“Prince said, ‘Think more Elton John.’ I was like, ‘Is he clowning? Is he trolling me?’” Session ace Ella Feingold once auditioned to join Prince’s band – and was told her playing was “too funky”

American singer, songwriter, musician, record producer, dancer, actor, and filmmaker Prince (1958-2016) performs onstage during the 1984 Purple Rain Tour on November 4, 1984, at the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit, Michigan
(Image credit: Ross Marino/Getty Images)

Session ace Ella Feingold has recalled the time she auditioned to join Prince's band – and the Purple Rain legend joked her playing was “too funky”.

The Prince guitar gig was widely known to be a grueling experience. Ida Nielsen, for example, once recalled how “it wasn’t like a normal bass gig where you have 30 songs: I had to learn 300!”.

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Phil Weller

A freelance writer with a penchant for music that gets weird, Phil is a regular contributor to Prog, Guitar World, and Total Guitar magazines and is especially keen on shining a light on unknown artists. Outside of the journalism realm, you can find him writing angular riffs in progressive metal band, Prognosis, in which he slings an 8-string Strandberg Boden Original, churning that low string through a variety of tunings. He's also a published author and is currently penning his debut novel which chucks fantasy, mythology and humanity into a great big melting pot.

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