“Overlooked”: The performer Mick Jagger considered the pinnacle
It was a feverish day in showbusiness on October 28th, 1964, after James Brown departed the stage on The T.A.M.I Show. He swept the floor with everyone, and a bewildered Rolling Stones took note. In fact, apparently Mick Jagger was almost too scared to leave his dressing room. It took Marvin Gaye to go in there and say, “Just go out there and do your best,” to encourage Jagger to take the stage and bust his own moves, but thereafter, he knew he had to up his game.
He certainly did that. “Mick Jagger, you’ve got to take your hat off to him,” fellow frontman Roger Daltrey told the Coda Collection. “He’s the number one rock ‘n’ roll performer.“ He took what Brown offered and bolstered it with his own unique energy, as he explained himself regarding the Godfather of Funk, ”a huge influence,” Jagger said. “It wasn’t just the moves he made – it was the energy he put into it, that was amazing.”
So, from humble beginnings, The Rolling Stones soon rose to unprecedented ranks. They were a stadium act—and they required stadium support. However, once more, Jagger would be given cold sweats about following one star they recruited.
It was 1981. While Prince would go on to bestride the decade like a little colossus, he was still trying to nudge his way into the mainstream at this stage. In fact, when he opened for the legendary rockers Los Angeles Coliseum before 94,000 people, he was unceremoniously booed off. He would later rejig his set and, along with a bit of encouragement, complete the rest of the tour.
Nevertheless, Keith Richards certainly didn’t give him much sympathy. “An overrated midget,” the grovelling guitarist called him. “Prince has to find out what it means to be a prince. That’s the trouble with conferring a title on yourself before you’ve proved it.”
“Mostly, people write three songs and repeat themselves.“
Mick Jagger
Continuing: “His attitude when he opened for us… was insulting to our audience. You don’t try to knock off the headline like that when you’re playing a Stones crowd. He’s a prince who thinks he’s a king already. Good luck to him.” Yeah, break a little leg, mate. Alas, this hostile disposition wasn’t shared among Richards’ bandmates.
Jagger was far more encouraging. In fact, his opinion was pretty much the opposite—he practically crowned him the king of modern music. “I think Prince is a great artist, very traditional in some ways,” he told Rolling Stone. “Prince has been overlooked. But he’s so incredibly in the mould of the James Brown sort of performer. He broke a lot of musical modes and invented a lot of styles, and couldn’t keep up with himself. Very prolific, which is rare.”
In a glowing appraisal, he continued: “Mostly, people write three songs and repeat themselves. So Prince has a lot of talent as a writer, and I’ve seen great performances by Prince. He’s outperformed almost everyone. I’d rate him at the top. I don’t think there’s a lot of competition from new artists.”
In some ways, the lofty height that Prince rose to was always tied to the tricky tour. It filled him with a sense of defiance that bordered on being unrivalled. Moreover, being nurtured by “the number one rock ‘n’ roll performer“ must surely have been a boon. After Prince was booed off, it was Jagger who called him and gave him words of wisdom that inspired him to continue. “I talked to Prince on the phone once after he got two cans thrown at him in LA. He said he didn’t want to do any more shows,” Jagger recalled.
Adding: “God, I got thousands of bottles and cans thrown at me! Every kind of debris. I told him, if you get to be a really big headliner, you have to be prepared for people to throw bottles at you in the night. Prepared to Die!” Prince was then ready to face the slings and arrows of critics, and soon, they became fans—Jagger included.
