Watch Prince Surprise Jazz Band, Cover Beatles With Epic Guitar Solo
It doesn’t matter if Prince is on the bill or in the audience – if the Purple One decides he wants to rip out a guitar solo, you must oblige. The R&B/funk legend was recently in attendance at the W Hollywood Hotel’s jazz night and decided to crash a performance of the Beatles’ classic “With a Little Help From My Friends.” Prince scorches a Paul Reed Smith guitar for two minutes before casually handing off the instrument to its owner, leaving the room as if he didn’t do a really cool thing.
In October, Prince brought that same intensity to the SNL stage, performing an eight-minute medley of new material from his two 2014 studio albums, Plectrumelectrum and Art Official Age. Earlier that month, he also filmed a Yahoo! livestream special from his famed Paisley Park recording studio complex, recruiting rapper Kendrick Lamar for a surprise guest verse on the 1998 rarity “What’s My Name.”
According to Hannah Ford, drummer for Prince’s 3rdEyeGirl backing band, the collaboration was spontaneous and unrehearsed. “This was Kendrick’s first visit to Paisley,” she told Rolling Stone. “And we didn’t really get a rehearsal in. The girls [in 3rdEyeGirl] and I had sound-checked and were getting ready, and we got called back down to the stage so that Kendrick could sound-check. We get down there and Kendrick asks us what we’re going to play, and we all just look around at each other like, ‘I don’t know. Do you know?'”