Purple Reign

Like just about everybody else in the world who is between the ages of twenty and sixty and who also has a genuine interest in pop music, I was surprised and saddened by the death of Prince Rogers Nelson. Just last month, we discussed Prince's guitars on these pages. Now he's gone. I put some of his most solo-acoustic-compatible stuff into my lunchtime set today ("Little Red Corvette", "Kiss", "The Cross", "Diamonds And Pearls", "Purple Rain") and I made a fair bit of tip money as a result. Woo hoo!

There's a lot of interesting stuff being written about the man himself right now, but I'm going to wait until the dust settles before I discuss it other than to say that I've lately been thinking a lot about the death of Prince's son and the miscarriage his wife had afterwards as they tried to have another child. As with Robert Plant, who lost his son, Karac, when Robert was twenty-nine and Karac was just five, I don't know how it's possible to get up on stage and perform after your child dies.

Perhaps there's some sort of kismet in the fact that I bought my first purple guitar just a week before Prince went to join his son.

Patrick the bass player found this on the Guitar Center used-gear site two weeks ago. It's a V49K four-string fretless bass with a variety of expensive options. About two years ago, I ordered my last new Carvin, which was also a V49K with a bunch of expensive options. I can't say I was thrilled about Jeff Kiesel's decision to paint the back of the bass blue instead of clear, and I was even less thrilled by his obvious lack of enthusiasm about making it right. So I haven't done any Carvin shopping since then.

When Patrick found this one at less than half of its brand-new price, though, I figured I'd give it a shot. As you can see in the photos, it's a pretty extreme color combination of Carvin's "antique ash" finish and a purple "option 50" burst, complete with a slightly transparent purple neck. In photographs it looks frankly bizarre but when you're holding it the whole thing works somehow.

As has been the case with every one of the new-generation Carvin basses I've bought, this is a very high-quality item, with flawless fitting, a straight neck, and no dead spots anywhere on the fretboard. I'm not much of a fretless player, but Patrick has it down pretty well. I might have to cheat and add a couple of hints on the back of the neck so my intonation doesn't scare children.

Maybe Patrick and I will come up with a Prince song to play this upcoming week after I'm back from Watkins Glen. Or we'll play my favorite song for fretless bass: "Rio".