The singer Slash called one of the greatest of his lifetime
In the age where hair metal was getting more manufactured, Slash was never going to be a by-the-numbers guitar player.
He was pulled straight out of the old school when Guns N’ Roses began performing, and while not every song they made was a rock and roll classic, it was a complete breath of fresh air compared to everything that was coming out of LA at the time. He was trying to fill in the gaps of rock and roll history that had been lost over time, but even with his love of great riffs, there were some artists who managed to trump nearly every lick he ever played.
Granted, it’s not like Slash was ever phoning it in whenever he made a Guns N’ Roses song, either. It’s easy for many people to fall into a holding pattern whenever they make a record, but even at his worst, Slash was one of those rare musicians who could make brilliance off the cuff half the time. No one would have imagined him breaking out the acoustics and making a flamenco-style solo in the middle of Use Your Illusion I, but it was just one more trick to add to his arsenal.
But a lot of Slash’s brilliance came from the fact that he kept listening. He never claimed to be a better guitarist than the next guy, but the key difference was being able to apply himself in the right context for every single riff he wrote to take off. He ate, slept, and breathed music, which probably explains why so many great artists would call on him when they needed a guitar part on their song.
And when looking at his session track record, he was surrounding himself with musicians who felt the same way he did. Everyone from Lenny Kravitz to Carole King to Bob Dylan to Michael Jackson always looked at their music as a lifelong vocation, but even for someone who was as fluent in pop hooks as ‘The King of Pop’, Prince was the kind of artist that Slash could never bother adding anything to.
I mean, for one, ‘The Purple One’ could have probably made the perfect guitar solo on his own without Slash’s help, and when looking at the kind of records he made, they’re pretty much spotless on their own. He was the definition of a musical genius in many respects, so when he suddenly passed away in 2016, it was stunning to think that someone with that much talent could be gone in an instant.
Slash might have been working with Jackson for a long time during the early 1990s, but even he had to admit that Prince was on a different level than most other pop artists, saying, “So sad to hear of Prince’s passing. One of the greatest musical talents of my lifetime – maybe of the 20th century.” And that’s not really a sentence that anyone should take lightly, especially coming from Slash.
It’s one thing to talk about Prince being a great musician with the ability to make music faster than anyone, but the true way he will be remembered is for the songs themselves. There are plenty of people who love the idea of ‘The Purple One’ being this eccentric personality, but he always put his soul into everything he did, whether it’s the massive shot of adrenaline on ‘Let’s Go Crazy’, the brokenhearted beauty of ‘Sometimes It Snows in April’ or even the danceable grooves on ‘Gett Off’.
Yes, Prince was a bit distant compared to other celebrities, but it was never at the expense of the music for him. If anything, he saw his music as one of the most personal things that he could create, so maybe the key to his success was toeing the line between his celebrity status and the rock and roll animal that he turned into every time he performed.
