Imagine Michael Jackson and David Bowie  inviting now Prince to the gates of wherever creative souls go to. Yes we have lost the life here on earth to another legendary singer and songwriter and musician of many instruments he mastered to play. We can blame it on the pharmaceutical industry and the toil on the body that it takes to entertain an audience these days. Years ago Bing Crosby would sing a tune sitting in a chair smoking a pipe and he was a star performer. These guys put their every bit of energy into their performances and soon became vessels for prescription pain killers and now they are gone. They were trans-gender before anyone even used that term. Prince even went as far as to be called a symbol to avoid the gender issues. We are all just people.

Prince is dead at age 57. He was a cultural icon. In all his flamboyance he was just a simple guy from Minneapolis who never left his home town. He was raised there and lived there still. There have already been massive street parties in honor of the small 5 foot 2 inch legend. His music will also live forever. His complex was known as Paisley Park where he was found dead in an elevator. He is survived by his sister. He was born Prince Roger Nelson in 1958. He even played basketball in high school. He realized soon enough that music was his calling writing songs in his younger years. By age 21 he made an appearance on American Bandstand. He was always out of the box with his wardrobe feminine but  yet a very masculine man.  

Being bullied in school he compensated the critics by being as flashy as possible. He chose music  simply because he didn’t know much about anything else so he pursued the career. His fame came because he was not content with any particular style of music. He could play funk, rhythm and blues, rock and roll and popular music and do it all at the same time in his songs. He created more albums than his years as an artist. He won 7 Grammys. A Golden Globe and sold more than 100 million records worldwide.  It was his appearance in a movie called Purple Rain that put him over the top in fame of mega stardom in 1984. The soundtrack earned him an Oscar.  He played every instrument and sung every line in his music.

He was beyond any gender becoming a symbol in 1983. It was a transition where he became known as the Artist Formerly Known as Prince. He seemed sexually ambiguous but always had a beautiful girl on his arm.  He eventually married one of his back-up singers in 1996. They had a child who died days after birth. His marriage ended shortly thereafter. He maintained a sense of mystery throughout his career. Certainly no ordinary guy but a guy who never left home.  He didn’t die young, he always lived young.