Micki Free saw a lot of crazy things during his tenure with Prince in the 1980s. That includes the time he and Prince played two-on-two basketball against Eddie and Charlie Murphy.
Mostly, though, they played music. Free still remembers the 3 a.m. phone call that summoned him to Sunset Sound for a jam session with Prince sometime around 1984.
“It was crazy, man,” he tells Guitar Player. “Prince was not a regular guy, as we all know. His bodyguard called me late at night and said, ‘Prince wants you in the studio.’
“And I’m like, ‘Dude, it’s three in the morning!’
“But he goes, ‘Come down to Sunset Sound. Prince wants you here.’”
Free did as he was told — and when he arrived, the scene inside the studio was surreal. Alongside Prince was jazz legend Miles Davis, who had joined the Purple One and percussionist Sheila E., then recording her debut album with Prince, for an after-hours jam.
“The crazy part about it,” Free says, “was that Prince wanted me to play bass that night. And I’m like, ‘Dude, I can barely play bass.’
“But he goes, ‘Come on. Give me that bottom, Free.’”
Once the session got going, Prince seemed to be everywhere at once.
“He’d jump on drums, then grab his guitar,” Free recalls. “And halfway through the jam I’m just going [very slowly] boom… boom… boom.
Prince wanted me to play bass that night. And I’m like, ‘Dude, I can barely play bass.’ But he goes, ‘Come on. Give me that bottom, Free.’”
— Micki Free
“And Prince is like, ‘Uh-uh. Come on, come on. Give me that funk, Micki!’”
Two years later, another call came. This one would lead to a much bigger opportunity.
“Prince flew me out to Paisley Park,” Free says. “I went into the studio and recorded a song called We Can Funk. I sang the song for Prince and then flew back to L.A.”
A week later, the phone rang again.
“Our lawyers got together because Prince wanted me to join his camp and sign to Paisley Park.”
There was just one problem. At the time, Free was still a guitar-playing member of the R&B group Shalamar — and the band’s creator, producer and manager, Dick Griffey, wasn’t eager to let him go.
At first he wouldn’t let me out of my contract. Finally he said, ‘Prince is going to have to pay a hefty price, so I’ll let you out of Shalamar.’”
— Micki Free
“He really wasn’t a nice guy,” Free says. “At first he wouldn’t let me out of my contract. Finally he said, ‘Prince is going to have to pay a hefty price, so I’ll let you out of Shalamar.’”
A meeting was arranged with Prince, Griffey, Free and their attorneys.
“We’re sitting in this big conference room,” Free recalls. “Prince is across from me wearing those big sunglasses.”
Prince’s lawyer reviewed the paperwork and slid the contract across the table.
“‘The contract looks good,’ he said. ‘The only thing left is for Dick Griffey to sign Micki over to Paisley Park.’”
Griffey studied the papers for a moment. Then he looked directly at Prince.
“He says, ‘I ain’t fattening up no frogs for no snakes.’ Meaning Micki ain’t going anywhere.”
Griffey stood up and walked out.
“I was almost in tears. Prince’s lawyer gets up and leaves. And now it’s just me and Prince sitting there.”
— Micki Free
“I was almost in tears,” Free says. “Prince’s lawyer gets up and leaves. And now it’s just me and Prince sitting there.”
Prince glanced down over his sunglasses.
“‘Uh, uh.’”
Then he got up and walked out.
“I was brokenhearted,” Free says.
After that, the relationship between the two musicians was never quite the same.
“We weren’t as tight as we used to be,” Free says. “Once Prince became a huge superstar it was more like, ‘Hey, Micki, how you doing?’ instead of hanging out in the clubs like we used to. It really hurt.”
Still, Free says he carries many fond memories of the time they spent together — and credits Prince with teaching him the finer points of funk guitar.
“Prince showed me how to properly play funk guitar,” he says. “The voicings, the feel, the groove — or what he called the ‘groove pocket.’ Before that I was just playing heavy metal and rock chords, slamming A, G and C.
“A lot of guitar players think they’re playing funk, but they aren’t.”
To Free, Prince was a musician of the highest caliber.
“You hear that electric guitar solo he played on ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’ at the Rock Hall awards in 2004,” Free says. “He’s totally shredding, but there’s still that bluesy funk soul in it.
“In the ’80s there was a time when all the guitar players were shredding — scales, scales, scales, no heart. I talked about it with Jeff Beck once, and he said, ‘You can sometimes say more with one note than you can with thirty-five.’
“Prince definitely knew that too.”
