Day 27: Music Saturday and the Beautiful Ones

     A Modern day musical visionary is our focus for today's post.  The rise and fall of many Black performers is the testimony to the unique sounds and beats that have shaped the musical landscape in America.  In the fifties and sixties,  music lovers fell for the style of Fat Domino, Ray Charles,  Little Richard, and James Brown.  Each one of them brought talent and a twit in music that has never been heard of before.  Fast forward to the eighties and nineties music,  black artists made their music stand out in ways that honored those who went before them and made a niche fro themselves in the process.  Michael Jackson.  Whitney Houston,  MC Hammer and of course, Prince.  Each of them made their way to stardom but Prince stands out from the rest.  No disrespect to the King of Pop, Michael Jackson whose talent will never be replaced, but Prince's talent was above just creating music.  He was a visionary.  In his autobiography,   The Beautiful Ones readers get a rare glimpse into this musician's life and mind. 

    His loyal and devoted fans know that Prince Rogers Nelson was born in Minnesota and provide a timeline of his career of how "Prince" the superstar came into being.  This memoir more than just fills in the gaps of the timeline, it is told in the way that Prince wanted Ito to be told.  In this book he shares the stories, never seen photos, the scrapbooks and the lyric sheets.  This is the memoir he began before his untimely, tragic death.  

    Most autobiographies do not receive much attention, unless the person's life has tragically ended.  Even then, if the autobiography fails at getting the life story right, it falls of the radar and forgotten on the shelves. This is not the case here with Prince's book.  What makes it remarkable is that the reader does learn so much more about the musical, but there is still a bit of "mystery" that  makes Prince, well Prince.  The void the this death has caused in the music world still has not been filled and quite likely it will be a long time before the world will find another that matches his creativity,  love and inspiration for music.  He is an icon.  

    Considered to be one of the top music books of our times and nominated for a NAACP Image award in 2019,  this books continues to be stand out of the crowed autobiographies shelves as a must read.  The book Edited by  Dan Piepenbring, who provides a  thought provoking, heartfelt  introduction about his collaboration with Prince in his final months.  In addition, he provided the  annotations that give context to the book’s images.  It is evident  that Mr. Piepenbring's experiences with Prince at the end of his life catapulted this book into being better than the rest. Indeed it is a fitting tribute to a musical genius and icon.