Revisiting Prince's rollercoaster 1999 Bass Player interview: "Bass is primal, and it reminds me of a large posterior"

Prince
(Image credit: Paul Bergen / Redferns)

When Prince died on April 21, 2016 at the age of only 57, the world was stunned. This prolific, clean-living, supremely creative mind had apparently succumbed to an overdose of the painkiller fentanyl, many years before his time. 

In the music-making community, we were deprived of the talents of a multi-instrumentalist and composer without parallel. In the specific tribe of bass players, we lost a musician whose grasp of groove and economy made him one of the finest of his generation.

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Karl Coryat was Deputy Editor of Bass Player magazine in the 1990s. In the 2000s, he wrote two music books: Guerrilla Home Recording and The Frustrated Songwriter’s Handbook, the latter with Nicholas Dobson. In 1996, he was a two-day champion on the television game show Jeopardy!. He works as a comedian and musician under the pseudonyms Edward (or Eddie) Current.