I Cried So Hard Listening To Bruce Pay Tribute to Prince, I Had to Pull Over - by Colin Gawel.

Editor's note: The following was something I wrote after the passing of Prince. I decided not to publish as it's pretty obvious nobody needs to hear my thoughts on the subject. In fact, I was going to delete it until Ricki C. talked me into posting it. So here you go. For the official Pencilstorm prose on Prince, click here to read Ricki C's excellent story. - Colin Gawel

I'm not qualified to write about the passing of Prince and I'm not going to spend much time doing it here. Of course, I was a fan. Everybody was a fan. But I am no Prince aficionado. I knew the hits and followed along the best I could through the years. An occasional Prince bender to get caught up on all that I had missed. I was lucky enough to see him perform live one time. Needless to say, it was jaw-dropping. Whenever Watershed played Minneapolis, we would stop by Prince's store and look through the windows. The way you stop in front of Graceland to take a look. Or stare at the full moon on a clear night. 

But, back in the mid 80's, I wore big, clunky blue radio headphones on my paper route and was bombarded with cuts from Purple Rain and Born in the USA on a daily basis. PRINCE and BRUCE were the soundtrack to the Reagan era before I even knew what that was. I suppose Madonna would be the other big name, but as a boy heading into puberty, you might say I was watching her more than listening.

To hear that Prince had passed, it was a body blow. Way more intense than the passing of any other musician of my lifetime to this date. And I like I said, I don't even consider myself a truly hardcore fan. But driving home from the coffee shop today listening to BRUCE pay tribute to PRINCE, the tears started flowing. CEO's and politicians come and go, but they are always replaced. When Prince goes, we do not get to vote on a new Prince. Nobody gets promoted, it's just empty space. 

Ok, this probably doesn't make much sense. But neither does the passing of Prince. I suppose my strong reaction is because If Prince can go, anybody can go. Enjoy today. Put on some big blue headphones and crank up some tunes. Life is short. Clicking post.........now. - CG

Uploaded by Stan Goldstein on 2016-04-24.

Prince (in very few words) - by Ricki C.

I was born in 1952, making me chronologically OLDER than rock & roll itself.  Further, I have now lived through five complete decades of rock & roll and two partial decades.  The 1980's were - by far - the WORST decade of music I spent ten years in.  In fact, if I really had to break it down, Prince might have been the ONLY truly POPULAR artist of the 1980's I really liked.  (And I'm talking widespread, mass, man-on-the-street popularity here, not The Replacements or REM popular.)  Michael Jackson?  Don't make me fucking laugh, Prince portrayed more rock & roll heart and talent in any ONE of his guitar solos than Jackson did in his entire career.  

So when I was driving home today from the cancer clinic where my sister gets her chemotherapy treatments and CD102.5 was playing "The Cross," my first thought was, "Wow, this is a weird programming choice, even for No Repeat Thursday."  And when the DJ came on and said Prince was dead at 57 I just thought, "Jesus, that can't be right."  I can deal with Bowie and Glenn Frey and Buffin from Mott The Hoople being gone, they were all older than me.  But Prince was only 57 and - to paraphrase an old Rolling Stones bootleg - "Live'r than I'll ever be."

Prince was brilliant.  He was a born performer, played KILLER guitar, and wrote so many great songs he could just farm them out to other acts (The Time, Vanity 6, Sinead O'Connor, Sheila E, The Bangles, etc.) when he got tired of scaling the charts himself.  (And let's face facts, if Prince never did anything cooler than making it with Susanna Hoffs of The Bangles, he'd STILL be one of my Top 5 Rock & Roll Heroes.)

I don't know what he died of, I really don't care, I just know my world is a little quieter, and a lot less rock & roll than it was yesterday.  - Ricki C. / April 21st, 2016

Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band paying tribute to Prince, 4/23/2016