Bob Dylan, MF Doom, Brian Wilson, and Lauryn Hill are just a few famous musicians who close and have closed themselves off to the world and remain truly unknown. Do we know them? Yes, of course, they are famous. However, do we truly know who they are and what they are about? Seemingly not, and one musician who always remained mysterious, and consequently, has a mysterious legacy, is none other than Prince.
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Prince is arguably the most unique musician of all time. Between his public disposition, musical taste, and behind-the-scenes presence, the man was and posthumously continues to be quite an enigma. There are hundreds of stories attesting to the peculiar nature of “His Purpleness,” including the story about how his staff and touring personnel weren’t allowed to look him in the eye. A story similar to that one was once told by Sammy Hagar, and it had to do with Prince and Hagar’s former guitar tech.
No Talking: How Hagar’s Former Guitar Tech Communicated With Prince
At the 27th annual Grammy Awards, both Prince and Sammy Hagar were up for awards. Hagar had never met Prince and wanted to meet him during rehearsal. Fortunately, Hagar had an in, as his former guitar tech was working for Prince at the time. However, that didn’t matter, and it was all because of a particular and peculiar rule of Prince’s.
Recalling the incident, Hagar told UCR, “My guitar tech, Zeke Clark, who now works for Slash…he was working at the Grammys.” “I was up for a Grammy and he was working for Prince at the time. I asked him, I said, ‘Hey man, introduce me to Prince!’”
Subsequently, Clark let Hagar know he couldn’t do so. Hagar then replied, “‘What do you mean you can’t?’ He’s going, ‘I’m not allowed to talk to him.’ I said, ‘You’re his guitar tech, and you’re not allowed to talk to him?’ He said, ‘No.” Explaining how Clark communicated with Prince, Hagar recalled him saying, “You’ve got to write him a note and you kind of hand it to him. You can’t look at him…It will say, like, ‘What guitar do you want for the next song?’”
While many stories such as this one tend to snowball to the absurd, what are the chances of a story as specific as this one being told more than once? Who knows, but it seems Prince did have some very strict and very odd rules. However, is it all that surprising?
Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
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