Prince's Guitar Solo That Might Have Been Revenge Against Rolling Stone

It was March 15, 2004, and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony in New York City was in full swing. Among the inductees that year was Prince as well as the Beatles' George Harrison, who had died over two years earlier. As part of the event, an all-star lineup of musicians paid tribute to Harrison with a rendition of one of his best-known Beatles songs, "While My Guitar Gently Weeps." Onstage was Tom Petty and members of his band the Heartbreakers, Jeff Lynne of Electric Light Orchestra, Steve Winwood on keyboards, and Harrison's son, Dhani, on acoustic guitar, among other performers. Off on stage left stood Prince, in a black and red pinstripe suit, open-collared blood-red shirt, and homburg hat in a matching color.

Prince was one of the most important solo acts in history, but he still played with others, including his backup bands the Revolution to the New Power Generation. Still, he wasn't about to be overshadowed by anyone, and as he began the song's final solo that night, he showed the rest of the band — and the world — that he could wail on electric guitar with the best of the best. Even though Rolling Stone magazine had, in a glaring omission, not included him in its list of the 100 greatest guitarists the year before. Prince might have been letting the editors know just how badly they'd messed up by not including him.

Prince, born Prince Rogers Nelson in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1958, was a musical prodigy who taught himself how to play guitar, among other instruments. His early albums were more squarely focused on a layered synthesizer sound, but by the early 1980s, he had begun to incorporate more rock guitar into his work. His 1984 album "Purple Rain" is awash in his wailing guitar sound that has been compared to Jimi Hendrix, which Prince denied. "It's only because he's Black," he told Rolling Stone in 1985. "That's really the only thing we have in common. He plays different guitar than I do." Prince said his own playing was closer to Carlos Santana's style, which he called "prettier."

In 2003, Rolling Stone released its list "The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time," which included Hendrix, Santana, even George Harrison — but Prince was nowhere to be found. Over the years, he was known to hold grudges against a fairly long list of celebrities, from Michael Jackson to Justin Timberlake. It's not too far-fetched to assume he felt some rancor for what he felt was a snub from Rolling Stone, the foremost music magazine around. The next year Prince got his shot at a bit of revenge against the magazine and Jan Wenner, who co-founded both the publication and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

Joel Gallen, who produced and directed the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame ceremony, wanted Prince to participate in the George Harrison tribute from the get-go. And although Harrison's widow, Olivia, initially only wanted musicians who'd known her husband, Gallen got his way. But during the one rehearsal with Prince, Marc Mann, Jeff Lynne's guitarist, played the iconic solo in the middle of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" that Eric Clapton had performed in the original Beatles song. Mann edged Prince out of all the solos during the rehearsal, leading Gallen to discuss the situation with Prince. "Look, let this guy do what he does, and I'll just step in at the end," Prince told Gallen (via The New York Times). "For the end solo, forget the middle solo. Don't worry about it."

Prince left after the conversation with Gallen, meaning he never rehearsed his solo. During the performance that night, when Prince began shredding on his Hohner Mad Cat electric guitar for nearly three minutes, the rest of the band was as blown away as everyone else. "You could feel the electricity of 'something really big's going down here'," Tom Petty later recalled to the Times. Prince's performance that night has been hailed as one of the greatest guitar solos in history. Rolling Stone has since amended its list of the greatest guitarists of all time. In the 2023 list, Prince, who died in 2016, is listed at 14.