Elvis was in the middle of Can’t Help Falling in Loves when someone in the audience shouted something that made him stop the entire show. What happened next left 18,000 people in tears. It was September 15th, 1975 at the Midsouth Coliseum in Memphis, Tennessee. Elvis was performing his second show of the evening, and…
March 15, 2004, New York City. The Waldorf Histori Ballroom was filled with rock royalty for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony. The stage was crowded with legends. Tom Petty stood at the microphone. Steve Winwood was behind the keyboards. Jeff Lynn held his guitar. They were all there for one reason,…
5 seconds. Prince had only 5 seconds. In 1988 in Los Angeles on a late-night show watched by millions, Prince picked up his guitar and his heart stopped. Something was wrong. The strings felt loose. The bridge was moving. The tuning pegs had been turned. Someone had sabotaged his guitar. The red light was about…
November 15th, 1987, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony at the Waldorf Histori Hotel in New York City. 800 of music’s biggest legends gathered in the ballroom’s golden glow. Among them sat 29-year-old Prince, quiet in his purple velvet jacket, watching as they brought out a glass case containing Jimmyi Hendris’s legendary…
30 minutes before showtime at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, Prince sat backstage hyperventilating, hands shaking uncontrollably. “I can’t do this,” he told his manager. “They’ll boo me again. Same venue, same city, same nightmare.” What he didn’t know was that Mick Jagger was about to walk onto stage and do something no rock star had…
London, November 29th, 2002, Royal Albert Hall. Prince stood at the edge of the stage while Jeff Lynne played the guitar solo on While My Guitar Gently Weeps. 5,272 people watched a beautiful, competent performance. Then Prince stepped forward. He didn’t ask permission. He didn’t wait for his turn. He just started playing. And for…
The synthesizer fell silent. 23-year-old Marcus Sullivan stood frozen behind the counter, his face pale as winter, watching the casually dressed customer in the baseball cap remove his sunglasses. The expensive Yamaha DX7 that Marcus had just scolded him for playing incorrectly was still humming softly from the speakers around them. Harmony House music had…
Rock guitarists did not take pop musicians seriously. This was an unwritten rule. Slash was one of the most devoted followers of this rule. In his eyes, real musicians sweated on stage, played riffs, blew out amplifiers, they did not dance, did not wear purple, did not put on makeup. That is why in 1991…
The old mechanic wiped the grease from his hands and said, “You Hollywood types always think money fixes everything.” Then he opened Prince’s glove box to get the registration, and what fell out made him drop his wrench and stare at Prince like he’d seen a ghost. Route 66, Arizona desert, 87 mi from the…
April 16th, 2011. 2:47 p.m. Norman’s Rare Guitars on Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood. The kind of shop where rock legends come to spend six figures on vintage instruments. That afternoon, 58-year-old Norman Harris sat behind his desk, polishing a 1959 Gibson Les Paul worth more than most people’s houses. Then the doorchime rang, and…
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