-up noted that in addition to being a masterful tribute to Harrison, Prince’s epic performance was considered a response to being “snubbed” on the magazine’s 2003 “100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time” list. According to Guitar World, in Ezra Edelman’s unreleased Prince documentary, it was alleged that his jaw-dropping solo was “an act of revenge” aimed at Rolling Stone for not including him on their list.
If that was the case, the “Purple Rain” icon proved the magazine—and everyone— wrong.
Prince surprised everyone
Prince performed the blistering solo alongside Tom Petty, Steve Winwood, Jeff Lynne, and Harrison’s son, Dhani. The all-star tribute to Harrison, who died in 2001, was barely rehearsed by the musicians. Some of them almost seemed surprised when Prince completely took over the set a little more than three minutes in. Harrison’s son smiled widely as he watched Prince command his guitar. The performance ended with Prince tossing his guitar up into the air, for it never to come down.
In an interview at a MusiCares event, Dhani Harrison explained his reaction to the moment. “We had Prince playing guitar, which was the classic backbend guitar throw, which was a little gratuitous, really,” he laughed. “But it was an interesting, you know, everyone’s always like, ‘Wow, he’s smiling so much onstage.’ And I was smiling because I was just like, oh man, I could just imagine Tom and Jeff going, ‘What the hell is going on?’”
“It was definitely a moment to be shared with the whole human race, and I was standing front and center,” Harrison added. “But it went down so well that it was a classic moment, you know.”
In an interview with The New York Times, Petty said he appreciated Prince’s show. The rocker revealed he knew something amazing was taking place as he watched Prince take over the stage. “He just burned it up,” Petty said. “You could feel the electricity of ‘something really big’s going down here.’”
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The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ceremony’s producer, Joel Gallen, admitted he didn’t know what was happening with Prince until the music icon began performing the outro of the Harrison classic.
“They never rehearsed it, really,” Gallen shared. “Never really showed us what he was going to do, and he left, basically telling me, the producer of the show, not to worry. And the rest is history. It became one of the most satisfying musical moments in my history of watching and producing live music.”
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